Archives : 2011 September

There Be Dragons Here…

Categories: Constellation, What's Up
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Published on: September 30, 2011

During the time that Draco’s star Thuban was the pole star, it would have appeared to ancient sky watchers that the Earth revolved around Draco. Dragons and other similar creatures often played a role in creation myths. In these stories the gods would often battle such creatures for control of [...]

September’s Sky Challenges

Categories: Challenge
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Published on: September 11, 2011

Astronomers and Star Gazers need a challenge when observing. Novices can be easily overwhelmed by long lists of challenging objects. Expert observers can be so focused on their projects, they easily can ignore the challenge provided by observing with different instruments. By presenting three objects in each of several different [...]

Texas Wildfires

Much of San Antonio and Bexar County are under the smoke cover from wildfires north of us. The smoke density over our area ranges from 25% to 100%. The lowest density of the smoke cover extends along I-10 from Houston to past Ozona. At the time of this writing, the [...]

“X” Marks the Spot

Categories: Moon, Observing
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Published on: September 2, 2011

The Lunar “X” is a well-known “optical feature” on the Moon, which resembles the letter “X” when the lunar terminator is along just the right lunar longitude.  It is an excellent example of how the combination of lighting and topography can combine to produce apattern that repeats on each lunation, [...]

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