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Category Archives: Education

Astronomy Club Stories

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On March 22nd 2013 Br Guy Consolmagno came to visit St Cronans National School in Bray Co Wicklow. Even though he had  a very busy schedule while in Ireland,  he had kindly agreed to this extra task. The object was to say hello to my astronomy club boys. I had been running the club since 2010. Its members were school boys and their parents. We met once a month  and engaged in wide-ranging interesting astronomy. There was great excitement and anticipation at the school that day. So when we arrived the hall was filled to capacity with 500 boys. My club had about 18 boys. Br Guy wasn’t phased by the unexpected volume of children waiting for his every word. He also signed a copy of his book Turn Left at Orion for the school library. It was a red-letter day for the school, everyone was so happy. St Cronans Astronomy Club In our little astronomy club we took part … Continue reading →

NASA’s Pi in the Sky Challenge

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On March 14, NASA will join schools, students and science centers across the U.S. as they celebrate one of the most well known and beloved numbers: pi. Used throughout the STEM world – especially for space exploration! – pi is the number that results from dividing the circumference of any circle by its diameter. Pi can be and often is rounded to 3.14 (even though its decimals never end), which is why 3/14 has been designated National Pi Day. Educators and students can participate in honoring this mathematical marvel by taking part in the 2019 NASA Pi Day Challenge, an illustrated math problem set that gets students solving the same problems scientists and engineers do to explore space. Answers to the 2019 challenge will be revealed on March 15. Explore even more pi-related resources for educators and students below! For Educators Pi Day Challenge Lessons These illustrated math problems and problem sets featuring pi and NASA missions and science work all … Continue reading →

Annie Jump Cannon: Two Books

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Annie Jump Cannon was an astronomer with Harvard Observatory in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  She was one of a number of women who were hired by Edward Pickering, the director of the observatory at that time.  Cannon’s specialty was stars and their spectra.  She worked on the Henry Draper catalog of stars, and she is the one who developed the OBAFGKM classification system for stars (O stars being the hottest, M being the coolest).  If you know that the sun has a spectral type G, or that Rigel is a type B, you are referencing Cannon’s classification system. But Cannon was the author of another book besides the Henry Draper catalog.  When she was in her late 20’s she went to Spain to photograph an eclipse of the sun.  Cannon had received a degree in physics from Wellesley college.  After graduation she had returned home, where she taught herself photography, tutored students in math and history, and … Continue reading →

Total Lunar Eclipse Tales

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  Observing the moon during a total lunar eclipse can be very exciting. The colour is unpredictable and can vary in tone, shade and intensity according to the condition of the Earths atmosphere at the time The first one I ever viewed was back in 1992. The moon looked like a huge steel ball in the night sky, grey with a hint of blue.   Back then I wasn’t practising astronomical drawing at all but I have memories of recording it on an old video camera. The Earths atmosphere was full of dust from the volcanic eruption of Mt Pinatubo located in the Philippines.     This months total lunar eclipse brought back many memories of previous efforts to capture these short-lived but very interesting events. I wondered if the eruption of Krakatoa would have a noticeable effect on January 21st 2019. Total Lunar Eclipse 2019 I decided to draw the full moon earlier that evening without using the telescope. … Continue reading →

Hunting for Saffordites East of Mt. Graham and the Vatican Telescope. pt. 2

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This entry is part of 2 in the series Hunting for Saffordites

In my previous post, I discussed tektites – a byproduct of asteroid impacts, and obsidian, which can sometimes look like tektites. Finally, to my trips to the location of the Saffordites. The area where I have hunted is east of Mt Graham and southeast of the city of Safford in southeast Arizona, several hours east of Tucson. It is a fairly flat area and the known area where Saffordites have been found covers many square miles, maybe tens or hundreds of square miles. Since these are many million-year-old weathered volcanic rocks, they may have been transported to their present location, so their source is unknown. As it turns out, this location is on my way to observing at the Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope on 10,000-foot Mt. Graham, but that is another story. Above are three pictures taken just before we started looking for Saffordites. On the left is me with Twink Monrad, a closeup of snow on Mt. Graham, and a view of one … Continue reading →

Hunting for Saffordites East of Mt. Graham and the Vatican Telescope. pt. 1

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This entry is part 1 of 2 in the series Hunting for Saffordites

As a planetary astronomer who has had a long career studying small bodies in the Solar System— from the dwarf planets to asteroids to moons to the rings of Saturn—I have always had an interest in meteorites, rocks from space. I have been fortunate enough to have hunted for meteorites about six times, but unfortunately have never found any. Maybe someday…. However, I have hunted more successfully for other unusual rocks. First, here is a little background. A rock in space that orbits the Sun and is smaller than a planet or dwarf planet is called an asteroid. If it is smaller than about a meter (a little over a yard) in diameter, it is called a meteoroid. If the object looks fuzzy when viewed through a telescope, it is called a comet. Once in a while, one of these runs into the Earth. As it passes through Earth’s atmosphere, the light that we see is called a meteor or, … Continue reading →

Crater Virus infects Science Week Drawings

Recently here in Ireland we had the phenomena that is Science Week. A nationwide effort by hundreds of people to open the many facets of science to children and adults all over the country.  My offerings were workshops about the Apollo 11 moon landing called Let’s Go To The Moon – Apollo 11, Deadly Moons and Marvellous Mars. All of which I have written about in the past hit the links to check them out. This year a unique crater virus came to visit and spread itself around many drawings. Guidance Increasingly I have being introducing drawing techniques in my workshops.  Sometimes the effect has a slow uptake and other times it has an immediate viral effect. One such action is a tip on crater drawing , kids just love it. Here below we see some drawings that benefited from simple guidence. Examples of the crater virus that invaded hundreds of drawings and created smiles all over the room.   … Continue reading →


Go Observe – 46P/ Wirtanen Good Luck

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Two sketches of 46P/Wirtanen creating one gif showing the comets movement over time. 20:40 UT Dec 9th 2018 & 00:50 UT Dec 10th 2018. Dob, 1,200 mm FL / 32 mm eyepiece/ 37X/ pastel and gel pen. 4.5 mag, DC 4 coma visible naked eye , huge diffuse object. While viewing I thought I observed some radial features but not clear enough to include in the sketches. The edges / shape of the coma was difficult to see.  No green observed or  tail visible to me at the time. This is a view from my dob therefore  south is at the top. The comet is acutally heading upwards in the nightsky. It is remarkable how quickly it is moving away from the star  94 Cet in my drawings.       This comet has a coma of circa 36,000 km. The nucleus  is spewing out gas and dust.   To my eye it had no green tint. Only comet  C/2014 Q2 Lovejoy in 2015 … Continue reading →

The birth of Astrophotography

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The following I wrote for a talk given to the The Naperville Astronomical Association on November 4th of this year. Warren De LaRue was a businessman, creating the first pregummed stamps, and a process for mechanically folding envelopes. He was also a gentleman scientist. You see, back in the early days of the industrial revolution and before, much of the scientific knowledge was attained by the upper class. There were, naturally university positions that were designed for research, but those were in a specific area of study. The wealthy members of learned societies were able to fund their own research and collaborate with each other. That is not to say they were solely responsible for breakthroughs, for instance Joseph Fraunhofer was a glassmaker, who through calamity followed by good fortune was able to invent, among other things a polishing machine for large objectives, and the spectroscope. Astronomy was a costly endeavor. For example a 6” speculum mirror outfit cost 88 … Continue reading →

Ultima Thule – resistance is futile

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  During World Space Week I was invited to do my workshop Pluto WOW !!!  for a small group of children .   I put the workshop together in order to highlight the incredible images sent back by the New Horizons Spacecraft.  This year it was impossible to resist including Ultima Thule the new flyby target of New Horizons. Pluto WOW ! When I was a child there were nine planets in the solar system , that was my reality. Pluto being the farthest planet was almost a myth as there were no proper images of it for many years.  The Hubble Space Telescope wonderful  as it is only managed unclear nondescript photographs. When New Horizons left Earth to flyby Pluto it was still a proper member of the planet family. Along that journey the status of Pluto was altered forever, when it was demoted to being merely a dwarf planet.   New Horizons continued its pioneering journey to discover what Pluto … Continue reading →

Space Week – Apollo 11

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During Space Week 2018  Let’s Go To The Moon  offered  children the chance to draw some aspect of Apollo 11’s iconic mission.  Almost 400  took part in various venues across the country.  This therefore offered me an ideal opportunity to vary the subjects of the drawing challenges for the kids. Drawing tuition During all workshops I  offer a demonstration drawing . This is done in seconds to help the children focus on the important aspects of drawing.  Each child has about 20 minutes to draw therefore focus is vital. Teaching  them to observe the subject before starting is key.  Asking the kids if they agree with me about recognisable shapes within for example Buzz Aldrin’s helmet and visor. Inviting  them to look closely at where the shadows are and  where the light is. Requesting the children  to be mindful of curves , rectangles, cylinders, cones and key markings is a good way to go. I  encougage the children not to … Continue reading →

Knowing the Moon’s Distance (re-run)

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This is a “re-run” of a post that originally ran on March 24, 2016. How do we know what we know in science? What is the distance from the Earth to the moon? You can easily find that information using a smart phone and Google. Google says that distance is 238,900 miles. Fine, but how do you know that value is right? Google’s business is not astronomical research. No doubt Google got the value from some “Scientific Authority.” Do you believe Google? Do you believe Scientific Authority? How do you know the moon isn’t just on some dome up there, way above the clouds? Seriously—how do you know? You may simply believe Authority, but plenty of people do not. Just recently [in early 2016] Neil deGrasse Tyson felt the need to respond to rapper B.o.B’s assertion that the world is flat, an idea no more absurd than the moon being on a dome above the clouds. So how might people … Continue reading →

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