Skyward by David Levy: July 2019

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This entry is part 16 of 16 in the series Skyward by David Levy

A Nightwatchman’s Journey: The Road Not Taken On Friday, June 14, my latest book, my autobiography titled A Nightwatchman’s Journey: The Road not Taken was launched at the Royal Astronomical Society’s General Assembly in Toronto. It is a book I have been working on for almost a decade, and it is the story of my life. The book begins in medias res, in the midst of a suicide attempt that happened shortly after I graduated from Acadia. I have suffered from depression throughout my life, but this book describes my efforts to conquer it. It tells of how I made many poor decisions in my life, but how two of them were good. The best decision was marrying Wendee, which I did in 1997 and with whom I have had 22 happy years. The other one was to begin, on December 17, 1965, a search for comets. It took me nineteen years, searching with telescopes for 917 hours 28 minutes, before … Continue reading →

In the Sky This Week – July 9, 2019

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This entry is part 104 of 105 in the series In the Sky This Week

This is “Conjunction Week” with the Moon appearing near the star Spica, Jupiter and Saturn over the next several days. I thought I’d give the southern hemisphere a bit of love this week, so I included several images of the skies from the Paranal Observatory in Chile – Stellarium made it easy to find them when I was looking for a location. I’m also featuring the the Large Magellanic Cloud as this week’s observing target, and I’m glad I did because I learned a lot about it I was unaware of… so yea!   Saturn and Jupiter remain high in the southern sky all week around midnight, making great observing targets for night owls. Seen from the Paranal Observatory in Chile, Saturn and Jupiter are directly overhead around midnight. Before sunrise at the Paranal Observatory in Chile, the constellations Orion and Taurus appear low in the eastern sky. From the northern hemisphere, Orion rises with the Sun, so it is … Continue reading →

From the V.O. Faith and Science Pages: Giuseppe Piazzi and the Discovery of the Proper Motion of 61-Cygni

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Today we introduce a new feature to Sacred Space Astronomy: regular mini-posts that simply highlight of one of the entries from the Vatican Observatory Faith and Science pages.  These mini-posts will appear twice each month, once on the 8th of the month, and once on the 25th of the month. Why the 8th and the 25th?  Because the 1st and the 15th would be too boring, too normal, and not astronomical enough.  Therefore, the mini-posts will appear on the 8th, because there are eight major planets orbiting the sun, and on the 25th, because twenty-five hours is the approximate amount of time between one moonrise and the next! Today’s featured entry from the Vatican Observatory Faith and Science pages: “Giuseppe Piazzi and the Discovery of the Proper Motion of 61-Cygni” (click here for it) Fr. Giuseppe Piazza discovered the proper motion of the star 61 Cygni at the end of the eighteenth century. A star’s proper motion is its motion … Continue reading →

What Is A Patio… I Mean An Observatory?

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This past month, I have embarked on a personal project: Designing an outdoor patio. The reason for this project is multilayered. From the perspective of being the Pastor of St. Olaf Parish, we own a vacant lot next to my rectory that is empty. Due to zoning regulations, there is very little we can do with this lot since we are within the direct flight path of the Eau Claire Municipal Airport. A garden patio is one of the few things that would both beautify the lot and respect the zoning laws. On a personal level, I come from a family that, during summer, would spend a great deal of time on our outdoor deck. When visiting home, it is common to wake up to an empty house as my parents would be having their morning coffee outside. This simple wood structure, combined with the beauty of our central Wisconsin farm, became a true oasis for the family. The simple, … Continue reading →

Specola Guestbook: January 5, 1910 – Vincenzo Cerulli and Giorgio Abetti

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This entry is part 8 of 9 in the series Specola Guestbook

Since its founding in 1891, many people have passed through the doors of the Vatican Observatory.  A quick perusal of our guestbook reveals several Names, including Popes, nobel laureates, astronauts, actors, and saints. Today’s guestbook entry is from January 5, 1910, when Vincenzo Cerulli and Giorgio Abetti made a visit. Next to his name, Vincenzo Cerulli (1859-1927) wrote “di Collurania.” He was the founder and director of the Collurania-Teramo Observatory, located in Teramo, Italy.  With the 40-cm refractor installed there, he made observations of the planet Mars, and concluded that the “canali” were optical illusions.  He discovered the asteroid (704) Interamnia. The Martian crater Cerulli is named after him, as are the asteroids (366) Vincentia and (31028) Cerulli. Next to his name, Giorgio Abetti (1882-1982) wrote “Istituto di Fisica Terrestre della R. Università – Napoli” (Institute of Terrestrial Physics of the Royal University of Naples).  He made many later visits, most of which were signed with the affiliation Collegio Romano, … Continue reading →

The Far Sun – Far Beyond Comprehension

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Does it seem dim outside?  Well, it should—sort of.  Because it is dim outside—sort of. On this past Thursday, July 4, just before the end of the day as seen from London (at 11:10 pm British Standard Time), the Earth was at the aphelion point of its orbit—the point at which it is farthest from the sun.  At that time it was 94,513,221 miles from the sun.  By contrast, at its perihelion point (closest to the sun), on January 3, Earth was merely 91,403,554 miles from the sun. Earth is over 3,100,000 miles farther away from the sun now than it was in January.  Of course, that is only a 3.4% difference.  But if you observed the sun carefully, and measured its apparent diameter, you could see that difference.  The fact that the distance between the sun and the Earth changes has been known since antiquity. The sun is a remarkable object, really beyond our comprehension in many ways. First … Continue reading →

Keep up with the Apollo 11 – 50th Anniversary

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    There is an abundance of Apollo 11 50th Aniversary  activities flooding the internet at the moment. Here below are a few that I find interesting and perhaps you have not found them yet. Hopefully, you can access most of them no matter what country you are in  while reading this write up. Share your Apollo 11 Story with NASA a call out to the world One that resonated with me is the NASA call out for oral recordings of peoples personal memories of the moon landing in 1969. This call runs up to December 31st 2019. It is easy to do and there is a list of questions to address in your recording that helps to structure your audio. The questions help to build a picture of the impact of the first moon landing on peoples lives. A few weeks ago I recorded my four minutes worth and sent it in. It felt good to do it, some … Continue reading →

A Fox, a Weaver, and a Woman Named Rona Walk onto the Moon…

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Storytelling represents a key element in the creation and propagation of culture…transmitting survival-relevant information while avoiding the costs involved in the first-hand acquisition of that information….The specific adaptive value of storytelling lies in making sense of non-routine, uncertain, or novel situations…. Or to put it another way, Everybody loves stories! Brother Guy Celestial Storytelling Ancient people observed the sky for a variety of reasons. Some were exceptional observers, recorders, and predictors of astronomical events. While they did not have all the answers, they were observing and asking questions, giving names to what they saw, and connecting what they observed to their daily lives. Certain constellations were used as seasonal markers, informing people when storytelling season began and ended, when it was time to plant and harvest, when it was safe to sail, and when the rainy season would begin. Stars and constellations were also used to find direction, both on land and at sea. Stories were used to remind people … Continue reading →

In the Sky This Week – July 2, 2019

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This entry is part 103 of 105 in the series In the Sky This Week

My wife and I are packing up our home of 22 years, and will be moving a few miles north. While I was clearing out my bookshelf, I found a book that I owned as a child, that has somehow remained with me, albeit a bit worse for wear: You Will Go To the Moon, published in 1959 by Mae and Ira Freeman, illustrated by Robert Patterson. I was a child of the Apollo era, and like many others of that time, our lives where influenced-by, and in many cases shaped-by the events of the early space age. As I look at through the book now, many of the images are very reminiscent of Chesley Bonestell’s artwork – also something from my childhood. This book shows a Moon lander leaving from a toroidal space station – something Bonestell featured in many pieces of his art way before 2001: A Space Odyssey; there’s also a whimsical image of an adult and … Continue reading →

What Was Your Experience Of Apollo 11?

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What was your experience of Apollo 11? A few weeks back, I was honored to be interviewed by Dennis Sadowski for a piece he was writing about the 50th Anniversary of Apollo 11. For those who would like to read the article, you can either click here or on the image of Buzz Aldrin next to the flag of the United States. Dennis and I had a wonderful conversation about my “memory” of Apollo 11… even though I was born 4 years after it happened. At first, you may think that I have little to offer in answering the question, “What was your experience of Apollo 11?” However, knowing that Dennis was going to explore this question with me, I started to reflect on how Apollo 11 was presented to me as a youth after the fact in contrast that to my parishioners at St. Olaf who did experience the Apollo 11 landing. The first insight that surprised me was how … Continue reading →

Religious Scientists: Fr. Giuseppe Piazzi C.R. (1746-1826), Discoverer of the First Asteroid

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This entry is part 5 of 5 in the series Religious Scientists of the Catholic Church

Today, just under 800,000 asteroids and Trans Neptunian Objects are known and catalogued by the Minor Planet Center of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, with more being discovered every day.  However, before 1800 the existence of this entire class of objects was entirely unknown. The first asteroid, which today we know as (1) Ceres, was discovered by an astronomer who was also a priest: Fr. Giuseppe Piazzi C.R. Biographical Sketch Giuseppe Piazzi was born July 16, 1746 in Ponte in Valtellina, Italy.  He entered the Theatine order in 1765, and was ordained a priest in 1769.  While he taught philosophy, theology, and mathematics at various stages of his early life in the order, he also had an interest in astronomy. He came to Palermo in 1781 as a lecturer in mathematics at the Accademia dei Regi Studi. In 1787, he became professor of astronomy. King Ferdinand of Sicily named him to be the first director of the Palermo Astronomical Observatory. He obtained … Continue reading →

Across the Universe: Friends in high places

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This entry is part 72 of 185 in the series Across the Universe

This column first appeared in The Tablet in June, 2008; we first ran it here in 2016 The Mars Phoenix mission landed successfully near the north pole of Mars [in 2008]. Even though I don’t study Mars myself, I feel a special connection because the mission is being run out of my old department at the University of Arizona. I know those guys on the TV, explaining how they’ll be digging for ice in the Martian soil. Mars wasn’t the only tourist attraction that summer. The scientists of the Cassini/Huygens Saturn probes held a team meeting in Rome in June, 2008, and two dozen of them came out to visit me at Castel Gandolfo. I showed them our telescopes and libraries and meteorite collection. Friends of mine on the team arranged the visit. Why do I have so many friends in high places? It’s just the nature of my field. There are only a few thousand professional planetary astronomers in the world. We … Continue reading →