Skyward: February 2019
March 23 In 1963, while living as a patient at the Jewish National Home for Asthmatic Children in Denver, I strolled outside on the evening of March 23 to observe the evening sky. The sky was brilliant and clear that evening so long ago as I set up my small first telescope, Echo, and proceeded to sketch a portion of the Milky Way as it shone in the sky over Denver. It was a silly and immature project of no particular value whatsoever, but it was important to me, and it resulted in a small chart of the winter Milky Way. Over many years, the particular date of March 23 has brought many treasured memories to my personal life and my skywatching life. Late in 1988 I began studying the behavior of TV Corvi, a certain variable star that had been discovered in 1931 by Clyde Tombaugh, the same person who discovered Pluto. On the evening of March 23, 1990, … Continue reading →