Articles about Astronomy

En la siguiente foto pueden observar La Via Lactea desde 5000 Metros sobre el espacio...The next picture reflects the Milky Way at 5000 meters, check it out...Para más fotos visite Nasa Astronomy Picture of the DayFor more photos visit Nasa Astronomy Picture of the Day

Would you like to write your own astronomy articles, telescope or book reviews, observation stories, travel stories, news or anything else related to astronomy. Now you can do it with HomeboyAstronomy.Com! We are looking for contributors to enrich our content. We give you the stage and provide you audience. HomeboyAstronomy.Com is a fast growing astronomy blog reaching hundreds of readers every day. If you are interested in writing astronomy articles, we provide you the stage. We are looking for all types of writers, but right now we are especially looking for those who write telescope reviews, observation tips, astronomy photography and observation experiences. In case you are interested in writing with us, please send email to marko.pyhajarvi AT gmail.com, and I will give you further instructions. If you wish, you can also drop your contact information to comments.

One of the most interesting things related to astronomy is the International Space Station (ISS) orbiting the planet. As one of the most challenging projects in the history of mankind, the International Space Station provides humans a great location to research the universe. For amateurs like me the ISS provides lots of interesting things to read, watch and wonder. It is great to watch shuttle flights to ISS from Nasa TV and see in realtime what is happening in the space station, such as STS crew’s spacewalks. I am very happy that I was born in 70’s because now I can utilize the new technology to study and observe astronomical objects. Internet provides me this great information source of ISS, free realtime video broadcasting and a free communication channel with other amateur astronomers. This humble blog is one of those communication channels. It is Sunday morning here in Finland. Last night was again a great skywatching night, and I spent few ours with Pleiades. Later at

I was with others at nighttime. They were pointing out a new Messier object (a globular cluster or some such,) but it looked like the Pleiades to me. Later a woman was definitely in trouble, but she deserved it. Something about shoes?I've been up late nights working on a painting, so I've been needing my sleep (thus the short-ish dream snippets lately.) I only remembered the part about the Pleaides late this evening (when I stepped outside & saw stars for the first time in a while.) I don't remember the M number assigned, unfortunately.Another picture of the sky at Lake Ramsay yesterday.

Last night's dream; I was wearing a nice dress on a luxury worldwide airline cruise with stopovers at different countries. During one stop, I overheard a stewardess mention a deathly serious mechanical problem with the plane. By the time take off came I'd convinced myself that there'd be nothing to worry about (at least through this flight.) As the plane made its final approach to the next stop I put my winter boots on. After landing I tried to put my booted feet into pointy, high-heeled dress shoes I had, but they wouldn't fit.At least one thing's right--pointy, high-heeled dress shoes don't "fit" me.Tonight Saturn is in conjunction with the Moon. It'll be the bright "star" nearby.

Just like you cannot learn to play music by reading, you cannot learn sky watching without really watching it one day. You can learn music theories by reading but you will never become a great artists without playing in front of audience. The same applies with astronomy. You need to go out one day, take your binoculars or telescope and start finding the objects, such as M42 or Sirius. Then you really start learning. So it is not good to focus only in reading. You need to do something in practice as well. Anyhow, reading is still needed. You need to understand some basics of astronomy and technical information, and all that you can find from books. The conclusion is that reading should not be all in your astronomy hobby, but it is necessary. So what should you read then? I have gathered here a list of three great books on beginner’s astronomy. If you are new to astronomy and you are looking for good astronomy books, this article is for you! Beginner’s stronomy book #1: Nigh

Yesterday I wrote three reasons why astronomy is not a good hobby and why you should say no to astronomy. The three reasons for astronomy being not a good hobby were that you do not sleep at nights, you loose focus to your work and the equipment is expensive. Well, good reasons may be. Today I define three good reasons why astronomy IS a good hobby and why you should get interested in it. I got interested in astronomy as a kid while watching northern lights and Big Dipper constellation in my hometown in Lapland. I used to wonder how big the universe might be and what the heck there are “behind” the stars. It was fascinating and I was curious. It was around 2000 when I rediscovered astronomy. I found an astronomy magazine in a library and immediately I got hooked on astronomy. I borrowed few books and magazines, I surfed in the net and I started watching the Moon and the planets with binoculars. It was really great. I found out many stunning things, such as the nebulae, the

By reading this blog it is easy to figure out that I am interested in astronomy. I am keen on few hobbies, and astronomy is one of those. It is fantastic to watch the stars and wonder how super huge the space is. It feels good to understand many things and phenomena outside of this planet. Shortly said, astronomy is a fantastic hobby. Wait a minute! Why the title of this article is against astronomy? Well, there are pros and cons in astronomy as a hobby, and in this article I present those things that make astronomy as not a good hobby. Do not take this too seriously.. Reason #1: Sleepless nights cause troubles in your life Say, you get interested in observing Saturn (or any other planet you can see). You turn your telescope towards Saturn and watch it the whole night. You write your notes and you read about Saturn on your laptop. You take few dozens of photos and you start photoshopping them already at 4 am. Basically you spend your whole night outside watching the sky. You sleep zero

European Space Agency’s Venus Express mission has proved that there is lightning in Venus. According to the measurement results, there might be lightning in Venus more often than in our planet. So far we have detected lightning only in three planets, Earth, Jupiter and Saturn. In all these three the lightning is associated with water clouds, but in Venus lightning is unique because it is associated with sulfuric acid clouds. Christopher Russell, a NASA-sponsored scientist on Venus Express from the University of California, says that Venus “is not a very good place to vacation, for sure”. When looking at the figure left, I agree with mr. Russell.. Read more about Russell thoughts and this news in NASA’s website. Are you interested in reading more astronomy news? Check out also a very interesting article of Earth-Rise HDTV image taken by Jaxa as well as another interesting news Heaviest Small Black Hole Found.

Watching the stars is a great hobby and it can bring lots of joy to your life, but watching may not be enough. You might feel that it would be great to record those images, to save them for later times and to share them with your friends. You get interested in astronomy photography. This usually happens to those who have already been interested in astronomy for few months or years. This article provides a short introduction to astronomy photography. It provides answers to a question, “what is needed in order to start astronomy photography as a hobby”? How to start astronomy photographing? Purchase the needed equipment and start shooting pictures, right? Yes, exactly, but that does not tell enough. Let’s take a deeper look inside those words. What is that equipment you need? The very basic thing you need is a camera. There are CCD cameras designed for photographing stars, but let’s not take them into account because they are for advanced skywatchers. Start with a

Astronomy Picture of the Day publishes one astronomy picture a day. There are plenty of fabulous pictures in the archive, but this one is rally stunning. This picture contains around two million galaxies which is an unbelievable amount of those giants. Even though this picture does not contain all the galaxies in the universe (not even close to), it tells us a little bit of the huge size of the universe. Just imagine how far our nearest galaxy, Andromeda, is from the Earth. Andromeda is currently around 2.3 million light-years away from Earth, and it is just one of the millions of galaxies in the universe. Think about the size a little bit more. It takes 2.3 million years for light to travel from Earth to Andromeda, even though the speed of light is around 300 000 kilometers per hour. So the universe is just huge. I keep on watching this image which is full of galaxies. Wow, our universe really is huge, so huge. Credit & Copyright: S. Maddox (Nottingham U.) et al. APM Survey,

There are zillions of great new astronomy findings articles in the Internet. When you start surfing, you quickly find out that there are just too many recent findings articles to read. You cannot get a “big picture” and you just don’t know which astronomy article you should pick up. No worry, I provide you my top three recent astronomy findings articles to read. These are short and easy to read articles, so you can spend some quality time after your lunch break by reading these interesting findings articles on astronomy. For more astronomy findings, check out my astronomy news. If you are interested in skywatching and equipment, check out my astronomy basics and astronomy tips&tricks. Recent Astronomy Article #1 - How I Found a Comet The most interesting astronomy findings article for me right now is the one provided by Astronomy.Com. It is a faschinating story telling how comet-hunter Don Machholz found comet 96P (Machholz) 21 years ago, just by using homemade binoc

I was driving car with my four years old son today. On a highway he suddenly asked “Dad, what is a black hole”? I was suprised. As said, my son is four now. I just wonder how did he come up with this question. I have never said anything about the black holes to him, so he must have heard it from a movie or his brother who is 13 years old. “Hold on, daddy is driving”, I said. I needed few seconds to think about this, because there is a danger if I don’t explain it well. The danger is that he understands black holes too mystique and starts being afraid of them. I needed to explain it to him so that he understands it and will not be afraid of it. Clearly I was in a trouble.. “Well, how did you heard about black holes?”, I asked. “Are they dead stars?”, he replied. Wow, I was impressed! “How do YOU know THAT?”, I continued. “Teo (his brother) has said”, my son replied. That’s it. I found the “guilty&r

If you have just recently started astronomy as a hobby, you might have already spotted constellations as such Big Dipper and Orion. Next you might think what else I could watch? Not all constellations can be seen at all the time. This article provides you the information what constellations can be seen and when. Constellations to Be Seen All the Time Let us start from those constellations that can be seen all the time. Northern hemisphere includes five constellations to view all the time. Those are Ursa Minor, Ursa Major, Cepheus, Cassiopeia and Draco. They circle the north celestial pole in 24 hours. I am not providing information in this post on how to find those constellations because otherwise this post would grow too big. Anyhow, you can start finding the constellations by spotting first Polaris, the so called “North Star”. It helps to navigate the constellations. I will provide later detailed information on how to spot those constellations. In southern hemisphere the

Have you been thinking to teach astronomy for your children? Why not? Astronomy can be a very good hobby for the whole family. It can be a great way to spend time together and share interesting knowledge. Astronomy can also teach children the basics of how to think and analyze abstract issues. Now the question is how to teach astronomy to children? When the children are young, they easily get unmotivated if the information is too difficult. Teenagers can keep themselves motivated longer, but again, it should not be too difficult or boring. So, how to teach them? How to motivate and inspire your children to learn astronomy? This article provides some basic tips for teaching astronomy to children. Children are fascinated of space and can easily get interested in astronomy. For example, if children see a BBC space document in television, they easily get hooked because the BBC documents are usually so well done and the “space stuff is cool”. Now, most probably you cannot provid

Orion Nebula, also called as Messier 42 and M42, is one of the most photographed object in the nightsky. This brightest nebula is possible to spot on naked eye, although you might not see the differences to other objects around M42. Orion Nebula was found in the early 1600’s by few astronomers, but it has been said that the “original finders” have been Christiaan Huygens and Charles Messier in the middle of 1600’s. M42 is part of bigger constellations, such as M78 and M43, as well as Horsehead Nebula. M42 is located close to Orion constellation, so you should start your M42 hunt from Orion. The Orion constellation is bright and therefore quite easy to find and recognize, especially on winter. It is probably the second easiest constellation to spot. Which one is the first one? I believe it is Big Dipper. Unfortunatelly I have not written yet any post describing how to find constellations such as Orion and Big Dipper. If you don’t know how to find those co

Tom has found a nice background image from Nasa. Check it out in Tom’s blog and download it to your desktop if you like it. I just did it too.

As it has become a tradition, I watch a astronomy video on every single Sunday. Today, I have found an interesting video of planets. It is from “Doctordave” in YouTube and it is a pretty long video (84 minutes). Anyhow, if you are new with astronomy and you would like to understand the planets well, have a look on this video. Share This

There is a fantastic astronomy picture of the day on October 20th. There is a road in the picture which continues as “the Milky Road” in horizon. This is a fantasy view but a spectacular one. I just wonder how long was the exposure time. Anyhow, this is so nice picture that I would like to put it on our wall. Image source. Share This

Stars, right? What else? Almost all those tiny spots you see on nightsky are stars. How many stars can be seen without any equipment? Millions? No, around 1000-1500 in cities and around 3000 in countryside. There are so many stars above that a human being cannot just handle them all. Therefore the stars are grouped into constellations, groups of stars. Those constellations are usually related to some mythology, such as greek and Babylonian mythology. Grouping stars into constellations helps human beings to manage that big amount of information. Some stars form clusters, such as Pleiades. Many stars are binary stars which is a stellar system consisting of two stars orbiting around their center of mass. For each star, the other is its companion star. Some of the stars are variable stars which have alternating brightness. The alternating cycle can take days or even years, but it can be very fast as well, e.g. hours. Some stars are kefeids, whos brightness changes in a predictable amount o