Author - The Durango Herald

Bright objects serve as guides to navigate night sky

Greetings, stargazers. When first learning to identify objects in the night sky, novice stargazers should start their observations before it gets completely dark. The planets an...

DATE: Jun 9, 2017 | CATEGORY: What's up in Durango Skies

Southern sky offers astronomers summer viewing delights

Greetings, stargazers. For summer observing, I like to travel south of the equator. That is, south of the celestial equator. There, you can find objects that would pass directly...

DATE: May 14, 2017 | CATEGORY: What's up in Durango Skies

How to spot space dust falling to earth

Greetings, stargazers. This is the time of year to dust off your telescope if it has been in the closet over the winter. Or dust off your observing skills if you are like me and...

DATE: Apr 8, 2017 | CATEGORY: What's up in Durango Skies

Take a look at Taurus to see Seven Sisters

Greetings, stargazers. Spring will be here with the equinox, but before then, we have to set our clocks forward, which gives me another chance to complain about having to follow...

DATE: Mar 9, 2017 | CATEGORY: What's up in Durango Skies

Sirius, the dog star, burns brightest in night sky

Greetings, stargazers. Fellow Durango Herald columnist Andrew Gulliford recently extolled the virtues of presidential dog ownership, and there is even a celestial precedent for ...

DATE: Feb 8, 2017 | CATEGORY: What's up in Durango Skies

Keep your feet warm while gazing at Orion, comet

Greetings, stargazers. I didn’t know Durango had a monsoon season in January, but that is certainly what it has felt like for the last week. There is nothing quite like some fre...

DATE: Jan 12, 2017 | CATEGORY: What's up in Durango Skies

Supermoons keep stargazers on the couch

Greetings, stargazers. Last month, I think I got more questions about the supermoon than any recent column topic I can remember. A recurring question was how I was going to watc...

DATE: Dec 7, 2016 | CATEGORY: What's up in Durango Skies

Locator allows you to find stars at any date, time

Greetings, stargazers. One thing I have learned when teaching astronomy is that students quite often have way cooler astronomy apps on their smartphones than I do. Faster, more ...

DATE: Nov 9, 2016 | CATEGORY: What's up in Durango Skies

New telescope users can look for these night-sky targets

Greetings, stargazers. One of my favorite activities is to introduce new telescope users to the wide variety of objects that are visible in the night sky. To be successful, this...

DATE: Oct 12, 2016 | CATEGORY: What's up in Durango Skies

Light speed: Nothing faster in the universe

Greetings, stargazers. There is a speed limit in the universe. While many great science fiction stories require this limit to be broken, right now, we are stuck at not going any...

DATE: Sep 7, 2016 | CATEGORY: What's up in Durango Skies

Meteorology station coming to the Old Fort; catch the Perseids

Greetings, stargazers. This column is called What’s Up in Durango Skies, and in case you haven’t noticed, the last couple of weeks the answer has been clouds. And finally some ...

DATE: Aug 10, 2016 | CATEGORY: What's up in Durango Skies

Use binoculars to explore the Milky Way

Greetings, stargazers. The summer Milky Way is one of the many things you get to enjoy if you are lucky enough to live in the Four Corners. From most big cities you might never ...

DATE: Jul 13, 2016 | CATEGORY: What's up in Durango Skies