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Email: hakes_c@fortlewis.edu
Greetings, stargazers. When learning about the night sky, much of what you are doing is learning names. Just like with plants or birds, the agreed-upon names help you communicate to others what...
DATE: Jan. 25, 2014 | COLUMN: What's up in Durango Skies
Greetings, stargazers. You probably heard that comet ISON didn’t survive to light up our December skies. What you might not know, however, is that comet C/2013 R1 Lovejoy is still visible in the...
DATE: Dec. 21, 2013 | COLUMN: What's up in Durango Skies
Greetings, stargazers. I have heard that comets are like cats. They both have tails and are hard to predict. Comet ISON certainly fits this description. Early in November, I saw comet ISON as an...
DATE: Nov. 23, 2013 | COLUMN: What's up in Durango Skies
Greetings, stargazers. The time between monsoons and snow also is the season between the objects in the bright summer Milky Way and some of the familiar objects in the winter constellations...
DATE: Oct. 26, 2013 | COLUMN: What's up in Durango Skies
Greetings, stargazers. Last month, I talked about the nova in Delphini. The “new star” was not one being born, but a star near the end of its life gasping “not dead yet!” The Delphini nova is now...
DATE: Sept. 21, 2013 | COLUMN: What's up in Durango Skies
Greetings, stargazers. We all have the rare opportunity this month to see a nova that is, as of this writing, visible to the naked eye. The name nova literally means “new” star. (No, not a...
DATE: Aug. 26, 2013 | COLUMN: What's up in Durango Skies
Greetings stargazers. The summer Milky Way is in the sky right after dusk, with the brightest parts toward the constellation Sagittarius. That means this is a good time of year to look for...
DATE: July 27, 2013 | COLUMN: What's up in Durango Skies
Greetings, stargazers. I recently received some new lights for the Old Fort Lewis campus, where the observatory is. These new lights are to replace the current street/security lights, and once...
DATE: June 22, 2013 | COLUMN: What's up in Durango Skies
Greetings stargazers. Now that the days are getting warmer, many of us want to get outside more often and even stay outside well into the evening. I find it a little funny that the time of year...
DATE: May 25, 2013 | COLUMN: What's up in Durango Skies
Greetings stargazers. For many amateur astronomers with small telescopes, spring is galaxy season. At any moderately dark site, which includes most of the Four Corners, you can see scores of these...
DATE: April 27, 2013 | COLUMN: What's up in Durango Skies
Greetings stargazers. Charles Messier (1730-1817) was a French comet hunter. While he did discover 13 comets, his more famous contribution to astronomy was a list he made of objects that were not...
DATE: March 23, 2013 | COLUMN: What's up in Durango Skies
Greetings stargazers. It will be hard to write this months article without mentioning the recent event in Chelyabinsk, Russia, so lets get that one out of the way first. Yes, it was a coincidence...
DATE: Feb. 22, 2013 | COLUMN: What's up in Durango Skies
