Eyes Full Of Stars

Rising above the eastern horizon at nightfall is a constellation familiar to both casual and avid stargazers – Orion, the hunter. During the winter months it is well placed in the southern sky giving us a chance to explore its celestial bounty.

Orion’s position on the celestial equator makes its hourglass pattern visible from most parts of the world prompting many cultures to create stories about this conspicuous constellation.

At the dawn of the 20^th Century, arctic expeditions and the quest to reach the north pole were the Apollo moonshots of the day. After attending lectures by famed arctic explorer Robert Peary in 1892, a young man named Russell W. Porter joined up with Frederick Cook’s Greenland voyage as surveyor and artist. Porter’s travels throughout the arctic were fraught with peril. Along with his crew mates on the Ziegler Polar Expedition, he was marooned for 3 years when the expedition’s ship America was crushed by ice near Rudolf Island.

With the holiday season upon us you, or someone you know, may be shopping for a telescope. For the novice stargazer, it can be hard to sort through marketing hype. To reduce potential cases of the ‘closet telescope syndrome’, I present the following guide to help you make the right choice.

Earlier this week, an object named 3200 Phaethon passed by Earth at a distance of about 11 million miles. Ordinarily such an event draws little attention with the regular traffic of planets, comets and other small bodies moving about the solar system. But, 3200 Phaethon is not just any object, it is the parent body of December’s annual Geminid meteor shower.