Moon

November 8, 2025

As I've chronicled in these pages for nearly a decade (!), autumn is my favorite time to observe the heavens here in Washington, DC. The air is crisp, the mosquitoes are scarce (usually), the...

June 7, 2025

It's been a while, but my lack of new posts has a good cause: I finished my next book , and it's just about ready to debut later this year (October 28th, to be precise). The book tells - as my...

September 12, 2024

I haven't written much this year, owing in large part to my frantic quest to finish revising my next book,  Ripples on the Cosmic Ocean. Revising a book always makes you wonder why you decided to...

March 27, 2024

Our indefatigable news media seems to have transformed every full Moon into a show-stopping event. It's always a super blue wolf harvest something or other. To be fair, the hype stirs up a good deal...

February 23, 2024

Usually, the atmosphere is turbulent during our DC winters, but this winter has been an exception. The reason might have to do with atmospheric circulation rerouted by a particularly intense El...

April 2, 2023

Often, around this time of the year, the unstable atmosphere of winter yields to the more settled air of spring in Washington, DC. With the mosquitoes a month or two away, now is the time to observe...

March 2, 2023

Seeing was forecast to be mediocre yesterday, and atmospheric transparency will below average. But the Moon rose exceptionally early - it was high in the sky by early afternoon - and therefore within...

December 4, 2022

Tonight was one of those relatively rare wintry nights in Washington, DC, where atmospheric transparency is high while seeing is better than average. With Mars just four days away from opposition -...

November 10, 2022

Autumn came early this year in Washington DC, yet the relative warmth of early autumn lingered well past its usual expiration date. The mosquitoes lingered with it, even if their population fell with...

September 16, 2022

Earlier this month, I set forth on a night of above-average seeing to the field that has become my favorite observing spot, just an eight minutes' walk from our new home. I heaved up the hill...

August 13, 2022

Binoculars have long frustrated me. While I've thrilled at catching glimpses of rocket launches or lunar craters with big Celestron binoculars here in Washington, DC, I could never hold them steady...

February 21, 2022

Here in DC, it's hard to avoid thinking obsessively about the demoralizing news from eastern Europe. Yet the skies cleared recently, enough for an hour or two of late-night escapism. A few nights...

February 11, 2022

With a backyard, I'm able to do something I don't think I've ever tried before: observe the Moon before sunset. I just could never imagine doing that in my old home. On my former rooftop, I might...

November 12, 2021

It's really hard to beat autumn in DC, and I'm trying my best to take advantage of every clear night. When conditions took a turn for the better tonight, I hurried out, Takahashi in hand, to the...

October 20, 2021

We've had a few clear nights this week, with seeing and transparency both hovering near average. It's been a demanding month at work, but I had to step out last night, Takahashi in hand, to catch a...

September 25, 2021

We've had some wonderfully clear, autumnal nights over the past week, with Jupiter and Saturn riding high in the evening sky and the Moon waxing and waning nearby. I'm teaching what may be my...

May 19, 2021

After a surprisingly cool spring (in the context of global warming), it's finally getting hot here in Washington, DC, and with summer comes better seeing. It promised to be above average on the night...

March 22, 2021

You have to strike while the iron is hot here in DC, so when the sky was clear again last night, with seeing and transparency both forecast to be average, I shrugged off my late night fatigue and...

March 21, 2021

It seems that the cloudy, turbulent days of winter - in more ways than one - are finally coming to an end. In the wee hours of March 20th, the sky was clear, transparency was (supposed to be) high,...

March 11, 2021

I've written it before, but wow: Washington, DC is such a feast or famine city for amateur astronomy. We've had bad seeing on just about every clear night (and there haven't been many) for around...

November 12, 2020

We've enjoyed maybe the best stretch of clear nights with good seeing that I've experienced since moving to Washington, DC, and I was out nearly every night with a telescope in hand. Between work,...

October 6, 2020

Opposition! What a word, for Mars observers. Earth is directly between Mars and the Sun in exactly one week, and it's in a part of Mars's orbit that takes it especially close to our planet. We won't...

September 8, 2020

To say I was tired after my last morning out is an understatement. There's nothing like 16 straight hours of work and childcare after a three hour night's sleep. Yet when the forecast called for...

September 6, 2020

The weather has been stormy over the past few weeks, but this morning the clouds cleared and the seeing promised to be good. I woke up at 2:45 AM and walked out the door by 3:20, hauling my APM 140....

August 10, 2020

After two weeks of rainy, stormy weather, the skies cleared over the last two nights, and seeing conditions were, remarkably, better than average. On the evening of the eighth, I marched out of our...

July 12, 2020

The good times keep coming! Another clear morning, with average seeing and above-average transparency. Astronomy and my toddler have been costing me sleep recently, and deep down I knew it wasn't a...

July 5, 2019

It's hard to properly celebrate Independence Day this year, though that didn't stop the jet fighters and the bombers from roaring overhead yesterday evening. Fireworks followed - hours and hours...

June 9, 2020

Washington is a feast-or-famine city for amateur astronomy. Clouds and bad seeing can endure for weeks - even months - with little relief, and then, suddenly, the weather clears for a week. When that...

June 3, 2020

Once again, the sky was clear and the seeing better than terrible last night, so out I stepped onto my rooftop. With a curfew on from 7 PM - what a strange and distressing time this is - I couldn't...

May 31, 2020

Last night, miraculously, the clouds cleared rather than thickened after sunset, and seeing conditions lingered - for just an hour or two - near average. I dutifully set out with my Takahashi, yet...

May 26, 2020

It's been a while! With around 8,000 COVID-19 cases confirmed in DC - and who knows how many undiagnosed - I've resolved to use my telescopes only in conditions of average or better seeing, and only...

April 8, 2020

To put it lightly, conditions here have been far from ideal for observing. Our rooftop is now closed, following DC's lockdown order, and even going inside feels increasingly perilous (though some...

March 30, 2020

Life - for me, for millions in the United States and around the world - has changed just a bit since I last wrote. Friends and students have fallen ill, and so many have lost their jobs. It feels...

March 8, 2020

The sky was clear the past two nights, as if to compensate for the arrival of COVID-19 in our city. Temperatures are rising, too, although they were plenty cool during that first night (March 7th)....

March 1, 2020

It's been a remarkably cloudy month. I even travelled briefly to Arizona, and even there, in the desert: rain. I could scarcely believe it. But at last, tonight the clouds parted over Washington, DC,...

February 2, 2020

With the Moon and Orion high in the sky just after the kids went to bed, and the weather relatively mild, I just had to have a look. Once again, I hauled my Takahashi refractor to the rooftop -...

January 31, 2020

Just a short post this time because, wow, has this month ever been busy for me. Either I've been sick or my kids have been sick, and there's far too much to do at work, so there's no chance for me to...

January 9, 2020

It's been cold here, for DC standards, and often windy, and the nights have had an annoying tendency to cloud over at short notice. In those conditions, the TV 85 really is ideal. It cools more...

January 1, 2020

After quite possibly the worst travel experience of my life - thanks, United, for losing two car seats and a suitcase - we returned to Washington on New Year's Eve, where I was happily reunited with...

December 27, 2019

Every Christmas, I head to Winnipeg with my family to visit my in-laws. It is painfully, mind-numbingly cold, and of course I miss my telescopes back home. Yet I've managed to cobble together some...

December 11, 2019

A glorious full Moon tonight, in bitterly cold weather. While it was -1° C outside with a windchill of -4, it certainly felt a lot chillier on our observation deck. The TV 85 cooled down mercifully...

December 5, 2019

Observing deep space objects from the city is always in equal parts exciting and disappointing. Exciting, occasionally because of the beauty of the object (the Orion Nebula, for example), but...

November 11, 2019

A short observing session tonight on the observation deck with the FC100-DC, in temperatures cold enough to become uncomfortable after a half hour or so.  Despite the hazy conditions and nearly full...

November 9, 2019

So I may have contracted a mild case of aperture fever. Not the first time, and likely not the last. ​I caught a glimpse of the Ring Nebula with my 100mm Takahashi recently, and part of me was...

23 October, 2019

It may be no surprise, but when I have to use one telescope these days, I take my Takahashi  FC-100DC. It's wonderfully lightweight, it's beautifully made - in a way that's really growing on me -...

September 10, 2019

So the Takahashi, it turns out, is a pretty good telescope. I've now used it a few times on my observing deck, after amassing all those little accessories, and systematically exchanging my...

July 21, 2019

It's been a while since I wrote. I've come to realize that, with young kids, I just about never have the time to do something as decadent as write for fun. And I certainly don't have time to write...

December 12, 2018

About a year ago, I picked up a Skywatcher 100ED: a "slow" (F/9) 100mm refractor. I haven't written much this year, but wow: suffice it to say, I rarely use any other telescope (and when I do, I come...

February 2, 2017

After ogling the Orion Nebula in my new observing site on January 7, I got a little overzealous and made the mistake of returning with my AR 102 just after a rainstorm, on a humid night that soon...

January 7, 2017

I received my Twilight I mount yesterday, and my 4-inch, AR 102 refractor arrived a few days earlier. It snowed in the afternoon, but cleared up around sunset. At the same time, I scouted a new...