The Winter Milky Way Project at Blake Planetarium

The Blake Planetarium at Plymouth Community Intermediate School was recently awarded a grant from the Plymouth Cultural Council to complete the Milky Way project. Last September, students in Ms. Shaw's class used six remote robotic telescopes for astronomy education located in Australia and New Mexico to image objects in the visible arm of the summer Milky Way. Last week, students in Mrs. Burns' sixth-grade class partnered with the planetarium, Insight Observatory, and iTelescope.net to image objects in the winter Milky Way. The objects that were imaged included nebulae from star nurseries and dying stars, as well as star clusters. Stud...

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Mars Opposition

If you have never seen the red planet Mars through a telescope and would like to do so, then there is no better time than when the planet reaches opposition. Why is this so important? Simply because Mars will be closer to the Earth, and this means that Mars will appear larger when viewed or imaged through telescopes. A larger planet presents better opportunities for viewing small features that are usually hard to see: polar caps become easily visible, and larger features like Syrtis Major have more clarity and structure is easier to discern. Mars Imaged by Michael Petrasko on 10-02-2005 with a C11 SCT  and Celestron NexImage &n...

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April 2014 Lunar Eclipse

A total lunar eclipse will take place on April 15, 2014. It will be the first of two total lunar eclipses in 2014, and the first of four total lunar eclipses this year. the lunar eclipse will be visible in the Pacific Ocean region, including Australia, as well as North and South America. The moon will pass south of the center of the Earth's shadow. As a result, the northern part of the moon will be darker than the southern part. Simulation of the moon passing through Earth's shadow. A lunar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes within Earth's umbra (shadow). As the eclipse begins, the Earth's shadow first darkens the moon slightly. The...

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Galaxies 101 - A Primer to the Types of Island Universes

Spring is the time of year when our night sky is enriched with a plethora of galaxy types. On a dark night, we can often see a "hazy" band of light that stretches across the sky. This band is part of our own Milky Way galaxy, a gigantic collection of stars, gas, and dust. Far beyond the Milky Way, there are billions of other galaxies, some similar to our own and some very different, scattered throughout space to the very limits of the observable universe. M101 - Spiral Galaxy in Ursa Major Imaged on T11 by Michael Petrasko and Muir Evenden Types of Galaxies: Astronomers classify galaxies into three major categories. Spiral ga...

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