November 8, 2025As 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...Moon · First Light · FC 76DCU→
August 24, 2025For one week every year, I get to experience a truly dark sky – a 1 or at worst a 2 on the 9-level Bortle scale. At Riding Mountain National Park, near the western edge of Manitoba in the Canadian...Vespera Pro · Globular Clusters · Galaxies→
June 28, 2025At around 10:00 PM on April 17th, I waited beside a railroad track that winds along the banks of the Susquehanna River in rural Pennsylvania. I had found a nook of open sky between trees and...Emission Nebula · Vespera Pro · Globular Clusters · Dwarf 3 · Galaxies→
June 7, 2025It'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...Moon · Jupiter · TSA 120→
September 12, 2024I 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...Emission Nebula · Moon · AT72EDII · Saturn · Major Observatories · Globular Clusters→
March 27, 2024Our 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...Moon · TSA 120→
March 26, 2024Electronically Assisted Astronomy (EAA) has been around for a while. Not long ago, you'd get into it by buying a camera, attaching it to your eyepiece, hooking it to a monitor, and then watching as...Emission Nebula · EVScope 2 · Vespera II→
February 23, 2024Usually, 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...FC 100DZ · Mewlon 210 · Moon→
November 21, 2023If November isn't my favorite month to observe here in Washington, DC, it's right up there with March and April. Most nights are cool, crisp, and imbued with an ineffable fragrance - of decaying...Emission Nebula · Mewlon 210 · EVScope 2 · Jupiter · Stars · TSA 120→
September 17, 2023It was midnight on September 1st, and the atmosphere was about as good as it gets for stargazing here in Washington, DC. Transparency was high, seeing was great, Saturn was high in the sky and...Mewlon 210 · Saturn · Jupiter · TEC 140 · TSA 120→
August 25, 2023Recently, I've been on a mission to optimize my grab-and-go setup. Slowly but surely, parks that offered dark corners for a telescope have been saturated with bright lights: the kind that needlessly...FC 100DZ · Emission Nebula · EVScope 2 · Saturn · Globular Clusters · Jupiter · Dark Sky · Galaxies→
August 11, 2023Last week, we made what used to be an annual pilgrimage to Riding Mountain National Park, a 3,000-kilometer expanse near the border of Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Home to one of North America's...Naked Eye · Dark Sky→
August 3, 2023To put it mildly, it's been a dreadful summer for astronomy in Washington, DC. The primary culprit is wildfire smoke, which seems to waft into the city with every clear night. As a professor whose...EVScope 2 · Saturn · First Light · Supernova · Galaxies · C6→
April 2, 2023Often, 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...FC 100DZ · Moon · TEC 140→
March 2, 2023Seeing 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...FC 100DZ · Moon→
December 4, 2022Tonight 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 -...Moon · Mars · Jupiter · TEC 140→
November 25, 2022For amateur astronomers, two things happen to the atmosphere around this time of year in Washington, DC: in general, transparency improves, and seeing - meaning, of course, stability - deteriorates....FC 100DZ · Emission Nebula · EVScope 2 · Mars · Jupiter→
November 10, 2022Autumn 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...FC 100DZ · Moon · Mars · Jupiter · TEC 140→
September 16, 2022Earlier 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...FC 100DZ · Moon · Jupiter→
August 13, 2022Binoculars 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...Moon · Saturn · First Light · Canon 12x36 IS Binoculars · Meteors · Jupiter→
July 11, 2022The planets are all lined up in the early morning sky, and the summer atmosphere here in DC can really settle down at night. The Sun begins to rise at around 5 AM, however, so getting up early enough...FC 100DZ · Saturn · Mars · Jupiter · TEC 140→
June 20, 2022It was Father's Day yesterday, and I had sanction to wake up late. When I found out the night would be clear, I was full of anticipation - until I realized that seeing was forecast to be about as bad...Emission Nebula · EVScope 2 · Galaxies→
May 31, 2022Summer has truly begun in DC when the forecast calls for back-to-back nights with good seeing, and the planets begin to rise high above the horizon. After a very satisfying morning with my Takahashi...Mars · Jupiter · TEC 140 · Travel→
May 30, 2022The planets are rising high above the early morning horizon, and for once the forecast called for good seeing. I slept fitfully until 4:15 AM, nearly convinced myself to fall back asleep, and finally...FC 100DZ · Mars · Jupiter→
April 30, 2022We've had plenty of clear skies lately - after a generally rainy spring - but the atmosphere has been so turbulent that I've rarely thought it worthwhile to take out a telescope. This week brought...FC 100DZ · Venus · Jupiter→
February 21, 2022Here 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...FC 100DZ · EVScope 2 · Moon · Galaxies→
February 11, 2022With 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...FC 100DZ · Moon→
February 6, 2022Two things have kept me from posting - and observing - these last three months. First: the weather. This has been about the worst stretch of cloudiness and terrible seeing that I can remember in DC....EVScope 2 · Globular Clusters · First Light · Planetary Nebula · Galaxies→
November 12, 2021It'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...FC 100DZ · Moon · Jupiter→
November 9, 2021The sky was that beautiful, robin egg blue yesterday, and sunset faded into an equally clear night. Seeing and transparency were both well above average, so I thought I'd take the TEC 140 out again...Emission Nebula · Galaxies→
October 20, 2021We'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...FC 100DZ · Moon · Saturn · Jupiter→
October 2, 2021Conditions were glorious last night - temperatures in teens, seeing and transparency both above average - and I was feeling surprisingly energetic, so I dragged my TEC 140, DM-6, and Berlebach Uni...Uranus · Saturn · Jupiter · TEC 140→
September 29, 2021The sky is clear this week, but I can't go out every night - with two kids, I just don't have the stamina - so I figured I'd write some reflections on the astronomical accessories that have made an...Ranking→
September 27, 2021It was another beautifully clear, autumnal night on the evening of the 26th, so out I stepped with my FC-100DZ, bound for a nearby field. This time I carried a new, lightweight tracking mount: the...Ranking→
September 25, 2021We'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...Moon · Saturn · Zenithstar 81 · First Light · Jupiter · TEC 140→
September 16, 2021We've had some clear skies over the past week, and of course for me that involved hauling my telescopes outside. With Jupiter and Saturn high above the horizon early in the evening, now is a great...FC 100DZ · Jupiter · EVScope · Planetary Nebula→
August 26, 2021Another clear night on the Atlantic Coast, again with good seeing (but mediocre transparency). Once again I quickly set up my EVScope, and this time I had eyes on the galaxies in the Big Dipper,...Emission Nebula · EVScope · Galaxies→
August 25, 2021It's been boiling hot and cloudy at night through much of July and August in DC, but this week we escaped to the Atlantic coast. I asked my five-year-old daughter which telescope I should bring, and...Globular Clusters · EVScope · Planetary Nebula · Galaxies→
June 29, 2021I've written about the EVScope and Electronically Assisted Astronomy (EAA) quite frequently in these pages. I was skeptical at first - partly because my EVScope had a technical problem - and only...Emission Nebula · EVScope · Planetary Nebula · Galaxies→
May 19, 2021After 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...FC 100DZ · Moon→
May 15, 2021Everybody approaches amateur astronomy in different ways, but for me - and many others - the most difficult thing about the hobby is that you always wonder, no matter how sublime the view: what would...Saturn · Jupiter · APM 140 · TEC 140→
March 22, 2021You 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...FC 100DZ · Moon→
March 21, 2021It 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,...FC 100DZ · Moon · EVScope · Galaxies→
March 11, 2021I'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...FC 100DZ · Moon · Globular Clusters · EVScope · Planetary Nebula→
February 2, 2021It has, to put it mildly, been an eventful ten weeks since I last wrote in this journal. We endured a sustained effort to subvert democracy and a frightening insurrection in the midst of what - we...FC 100DZ · TV 85 · Mars→
November 21, 2020On November 16th, the sky was clear and, after a glorious sunset, atmospheric seeing promised to be mediocre but transparency was predicted to be superb. With no Moon in the sky, conditions were...FC 100DZ · FC 100DC · Emission Nebula · First Light · Mars · EVScope · Galaxies→
November 14, 2020It was a cold, damp night when I stepped out with the EVscope and found a relatively mud-free corner to set up in my park. I decided to try my hand at collimating the telescope to see if that might...Emission Nebula · EVScope · Galaxies→
November 12, 2020We'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,...FC 100DC · Emission Nebula · Moon · FS 60Q · First Light · Mars · APM 140 · Binary Stars · EVScope · Galaxies→
October 18, 2020After selling my EVScope recently - you can read more about that choice below - I sold a few other items and wound up with a nice chunk of change. I started feeling a familiar temptation, one I've...FC 100DC · FS 60Q · First Light · Mars→
October 6, 2020Opposition! 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...FC 100DC · Moon · Mars · APM 140→
September 8, 2020To 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...FC 100DC · Emission Nebula · Moon · Mars · APM 140 · Binary Stars→
September 6, 2020The 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....Emission Nebula · Moon · Open Clusters · Venus · Mars · APM 140 · Binary Stars→
September 5, 2020My greatest weakness in this hobby - and maybe in life - is that I'm never sufficiently content with what I have. When I realized that my big refractor - the APM 140 - was just about as portable as...First Light · EVScope→
August 20, 2020We're less than two months away from Mars reaching opposition, and the red planet is getting awfully bright in the morning sky. Its apparent size is getting pretty big, too, and there are - as yet -...Open Clusters · Venus · Mars · APM 140→
August 11, 2020I was quite tired after I last published on this blog, but the night of the tenth was clear again - and again the seeing promised to be better than average. With a week of uninterrupted rain coming...Jupiter · APM 140→
August 10, 2020After 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...FC 100DC · Moon · Saturn · Mars · Jupiter→
July 27, 2020This weekend, we travelled to the Shenandoah Mountains with our "bubble family" for a much-needed getaway from Washington, DC. It took a little negotiation - even a short trip with kids requires a...FC 100DC · Saturn · Globular Clusters · Mars · Jupiter · Planetary Nebula · Galaxies→
July 19, 2020In many cultures, in many times and places, bright comets were thought to herald - or perhaps cause, or confirm - disaster. It therefore seems almost absurdly fitting that, in this terrible...Saturn · Jupiter · Vixen ED115S · APM 140 · Comet→
July 12, 2020The 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...FC 100DC · Moon · Saturn · Venus · Mars · Jupiter→
July 10, 2020It's been quite a stretch of clear nights in these parts - as I wrote before, DC is a feast-or-famine city for amateur astronomers - and I've been determined to take full advantage. Last night, I...Saturn · Jupiter · APM 140 · Planetary Nebula→
July 5, 2019It'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...TV 85 · Moon · Saturn · Jupiter→
July 3, 2020Rocking a fussy baby is a dangerous thing. The mind latches on to anything that can distract from the crying, and for me that means telescopes. Could I really use my Mewlon 180, I wondered lately?...FC 100DC · Saturn · First Light · Venus · Mars · Jupiter · APM 140 · Planetary Nebula→
June 9, 2020Washington 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...FC 100DC · Moon · Saturn · Globular Clusters · Mars · Jupiter · Vixen ED115S · Planetary Nebula→
June 3, 2020Once 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...FC 100DC · Moon→
May 31, 2020Last 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...FC 100DC · Moon→
May 26, 2020It'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...TV 85 · Moon · Vixen ED115S→
April 8, 2020To 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...FC 100DC · Moon · Venus · Binary Stars→
March 30, 2020Life - 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...TV 85 · Emission Nebula · Moon · First Light · Venus · Vixen ED115S→
March 8, 2020The 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)....FC 100DC · Emission Nebula · Moon · Venus · Binoculars→
March 1, 2020It'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,...TV 85 · Moon · Venus→
February 2, 2020With 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 -...FC 100DC · Emission Nebula · Moon→
January 31, 2020Just 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...FC 100DC · Emission Nebula · Moon→
January 9, 2020It'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...TV 85 · Moon→
January 1, 2020After 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...FC 100DC · Emission Nebula · Moon · Stars→
December 27, 2019Every 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...Emission Nebula · C90 · Moon→
December 11, 2019A 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...TV 85 · Moon→
December 5, 2019Observing 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...FC 100DC · Moon→
December 1, 2019Last week, it was clear for two nights in a row, with the Moon below the western horizon and all the bright planets setting soon after the Sun. A good time, I figured, to have a look at Orion -...FC 100DC · TV 85 · Emission Nebula · Binary Stars · Mewlon 180→
November 23, 2019It was quite cold here last night, but I got a new eyepiece - an TeleVue Ethos 3.7 mm - and I was determined to use it. Unfortunately, the atmosphere was restless and the seeing poor to atrocious, so...TV 85 · Emission Nebula · Open Clusters→
November 18, 2019It's been rainy here lately. Inspired by similar lists I've read elsewhere, I decided to pass the time by evaluating some of the telescopes I've owned. I figure I've purchased, used, and sold enough...Ranking→
November 11, 2019A 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...FC 100DC · Moon · Open Clusters→
November 9, 2019So 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...Moon · Saturn · First Light · Planetary Nebula · Mewlon 180→
23 October, 2019It 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 -...FC 100DC · Spacecraft · Moon · Binary Stars→
September 23, 2019At the moment, Lyra and Hercules are high in the high, and Uranus and Neptune are near the annual oppositions. This got me thinking. My refractors are everything I'd hoped they'd be, but would they...Saturn · Globular Clusters · First Light · C8 · C6→
September 10, 2019So 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...FC 100DC · Moon · Saturn→
July 21, 2019It'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...FC 100DC · TV 85 · Moon · Saturn · First Light · Jupiter→
December 12, 2018About 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...Moon · Saturn · First Light · Skywatcher 100ED · Mars · Binary Stars · AR 102→
May 19, 2017Astronomy equipment! How my wife swoons when I talk about it. Okay, that's a lie . . . but she does roll her eyes. And warns me not to get much more. So of course I have to write about what I've been...C90 · Jupiter · Edge HD 800→
February 24, 2017From the time I was a young kid growing up under the dark skies of rural Canada, I dreamed of owning an eight-inch Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope. Glossy advertisements in astronomy magazines...Emission Nebula · First Light · Venus · Edge HD 800 · Binary Stars→
February 2, 2017After 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...Moon · Open Clusters · Venus · Mars · AR 102→
January 7, 2017I 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...Emission Nebula · Moon · First Light · Mars · AR 102→
October 17, 2016A few days ago, I learned that Orbital ATK would soon attempt to launch its Cygnus cargoship from Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia to the International Space Station. If the rocket didn't blow...Spacecraft→
August 22, 2016After a hot, clear day that lacked the crushing humidity I've come to associate with DC summers, I decided to take out my new 4-inch, Celestron Omni XLT refractor. Mars was just a few months from its...Saturn · First Light · Mars · Omni XLT→