Astronomy For Dummies. Maran Stephen P.

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      If you live in an urban area, chances are good that your night sky is bright. You can find better observational conditions if you travel to a dark spot in the country. Your local club probably has a good observing site, and when the members converge on that lonely place, you can enjoy safety in numbers.

      

If you live in a good-size city or a college town, you can probably find an astronomy club nearby. If you live in the United States, find the club(s) near you with the locator form of the NASA Night Sky Network, at nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov. Enter a city name, and a calendar pops up with the current month’s astronomy activities in that area.

      You can also check out the website of America’s “club of clubs,” the Astronomical League, at www.astroleague.org. Browse the list of more than 240 member societies, arranged by state.

      For a more global approach, visit the Sky & Telescope website, at www.skyandtelescope.com (just click the “Clubs and Organizations” tab in the Community menu to find clubs and organizations worldwide). The site lists over 20 astronomy clubs in the state of Missouri, for example, and 9 organizations, including planetariums and an observatory, in the nation of New Zealand.

      GAZING AROUND THE WORLD: A SAMPLING OF ASTRONOMY CLUBS

      The Astronomical Society of the Pacific (www.astrosociety.org), with headquarters in San Francisco, publishes the quarterly digital magazine Mercury for amateurs. It holds an annual meeting that moves around the western United States and sometimes goes as far east as Boston or Toronto. The society also offers numerous educational materials in astronomy to teachers.

      Do you live in Canada? The Royal Astronomical Society of Canada has 29 Centres, which is a fancy name for astronomy clubs. Professionals from the nearest university often get involved with the Centre’s activities. To find a Centre near you, consult the RASC website, www.rasc.ca.

      In the United Kingdom, the venerable British Astronomical Association, founded in 1890, is still going strong. Its website is britastro.org. And the Society for Popular Astronomy, billing itself as “Britain’s brightest astronomical Society,” features sky event news and tweets about planets, bright meteors, and more on its colorful website, www.popastro.com.

      Most other countries have astronomy clubs, too. Astronomy is truly a universal passion.

Checking websites, magazines, software, and apps

      Finding out about astronomy is easy. You can choose from a wide range of resources, including websites, apps for smartphones and tablet computers, magazines, and desktop computer software. The following sections offer some tips for finding the best information.

       Traveling through cyberspace

      The Net offers sites on every topic in astronomy, and the resources are increasing at, well, an astronomical rate! You can find many websites listed throughout this book; if you want more information on planets, comets, meteors, or eclipses, the web offers good sites on every topic.

      

The editors of Sky & Telescope magazine maintain one of the best websites, at www.skyandtelescope.com. Get your observational career started by checking out “This Week’s Sky at a Glance” on that site. It gives a well-illustrated, day-by-day (or night-by-night) account of planets, comets, and other current space phenomena.

      In the United Kingdom, Astronomy Now magazine offers a website with an “Observing” section that posts regular announcements of easily seen sky phenomena. Visit astronomynow.com.

       Perusing publications

      You can purchase excellent magazines to expand your knowledge of astronomy and your skill at practicing it. Most amateur astronomers subscribe to at least one publication. In many cases, if you join a local astronomy club, you may have access to a subscription to a national magazine at a member discount. (See “Joining an astronomy club for star-studded company” earlier in this chapter for the scoop on clubs.)

      

I recommend that you pick up a copy of each of the “big two” (literally, the biggest two) astronomical magazines: Sky & Telescope and Astronomy. Test-drive the publications for a month, and if you get more out of one than the other, go ahead and subscribe. You can do so from their websites at www.skyandtelescope.com and www.astronomy.com. Both of these magazines are available in both printed and digital editions.

      Canadian readers can get the bimonthly SkyNews: The Canadian Magazine of Astronomy & Stargazing, a slick, full-color publication. Visit www.skynews.ca to subscribe.

      Astronomy buffs in the United Kingdom should look for Astronomy Now and Popular Astronomy to see which magazine they prefer. Check their websites at astronomynow.com and www.popastro.com/popularastronomy.

      In France, an excellent and well-illustrated magazine is Ciel & Espace (www.cieletespace.fr); in Australia, look for Australian Sky & Telescope and its astronomy yearbook for that country (www.austskyandtel.com.au). In Germany, Sterne und Weltraum (www.sterne-und-weltraum.de) excels.

      Wherever you live, you’ll find that the annual Observer’s Handbook of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada (www.rasc.ca) is very useful. Dozens of experts compile the handbook to help you enjoy the skies.

       Surveying software and apps

      A planetarium program, or “desktop planetarium,” for your personal computer is a real plus. So is a planetarium app for your smartphone or tablet computer. Such programs or apps show you what the sky looks like from your home every night. You can also use them to find out what stars and planets will be up in the sky at a future date or at a different location so you can check in advance what you may observe on an upcoming vacation or visit to a dark sky observation site. This software is terrific to look at before you step outside to view the night sky. Some astronomers use these programs to plan their observing sessions. They prepare schedules of objects to scan with telescopes and binoculars at different times of the night to use their “dark time” effectively. Amateurs with certain telescope models that feature computer control can use some planetarium programs to guide their telescopes to stars, planets, or other sky objects of interest.

      Desktop planetarium programs are available over a СКАЧАТЬ