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Back to list of articles From the September 2024 issue A problem called the final parsec problem details the theoretical difficulty of bringing supermassive black holes close enough for gravitational waves to rob them of momentum and cause them to eventually merge. A screenshot from a simulation shows the merger of two supermassive black holes.
Albireo (Beta (β) Cygni) is a classic example of a double star with contrasting colours. Credit: Massimo Di Fusco When we think of the color of the night sky, we often think of beautiful images of galaxies and nebulas. Sadly, most of the time, their faint, diffuse light shows no color at all to our
Back to list of articles From the August 2024 issue To perfectly frame objects in your field of view, you'll need to know your telescope's focal length and a little math. My first image of the Lagoon Nebula (M8) was so magnified that the object didn't look like a lagoon at all. I took it
Back to list of articles From the August 2024 issue The new TESS mission covers almost the entire sky, compared to the small portion of sky observed by Kepler. During its lifetime, Kepler observed only a few small (blue) fields of about 116 square degrees each on the sky: one in Cygnus and several along
This 1874 lithograph was created by Étienne Léopold Trouvelot using the 15-inch refractor at the Harvard College Observatory, in order to measure the extent of the nebula. A glass plate with dark black lines was placed at the focus of the telescope to mark the location. Not surprisingly, it shows no central star. Credit: Annals
DwarfLab's DWARF II smart telescope contains dual apochromatic lenses: telephoto and wide-angle. Credit: DwarfLab We have smart phones, smart cars, smart appliances, and even smart light bulbs. What about smart telescopes? You could say that smart telescopes have been around since the first models were introduced decades ago. But in recent years, a new generation
Quadrans Muralis, the Mural Quadrant, does not appear on any modern star charts. Elijah H. Burritt included it in his 1835 edition of Geography of the Heavens. The stars that make up this extinct constellation lie within the boundaries of Draco and Hercules. Credit: Michael E. Bakich Library When I use my astronomy software or
Back to list of articles It's harder than ever to escape light pollution, but doing so has never been more rewarding. Credit: Molly Wakeling Have you ever seen the Milky Way? Only 20 percent of the U.S. population lives in a place where they can. Away from light pollution, the wide, ghostly band almost looks
The Gegenschein rests on the tip of the fainter, pyramid-shaped false zodiacal light. Credit: Stephen James O'Meara In April 1961, Galaxy The magazine contained an article titled “The Enigma Called Gegenschein” by German-American science writer Willy Ley. Referring to the mystery of who was the first to identify the faint glow of the Gegenschein, Ley
Back to list of articles The theoretical limit may be what is called the Planck temperature, derived using fundamental universal constants. Workers walk past a section of magnets at CERN's Large Hadron Collider, where researchers are probing plasmas like those that filled the early universe. Credit: Samuel Joseph Hertzog/CERN We all accept that the coldest
