Category: Sky
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The Gardens of the Sky 17th to 23rd February 2024
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in SkyBetter late than never 🙂 As the nights get longer, gotta love the effect of the axial tilt of the Earth (23.5 deg.), and after hot days, what better way than to spend time un-stressing by observing the cooler night sky. Sandgropers should head to the beach just before 7pm armed with a local take…
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The Gardens of the Sky 10th to 16th February 2024
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in SkyHaving lost Mercury to superior conjunction (Mercury-Earth on opposite sides of the Sun) later this month, we can however still see Venus creeping up on Mars as the week progresses. The brilliant white Venus sits 15 deg. above the East to ESE at 5am with Mars the fainter red object and 3 deg. further east,…
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The Gardens of the Sky 27th January to 2nd February 2024
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in SkyJust a quick post, busy celebrating Australia Day 🙂 On these hot summer nights, just get out of bed and head to the veranda, back porch or balcony. If it faces East and you have a clear horizon, by 4am you cannot miss the planet Venus not twinkling 10 deg. above the ESE vista. Stay…
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The Gardens of the Night Sky 20th to 26th January 2024
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in SkyJupiter is still the most prominent celestial object dominating the NNW horizon by 8pm when it can be found sitting 40 degrees up. …..that’s four stacked clenched fists at arm’s length, each being 10 degrees. I’d wait an hour when it sits 30 degrees above the NW. At this point, its 4 brightest moons, surprisingly…
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The Gardens of the Sky 13th to 19th January 2024
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in SkyFirst of all, just step outside and spend a few minutes looking at the night sky North and South, its awesome and hangs there same way that bricks don’t 🙂 The planet Saturn, as has been the case for a while a bit boring to the naked eye and binoculars as is barely visible, apart…
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The Gardens of the Sky 6th to 12th January 2024
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in SkyIf 2024 is your year for taking up astronomy, armed just with your eyes or if you are lucky, binoculars, this column is for you. I provide basic, unpretentious, easy to read information from a qualified astronomer; no re-tweets or cut and paste, but purely researched primary source information. Basic essentials for stargazing are a…
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The Night Sky 30th December 2023 to 5th January 2024
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in Sky2024 or binary 11111101000, a leap year and starts on a Monday as did 1996, 1968 and 1940; the first Leap Year (in modern times) was in 1752 when the Gregorian calendar created, and we lost 11 days to sync everything due to the creep that had set in. The reason for a leap year?…
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The Gardens of the Sky 23rd to 29th December 2023
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in SkyWere you good a good boy or Girl? Did Santa leave those binoculars or tripod under the tree on Christmas Morning? Do not wait, get out there and use then to explore the oldest science and follow in the footsteps of the greats like Eratosthenes, Ptolemy, Galileo, Carl Sagan to name a few, you, your…
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The Gardens of the Sky 16th to 22nd December 2023
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in SkyChristmas is almost upon us and in the week leading up to it, early morning risers are limited to the almost Christmas like star, but a planet, Venus which can be found sitting 20 degrees above the eastern horizon 30 minutes before sunrise, say around 4:30am, after it rose just before 3am. While not easy,…
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The Gardens of the night sky 9th to 16th December 2023
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in SkyThe Night Sky 9th to 16th December 2023 This week’s column spans the new Moon on Wednesday (7.32am), so dark skies abound and provide the ability for those in light polluted areas, such as Perth (Thanks Basil, City of Lights? really), to see a little more. Mercury is heading back towards the Sun, well apparently…
Astronomy West 