Astronomical Games

last updated 18 December 2007

December 2007: A Matter of Great Magnitude
Contemplating the backward-seeming magnitude system.

August 1999: The Moon. Our nearest neighbor proves to be quite a little puzzle.
September 1999: Planning the Stars. The prosaic planisphere can be the quickest way to learn the sky.
October 1999: Double Vision. How we learned the distance to the stars.
January 2000: The Bradley Firstar. GOTO--with a twist.
February 2000: Ten Myths. Bones of contention held near and dear by experienced amateurs.
July 2000: OK, Two Stars to Steer Her By. How to point a telescope without really trying.
September 2000: How to Cook a Star. The reason stars shine.
October 2000: One Little Star. The deaths of the stars.
April 2001: What the Light Said. Do we really understand the way that space and time operate?
May 2001: The Grand Illusion. Einstein's paradoxical proposal: Gravity is but a change in perspective.
June 2001: Music of the Ellipses. Our understanding of the solar system took some unplanned detours.
November 2001: The Dimension of Our Galaxy. Finding Earth from the center of the Milky Way, in a lifetime or less.
March 2002: Diffraction. From bending sticks to Airy discs.
April 2002: Escape! Can one escape from the Earth's gravity, even in principle?
July 2002: Of Matter's Weight and Fall. The key to weightlessness is falling as freely as possible.
August 2002: Figure-Eight in the Sky. A new perspective on an old fascination.
September 2002: The Unwinnable Race. Light from galaxies receding at more than the speed of light can't reach us...or can it?
January 2003: Step by Step. Galaxies that recede from us at more than the speed of light...or do they?
March 2003: The Color Purple. Is chromatic aberration an unavoidable flaw in refracting telescopes?
April 2003: The Color Blue. The "wild blue yonder" reveals something of the atomic world.
May 2003: The Color Green. There actually are green stars in the sky, but you can't see them.
June 2003: The Color Yellow. Over the years, we've had many ideas about our local star.
December 2003: The Color Orange. Our mysterious neighbor in space.
March 2004: The Color Red. Drops of blood in the sky.
May 2004: Through a Glass, Lightly. How can curved glass be used to stretch celestial objects before our very eyes?
June 2004: Music of the Eyepieces. Pythagoras, musical scales, and your eyepiece collection.
January 2005: Bouncing Back. Echoes of light measure the motion of the Moon.
June 2005: Top of the World. The Earth wobbles like a top...sort of.
August 2006: Give Me a Boost! Planets can influence the paths of comets and spacecraft to a surprising extent.
December 2007: A Matter of Great Magnitude. Contemplating the backward-seeming magnitude scale.