Jefferson Co. Astronomical Society

09/26/2022

The Carina Nebula as seen by James Webb Telescope

02/10/2020

Both taken from inside my study last night and again this morning, a bright Venus last night and a cloudy full moon picture this morning.

Always be looking up...

-JimBob Faris
Lead AstroNut
Jefferson County Astronomical Society

02/08/2020

Some pretty cool things happened as we watched the cosmos last year...

When historians think back to this year's space breakthroughs, surely high on their list of remembrances will be the epic group of people who finally ...

01/24/2020

Three scientists publish a paper proving that Mercury, not Venus, is the closest planet to Earth.

12/07/2019

An interesting and thought provoking article. It would definitely be difficult to spot something the potential size of a baseball in Space.

A slew of oddly orbiting objects indicates a massive planet is hiding in the outer solar system. But one group of astronomers says it might be a tiny black hole instead.

12/01/2019

Saturn declared the new "Moon King" with 82 Moons!

20 new moons were discovered orbiting Saturn.

08/10/2019

A supernova explosion that occurred in 1994 just outside a spiral galaxy...

APOD: Rumors of a Dark Universe (2019 Aug 04)
Image Credit: High-Z Supernova Search Team, HST, NASA
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap190804.html

Explanation: Twenty-one years ago results were first presented indicating that most of the energy in our universe is not in stars or galaxies but is tied to space itself. In the language of cosmologists, a large cosmological constant -- dark energy -- was directly implied by new distant supernova observations. Suggestions of a cosmological constant were not new -- they have existed since the advent of modern relativistic cosmology. Such claims were not usually popular with astronomers, though, because dark energy was so unlike known universe components, because dark energy's abundance appeared limited by other observations, and because less-strange cosmologies without a signficant amount of dark energy had previously done well in explaining the data. What was exceptional here was the seemingly direct and reliable method of the observations and the good reputations of the scientists conducting the investigations. Over the two decades, independent teams of astronomers have continued to accumulate data that appears to confirm the existence of dark energy and the unsettling result of a presently accelerating universe. In 2011, the team leaders were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for their work. The featured picture of a supernova that occurred in 1994 on the outskirts of a spiral galaxy was taken by one of these collaborations.

https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/supernova//HighZ.html
https://www.stsci.edu/
https://www.nasa.gov

Starship Asterisk* • APOD Discussion Page
http://asterisk.apod.com/discuss_apod.php?date=190804

07/20/2019

July 20, 1969...EVERYTHING Changed. Take some time today and celebrate this 50 year milestone. I plan on watching with my family the film "Apollo 11" Directed by Todd Miller and afterwards this evening, setup my telescope and look up at our closest celestial neighbor.

Because our species walked on the Moon, ANYTHING is possible.

Always Keep Looking Up,
JimBob Faris
Lead AstroNut

07/14/2019

Astronomers used to believe that the Andromeda galaxy, our nearest galactic neighbor, was three times the size of the Milky Way. Not anymore.

07/11/2019

Get out and see the crown jewel of the Solar System, Saturn!

Saturn is at opposition and its rings are particularly bright this month.

07/09/2019

Pretty amazing time to be a fan of Space!