Category: free astronomy magazine

Posted on

Free Astronomy Magazine – March-April 2026 Issue Available For Reading And Download

Above: That could be us – the Milky Way above South Wairarapa, New Zealand. Photo by Frank Hopfler. See: https://darksky.org/news/request-for-support-for-a-petition-to-reduce-light-pollution-at-night-in-new-zealand/

The most recent issue of Free Astronomy Magazine (March-April 2026) is available for your reading and downloading pleasure in English, Italian, Spanish, French, Arabic, and Chinese at www.astropublishing.com (and facebook).

In light of (pun intended) the previous post and my observing habits the past few years, I very distinctly remember walking outside the evening of 12 March 2021 with a garbage bag in my hand, looking up as I flung the bin lid open, and seeing my first Starlink convoy moving west-to-east. "I'll be damned," was the first thing that came out, having not done much of any other observing for many months. There has been much said about the impact of lights high above on visual observing and astrophotography, and far more in the context of light pollution said about our illumination habits on the ground. Important article had in this issue among all of the other excellent content.

Posted on

Free Astronomy Magazine – January-February 2026 Issue Available For Reading And Download

Above: An artistic rendering of a dust and gas disk encircling the young exoplanet CT Cha b, 625 light-years from Earth. Spectroscopic data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope suggests the disk contains the raw materials for moon formation: diacetylene, hydrogen cyanide, propyne, acetylene, ethane, carbon dioxide, and benzene. The planet appears at lower right, while its host star and surrounding circumstellar disk are visible in the background. [NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Gabriele Cugno (University of Zürich, NCCR PlanetS), Sierra Grant (Carnegie Institution for Science), Joseph Olmsted (STScI), Leah Hustak (STScI)]

And a slightly delayed announcement, but at least I got to share more molecules – the most recent issue of Free Astronomy Magazine (January-February 2026) is available for your reading and downloading pleasure in English, Italian, Spanish, French, Arabic, and Chinese at www.astropublishing.com (and facebook).

Work has also been light (no pun intended) on the editorial front with the articles being in English to start. A few folks on the Bluesky side have mentioned in past posts about the benefit for those trying to learn another language to have something (a) correct and (b) highly interesting to practice with, for which having six languages now represented covers quite a bit of territory. Not that the wait for the Universal Translator is going to be all that long at this point…

Posted on

Free Astronomy Magazine – November-December 2025 Issue Available For Reading And Download

Above: The Butterfly Nebula, located about 3400 light-years away in the constellation Scorpius, is one of the best-studied planetary nebulas in our galaxy. This stunning nebula was previously imaged by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Now, Webb has captured a new view of this nebula. Text from www.esa.int. Image available at www.almaobservatory.org.

The most recent issue of Free Astronomy Magazine (November-December 2025) is available for your reading and downloading pleasure in English, Italian, Spanish, French, Arabic, and Chinese at www.astropublishing.com (and facebook).

Closing out 2025 with "The Planet Issue," including the +6,000 now-confirmed extra-solar planets and two deep dives into TRAPPIST-1 (d and e).

Somewhere in my astronomy book collection is my first-print edition of the Peterson Field Guide to Star and Planets (right), containing an actual paper clipping from the Syracuse Herald-Journal (that old) about the discovery of the first exo-planet to be somewhat confidently detected – 51 Pegasi b – back in 1995.

My, how the times have changed.