Free Astronomy Magazine – March-April 2025 Issue Available For Reading And Download

Above: I'm an American. Of course it's in the middle (and apologies if I, er, cut you off). Light pollution map as of the data available on 8 March 2025. See the excellent/astronomically depressing details at lightpollutionmap.info.

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

The March-April 2025 cover. Click to go to the issue.

Two very young children, COVID, and life in general kept me indoors most evenings (and away from observing) for much of 2020-2021. What I do vividly remember around mid-March 2021 was taking out the garbage a little bit earlier in the morning than usual and seeing a massive celestial caravan moving from west-to-east through a crystal-clear sky. At that moment, I was astounded at the progress SpaceX had made with Starlink, as I'd never seen anything that massive and coordinated and that fast in the sky before (and that includes seeing a space shuttle undock from the ISS over the course of two full orbits, which itself I won't soon forget).

I personally do not know any amateur astronomer who considers that caravan "progress" (feel free to correct me). The good fight from darksky.org, the now-defunct SELENE-NY, whose web presence ended around 2019 (last snap – web.archive.org/web/20190101182128/http://selene-ny.org/; skipping what might be a hacked site, a link and mention is, for instance, skykeepers.org/activism.html), and other local, national, and international organizations seems most up-the-hill as we progress upwards. If it were easy for astrophotographers to plant their gear just past the edge of GEO, it would likely be a different situation. But that's a long time in waiting (because they spent all their money on gear and can't affords rockets and space platforms).

In the defense of progress, very little in the nighttime sky will get a crowd of 200 people looking at the exact same location faster than a pinpoint of light hauling in front of a field of stars. I have no doubt that the sight of a satellite can be a gateway for someone into the hobby (or into one of the many associated professions).

The problem remains far worse here on the ground, as even the darkest of dark skies are seeing light pollution either slowly or rapidly advance (see the cover article above). The tension continues.

Free Astronomy Magazine – November-December 2024 Issue Available For Reading And Download

Above: Among other events to look forward to, 2025 should be excellent for more aurora with our Sun being in/just past solar max. Even lousy fish-eye lens aurora pics from the light polluted near-suburbs of Rochester with no forethought into optimizing the capture should still be completely reasonable this coming year.

The most recent issue of Free Astronomy Magazine (November-December 2024) is available for your reading and downloading pleasure in English, Italian, Spanish, French, and Arabic at www.astropublishing.com (and facebook).

Running past the finishing line for the year with a slew of exceptionally well-presented NASA, ESA, CSA, ESO, and NOIRLab articles that go from the Kitt Peak Visitor Center to Barnard’s Star to the very, very edge of it all.

Also looking into 2025 for notable space and space science missions, for which Suni and Butch's return to Earth is a major event for the household (as Suni's tour of the ISS was on our dinner playlist for months), ESA's BepiColumbo will finally settle into Mercury's orbit in early December, NASA's own Lucy will be flying by asteroid Donaldjohanson (get it?) in late April, and a bunch of other missions will be reaching milestones.

Free Astronomy Magazine – January-February 2024 Issue Available For Reading And Download

Above: A side-by-side comparison of the Crab Nebula as seen by the Hubble Space Telescope in optical light (left) and the James Webb Space Telescope in infrared light (right). The Hubble image was released in 2005, while astronomers have recently used Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) and MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) to reveal new details of the Crab Nebula. Hubble Image: NASA, ESA, J. Hester, A. Loll (Arizona State University); Webb Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, T. Temim (Princeton University).

The most recent issue of Free Astronomy Magazine (January-February 2024) is available for your reading and downloading pleasure in English, Italian, Spanish, French, and Arabic at www.astropublishing.com (and facebook).

Michele Ferrara's cover story ("Is the universe really 26.7 billion years old?") ends with the following question:

Let us conclude by asking ourselves a question: “Is it credible that a century of cosmological studies, which have seen among the protagonists some of the best minds ever, have led to underestimating the age of the universe by almost 50%?”

Michele Ferrara, Free Astronomy Magazine

Soon after proofing the article for the final edition of the issue, "some blogger…" Dr. Ethan Siegel (who had single-handedly saved the lives of myself (when I was doing it) and hundreds of other astronomy club newsletter editors by providing fantastic content for free via the Night Sky Network and ye olde NASA Space Place (back when it was the host for those articles). And may I furthermore plug Ethan's also-fantastic interviews on The Space Show)) posted to twitter the year-end summary "The 10 most overhyped physics and astronomy claims from 2023" (subtle), which includes the quite-topical July 18th article "Is the Universe 13.8 or 26.7 billion years old?" That article closes as follows (sorry to ruin it for you if you didn't read it, but read it anyway for the details):

The Universe might not be fully understood, but its age is definitely 13.8 billion years old, and absolutely cannot be 26.7 billion years old based on the evidence at hand.

Ethan Siegel, Starts With A Bang

We shall hold our breath and see what future data reveals.

Browser-readable version (and PDF download): www.astropublishing.com/1FAM2024/