I had Bruce and Kelly, the astronomers, on Tuesday. We made star wheels to show us how the stars move across the sky at different times of the night year round. We talked about how the position of the earth’s orbit around the sun affected what we could see in the night sky. We did [...]

I’m going to be the featured speaker at the Annual Cookout meeting of the Amateur Astronomical Society of Rhode Island (known as the Skyscrapers) on July 10th at 4:00pm. The title of my talk, “Fame, Fortune and Discoveries in the Occult” is a play on the ‘other’ meaning of occult, but since I’m an astronomer [...]

The paper on 2002 TX300 or KBO 55636 was (finally) published in Nature magazine.  It’s exciting for me, because even though I was one of many researchers involved in the project, it was a first in science and a first for me, though I hope it won’t be the last. Jim Elliot and his team were able [...]

Last winter I showed off the SCORE setup at the monthly meeting of my astronomy club. Bob Naeye, Editor in Chief of Sky and Telescope, was at the meeting and took special interest in the Amateur Telescope Makers of Boston’s cooperative participation with the MIT Planetary Astronomy Lab’s research on Kuiper Belt Objects. Bob later contacted me to ask more [...]