July/August 2022

Current Issue

Stories
This image by Alan Dyer from May 2018 is a panorama of the summer Milky Way arcing over the Red Deer River and badlands of Dry Island Buffalo Jump Provincial Park in Alberta. | SkyNews
01 —

Tour the summer Milky Way

Alan Dyer reveals his pick of top 10 targets along the summer Milky Way, ideal for binoculars.

Canadian Space Agency astronaut Robert Thirsk celebrates 25 years of Canadian space flight in the Harmony node of the International Space Station. Suspended in the foreground is a photo of the first team of Canadian astronauts, circa 1983. Back row, from left to right: Ken Money, Marc Garneau, Steve MacLean and Bjarni Tryggvason. Front row, left to right: Robert Thirsk and Roberta Bondar. | SkyNews
02 —

Exploring space

Astronaut Robert Thirsk recounts his first journey into space.

Shane Ludtke of the Actual Astronomy Podcast with a 50mm f/5 Borg telescope. | SkyNews
03 —

Earful of stars

Eric Klaszus interviews Saskatchewan’s Chris Beckett and Shane Ludtke, hosts of The Actual Astronomy Podcast.

The Pingualuit crater was evacuated in a nanosecond impact explosion. The people leading the hike are just visible on the rim in the far distance. | SkyNews
04 —

Lasting impacts

Crater explorer Charles O’Dale explores the legacy of space rocks that have smacked into Canadian soil.

The galactic core area of the northern summer Milky Way over the Blakiston Valley and Blakiston Creek in Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta, on July 12, 2021. Sagittarius is at left over Vimy Peak, with Scorpius at right. The pink Lagoon Nebula, Messier 8, is at top, and the globular cluster Messier 22 is at upper left. | SkyNews
05 —

Low effort, high reward

Tips on how to succeed in astronomy without really trying.

Finder charts for Lucian Kemble’s Cascade and Kite, covering 20 × 40 degrees. | SkyNews
06 —

Skyward Canucks

Chris Vaughan highlights Canadians who are memorialized in the stars.

The summer Milky Way in 2018 with Mars at extreme left, Jupiter at extreme right and fainter Saturn near the centre of the image embedded in the Milky Way. | SkyNews
07 —

Plenty of planets

Brian Ventrudo writes about Saturn at opposition, a meteor shower and more in Exploring the Night Sky.

A screenshot of AstroPlanner, the only native Mac product available. Powerful automatic list-generation tool. | SkyNews
08 —

You need a plan

Spend less time slewing and more time viewing with astronomy planning software.

A view of Orion and the winter sky low in the south from a latitiude of 70 degrees north, near Oksfjord, Norway, in October 2018. This demonstrates the low altitude of southern constellations from far northern latitudes. (Alan Dyer) | SkyNews
09 —

Stories in the stars

A list of asterisms from hundreds of cultures around the world is now available through The Royal Astronomical Society of Canada.

July 11, 2020. At about 3:30 a.m., I drove north out of Steinbach, Manitoba, and parked on a relatively dark service road to observe Comet NEOWISE. The comet was low in the sky and bright enough to be viewed with the naked eye, but I had my 15 × 70mm binoculars, which brought much of the comet’s detail into focus. | SkyNews
10 —

Boost your binos

Amateur astronomer Christopher Friesen reveals how to get the best out of your binoculars.