The Backyard Astronomer

The best meteor shower of summer belongs to the Perseids. The entire shower lasts from July 14 to September 1 with the peak period being the night of August 12 into the morning of the 13. But the night before and after should still result in a spectacular cosmic show. The first quarter moon will set on the 12th around ...

  For most of Canada and the USA, the April 8 total solar eclipse was a partial event with most of the sun being covered by the moon. However, for those who drove to the specific 200-kilometre-wide path of totality stretching from Texas to Newfoundland, the show was spectacular. I have seen partial solar eclipses including an annular in the ...

The annual Geminid meteor shower will peak on the night of  Dec 13 into the morning of the 14th. This shower will produce up to 120 meteors per hour with some bright fireballs. Annual meteor showers are produced when Earth crosses debris fields from comets as we orbit the sun, this is why various showers occur at the same time ...

The night of October 5-6, 1923, forever changed the way astronomers saw and studied the cosmos. It was believed the Milky Way we see on clear moonless nights was the ‘universe’. Little did they know a simple 45-minute photograph would throw them a curve. It was long suspected a small patch of light located in the constellation of Andromeda was ...

A few times each year the sun, moon and Earth perform a cosmic lineup in space producing an eclipse. This year our planet will witness two solar and two lunar events. On Saturday, October 14, 2023, skywatchers along a path starting in Oregon through Nevada, Utah, New Mexico and ending in Texas will see an annular eclipse of the sun. ...

The highlight of any summer other than camping and going to the cottage is viewing the annual Perseid Meteor Shower. This year the peak night occurs on the night of August 12 into the morning of the 13th. We should see 60 to 80 meteors (commonly called shooting stars) dashing through the sky at 59 km/second, lighting up the night. ...

  Our daytime star is an enormous ball of hot plasma. Like a string of pearls, 109 earths line up side by side across its equator and 1.3 million of our worlds would fit inside. Ever since its birth some five billion years ago, the sun has been producing light we see and enjoy, via nuclear reactions deep in its ...

The night sky is a fantastic collection of tiny dots. Most of these light sources are faint while a few are noticeably brighter. In addition to seeing hundreds or even thousands of distant suns residing at extreme distances, we can see the planets of our solar system.   Referred by the Greeks as the “wanderers”, five planets can be seen ...

What better way to open the new year than by spotting a hopefully bright comet? It is referred to as comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) and it could be putting on a decent show in northern skies throughout January. This will be a great chance to test that new set of binoculars or telescope you may have received for Christmas.   ...

  Some three billion years ago, Mars was believed to have been a water world just like earth. It possessed great oceans and was most likely on its way to forming life in one form or another. Water is made up of hydrogen, the most common element in the universe and oxygen, the third most common element. Water is extremely ...

  It is often said, a picture is worth a thousand words and the first images from the James Webb Space Telescope did not disappoint. During the news conference on July 12, the world had a ringside seat to the most remarkable images of the universe ever taken. Over the hour, five images left us wanting more. This is only ...

For the most part, this past February 15 seemed like any ordinary day. We recognized Flag Day as the Canadian maple leaf that was first raised in Ottawa in 1965. But things played out differently on the surface of the sun with a huge explosion known as a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) into space. The good news for us, this ...

Looking back to 2021, there were many great space stories in the news including two lunar eclipses back in May and November. By coincidence, two more total lunar eclipses will occur in May and November 2022. We were also entertained by three great meteor showers in January, August and December but the moon ran major interference. The Northern Lights were ...

  As the sun sets in the west, the sky slowly turns pastel shades from light to dark blue. This is my favourite time of evening as the brighter stars and planets begin to reveal themselves. Over the next twenty minutes, more tiny dots emerge like celestial popcorn. About an hour after sunset, the sky is full of stars as ...

July and August are typically deemed the hottest months of the year in Canada. Nights can be warm and sultry making it difficult to sleep without air conditioning.  A term that you might have heard to describe this season of heat is the “Dog Days of Summer”. It begins in the first week of July and could last a couple ...