Jedolby

Here's a challenge for you. Google "sidereal clock" and see if you can find one to buy. What's that you say? You found one for $250? Okay, but hold on there. If you Google "digital clocks" I think you'll find quite an assortment of affordable clocks, say, in the $10 to $25 price range. That's what I mean for my challenge: See if you can find an affordable sidereal clock to purchase. And I'm not talking about an app for your smartphone. Sure, you can certainly download a free "sidereal clock" app. No, I'm talking about a sidereal clock to place on your desk or hang on your wall.  What is a sidereal clock? Permit me to explain. All of our time keeping for daily activities is essentially solar time. At high noon, the sun hangs on our local meridians. It takes one day, or 24 hours for the sun to return to that spot since the previous day. But it's a somewhat complicated "return." The earth's rotation in roughly 24 ho...

Like a UFO, Clyde Tombaugh visited me the other night, while I was shooting target galaxies at 9 hours of Right Ascension. No, not Tombaugh the man. But rather the asteroid (1604) Tombaugh. While looking at my telescope's position on the sky in Cartes du Ciel  as it settled in on the galaxy trio NGC 2911, 2914, and 2919, I recognized Tombaugh's name in the periphery. Hmm. I've never taken a picture of (1604) Tombaugh, and here it is at around 15th magnitude. It'll be easy! Perhaps you've heard the story of young Clyde Tombaugh, son of a Kansas farmer, getting hired by Lowell Observatory in 1929, where he picked up the torch from Percival Lowell to discover the 9th major planet in our solar system. His discovery of Pluto in 1930 was one of 800 minor planets he came across in his many years of searching for the 9th planet. It was the first major planet to be discovered photographically, and also the first major planet to be discovered by an American. The method Tombau...