Jedolby

  You may have seen the online hype this month over two comets that are currently gracing our nighttime skies. We backyard astronomers are, of course, enjoying the views of these comets using our binoculars and telescopes, but we also know that they are far from being "Great Comets," much less being worthy of such widespread coverage by the news media. After all, any comet that one can only barely see with a pair of binoculars is not a comet that non-astronomers will appreciate. I, for example, might look at these comets using my 8x42 binoculars, and say, "Nice!" But if I were to hand my binoculars to a neighbor who knows nothing about backyard astronomy, they would do their best to follow my instructions as to where to look, and ultimately say, "I don't see anything," before handing the binoculars back to me. Now, you take, for instance Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS that was in our skies almost exactly one year ago. That was a much better comet than eithe...

Consolmagno.  Consolmagno? Where have I heard that name before? Oh, yeah! That's the Vatican Observatory guy, right?  Right!! Guy Consolmagno, according to Wikipedia, "is an American research astronomer, physicist, religious brother, director of the Vatican Observatory, and President of the Vatican Observatory Foundation." He has quite the pedigree. Wikipedia says that he "attended the University of Detroit Jesuit High School before he obtained his S.B. (1974) and S.M. (1975) degrees at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his Ph.D. (1978) at the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, all in planetary science." You can look him up on Wikipedia yourself, but I'll add here that Wikipedia says, "Known as 'The Pope's Astronomer,' he was named by Pope Francis to be the Director of the Vatican Observatory in September 2015." Oh, and one more thing from Wikipedia, "An asteroid was named in his honour by the Inter...