Planetary Observers: My name is Ioannis (Yannis) A. Bouhras and I’m a keen amateur astronomer now living in Athens Greece. Astronomy has always been a popular with all kind of people, especially since the arrival of the “Space Age”. Astronomy can be enjoyed even if the only optical instrument that you have is a pair of binoculars or a very small telescope. There is something for everyone in observational astronomy. Some like to study the sun or the Moon, which are especially suitable for those owning only modest telescopic equipment. Others prefer ‘deep sky’ observing and love to probe the depths of space with the largest telescopes that they can afford and enjoy the satisfaction of locating and identifying bright and faint stars clusters, galaxies and nebulae that abound in our universe. Still others like to hunt for comets or keep track of the brightest changes in variable stars, or plot the paths of meteors. Many who are also keen photographers couple their cameras to their telescopes and delight in taking portraits of their favorite celestial objects. So – why observe the planets?
Observation of the planets is rewarding because there is always something new to see and record that may be added to the continually growing body of planetary knowledge. There is even a big change that a dedicated amateur may make a discovery.
We think of the Moon as a dry and dusty sort of place, but over the years, scientists have learnt that Earth’s satellite is actually rather loaded with water – in volcanic deposits, in its chilly poles, in the permanent shadows of its craters. But it looks like water has also been hiding somewhere else, …
Launched on March 31, 1972, the Kosmos 482 spacecraft was supposed to voyage to Venus as part of the Soviet Union’s Venera program. Its sister probe, Venera 8, blasted off four days earlier, and eventually touched down on Venus in July 1972, becoming the second lander to accomplish this feat. The USSR remains the only …
Hayabusa2 has been eyeing Ryugu since mid-2018 when it first began creeping up on the asteroid that floats between Earth and Mars in an elliptical orbit. The craft finally touched down on the roughly 3,168-feet in diameter space rock on Friday morning Japanese time and fired a bullet-like device into its surface to collect asteroid …
