![]() ![]() Kelly Beatty, Senior Editor at Sky & Telescope, has been a part of the magazine’s editorial staff since 1974. While at sea, you'll have exclusive classes on solar and planetary science, oceanography, and space exploration led by these world-renowned experts: Then, while enjoying the comfort - and mobility - of our ship, you’ll revel in seeing totality for an estimated 2 m 7 s off the coast of Argentina. Pencil in some holiday shopping in Punta Arenas and Ushuaia, too. Our itinerary gives you opportunities to visit penguin rookeries, whale watch, take an excursion to an Antarctic military base, learn about the yerba mate tea culture, tango, and drink local wines. (Note: We will not set foot on Antarctic land.) Drink in four days of Antarctic beauty, maneuvering amid the continent's waters and icebergs. Sky & Telescope is pleased to announce a 2020 solar-eclipse expedition that will immerse you in an outdoor adventure that only South America and Antarctica offer!ĭuring our 23-day cruise aboard Holland America's ms Westerdam, you’ll gaze on Chilean fjords and glaciers, make an iconic passage around rugged Cape Horn, and sail the legendary Drake Passage. The eyes of eclipse-chasers worldwide are on the Southern Hemisphere, where the Moon's shadow will cross both in 2019 and on December 14, 2020. On Sky & Telescope's 2020 cruise, you'll explore many exciting ports of call - and close-up views of Antarctica - before witnessing a total eclipse of the Sun off the coast of central Argentina. Keep watch on BL Lac, and I guarantee you'll see its brightness fluctuate with the help of the comparison stars on the accompanying AAVSO wide-field and narrow-field finder charts.NOTE: Holland America has canceled all its cruises through December 15th, and unfortunately this cruise has been canceled. At 900 million light-years away it might just be one of the farthest things you'll ever see. American astronomer Edward Spiegel coined the term in 1978 by combining the "bl" from BL Lac, the first discovered and prototype, with quasar. But when a jet faces the Earth and we stare directly down the barrel of the gun, it's a blazar. As the material goes down the chute, it heats up and radiates an ungodly amount of energy, much of it beamed as jets of particles and radiation at near-light speed from its poles. ![]() +42° 16′ 40″.Ī blazar is basically a quasar - a supermassive black hole that gobbles up gas in the center of a galaxy. I've sketched in an asterism and magnitudes so you can match this wide view with the detailed finder charts available below. Use this map in conjunction with the AAVSO charts (links below) to find your way to the blazar BL Lacertae. Both are slowly brightening and will grace the skies for months, making them ideal subjects to watch evolve. ![]() Among its quarry are near-Earth asteroids, thousands of supernovae (6,600 classified to date), and numerous comets including our two featured objects. The survey scans the entire northern sky every two nights using an exceptionally wide-field CCD camera on the 48-inch Samuel Oschin Telescope at Palomar Observatory. There are two 10th-magnitude comets now visible in the evening sky, both discovered by the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) and bear its name - Comet ZTF (C/2020 V2) and Comet ZTF (C/2022 E3). "Look deep into nature," Einstein said, "and you will understand everything better." ZTF 2 Like watching a pair of birds build a nest and raise a family, the raw experience of natural behavior is positively exhilarating. That's why I try to follow them from start to finish through stasis and upheaval. Constant change combined with a bent toward capriciousness make these fuzzy solar system-trotters irresistible targets for amateurs. Comets crumble, undergo explosive outbursts, fail to brighten, and occasionally "birth" baby comets. ![]() While astronomers are good at predicting cometary behavior, surprises happen. A month later, they're clipping along at 5° or more a day. Some start their apparitions at a crawl, barely budging from night to night. On October 30, 2022, Comet ZTF E3 displayed a blue-green coma, compact nuclear region and two tails - a curved, yellow dust tail and a very faint ion tail pointing straight up from the comet's head.Įvery comet bright enough to see in one of my too-many telescopes is like a child I have the privilege of watching grow up. ![]()
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