Author Archives: Allen Versfeld

About Allen Versfeld

Allen is an amateur astronomer, an IT professional, a podcaster, a father of five growing kids, a barely competent chess player, and the owner and publisher of the Urban Astronomer podcast and website. He has formerly served as Director of the Astrophotography and Citizen Science sections of the Astronomical Society of South Africa. You can find his personal social media feed on Mastodon!

Smash some galaxies together

Urban Astronomer avatarPosted on by

The dynamics of colliding galaxies are reasonably well understood.  Current models are producing more and more configurations that match the more exotic galaxy shapes observed by modern surveys, so we seem to have it down.  This is old news, but what amazes me is that while these simulations used to require massive processing power on supercomputers, you can now run your own simulations with a java app in your web browser.  Click through to http://burro.cwru.edu/JavaLab/GalCrashWeb/backgrnd.html, at the Astronomy Department of … Continue reading →

International Observe the Moon Night

Urban Astronomer avatarPosted on by

Tomorrow night is International Observe the Moon Night when people all over the world are encouraged to wait till dark and head outside with telescope, binoculars or just the plain only Mark I eyeball and look at the moon.  But we mean really look at it – take note of it’s phase, the patterns and shades of it’s features.  If you’re using binoculars, see the mountains and craters, observe how white rays stretching outwards from some craters but not others. … Continue reading →

Photos of Venus Occultation – Interview

Urban Astronomer avatarPosted on by

A few days ago, we announced that the Moon would be occulting Venus during afternoon of September 11 2001.  While I was unable to see it, Kerneels Mulder managed to snap a series of photos, which have been highlighted on Universe Today and Spaceweather.com.  We managed to catch up with him and ask him a few questions.  Read the interview here: Interview with Kerneels Mulder

Continue reading →

Jupiter to rival full moon!

Urban Astronomer avatarPosted on by

Forgive the exaggeration.  There’s actually no comparison between Jupiter and the moon. Jupiter is vastly bigger than the moon, although their distances are such that the moon appears quite large in our sky while Jupiter is only ever a bright point of light. Nevertheless, we are in for a spectacular view on 21 September when Jupiter will be at Opposition.  Opposition is the relative point in the orbits of Earth and Jupiter when the two planets are at their closest … Continue reading →

NASA doing just fine

Urban Astronomer avatarPosted on by

I have resolutely stayed out of the vigorous debate on the future of the American manned space program, for a number of reasons:  It’s a political problem that will be resolved (but probably not solved) by political methods – lobbying, petitions, ignoring voters, etc – and not by my humble opinion.  I am not a US citizen, so I don’t see why I should care if the US “Loses it’s dominance of space”.  I am just a humble amateur astronomer, … Continue reading →