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!
Welcome, come in to the 323rd Carnival of Space! The carnival is a community of space science and astronomy writers and bloggers, who submit their best work each week for your benefit. It’s my turn again, and it’s a bit special for it is to be the last article published on Urban Astronomer before we move hosts. I’m taking my time with the migration, as I want to get it right without losing any content (You realise there’s over 950 … Continue reading →
Apologies for the late posting, but as those who follow me on twitter or facebook could have told you, I just became a father again. The new arrival keeps me busy, so updates are slow. And with those excuses out of the way, let’s talk about the 318th Carnival of Space. This week’s carnival is hosted by Pamela Hoffman of Everyday Spacer, and packs in a varied program. If you click that link, you’ll learn about Apollo era lunar geology, … Continue reading →
Not so long ago, a discussion on the Google Plus “Amateur Astronomers” community led me to the Deep Sky Hunter Star Atlas. It’s a stunning effort by Michael Vlasov to create a completely free and downloadable star atlas covering the entire sky down to magnitude 10.2 (and including deep sky objects down to magnitude 14.0). It’s a small .pdf file (less than 50MB), but a serious print job: over a hundred A3 pages, double-sided. For the sake of portability, I … Continue reading →
It’s old news by now, but a very bright fireball streaked across the Southern African skies at about 11pm, 21 November 2009. My wife saw it first-hand, and this is how she descibed it: “At about eleven pm on Saturday night (21 November), the whole of Northern South Africa lit up. I was on a drive back from a wedding near Brits to Pretoria when the sky went bright white and then faded from purple to blue and then finally … Continue reading →
Guest post by Andrew Symes Just as “go-to” technology simplified the use of telescopes, astronomy apps are revolutionizing the way new and experienced stargazers find their way around the night sky. One of the newest apps is Starmap Media for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. Created by the makers of the Starmap and Starmap PRO planetarium apps, Starmap Media is designed for anyone looking to learn more about the night sky and astronomy in general. Part planetarium, part … Continue reading →
