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!
Worse news: My mirror is not only not a sphere, it isn’t even fully polished. For the first time, I got the glass properly clean (lots of running water and soap while soft wiping with thoroughly cleaned wet fingertips, rinsing with distilled water, drip-dried) and gave it the laser test. I shone a red laser pointed down onto the polished surface, and observed two spots: A bright one from the back surface of the glass, and a fainter (but still … Continue reading →
Astronomers waiting for their first chance to watch a supermassive black hole (SMBH) consume a vast cloud of in-falling gas have discovered a magnetar near the core of the Milky Way galaxy. By observing the magnetar’s behaviour as it orbits the SMBH, they will be able to test some of the more interesting consequences of Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity under more exotic conditions than ever before. Several years ago, astronomers discovered a vast cloud of gas and dust, containing several … Continue reading →
On 19 July 2013, the marvelous Cassini spacecraft will pause in its complicated orbital dance with Saturn and his moons to take an image of Earth silhouetted through the rings with it’s most high resolution camera. Reminiscent of Voyager 1’s iconic 1990 image “Pale Blue Dot”, the picture will show a pixel-sized Earth in natural colour to give a realistic view of how our home planet looks from over 1.4 billion kilometers away. Unusually, there doesn’t seem to be any specific … Continue reading →
Well it’s been a long time coming, but Urban Astronomer is finally hosting a Carnival of Space. This will be the 306th Carnival and for anybody who’s gotten this far without knowing what a Carnival of Space is, it’s a weekly collection of the most interesting news from around the web on space science and astronomy. Compilation follows: At the top of the list is long-time home of the Carnival, Universe Today with news about observations of Asteroid 1998 … Continue reading →
Here at Urban Astronomer, we’re big fans of Cosmoquest. They do great work at the interface between professional science and the general public, taking care of both outreach and citizen science projects. One day when I’m all grown up, I hope to work more closely with them. On a personal note, I once commented on one of their blog posts and in response got a goodybag of NASA material and a handwritten note from project director Pamela Gay in the … Continue reading →
