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!

I’m back, baby!

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At last, I’ve got grit under my fingernails and fingers that can no longer operate a capacitive touch-screen phone (Seriously.  3 hours of exposure to silicon carbide, ground glass and a detergent-glycerin-water mixture have done something weird to my fingers so that my phone no longer thinks they’re human.  ooooh…..), and as a bonus I moved on to the next finer grade of abrasive! So I arrived at the class this afternoon, dodged a thunderstorm getting my mirror making kit … Continue reading →

Citizen Science – Moon Mappers

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For the past week, whenever I’ve had a few spare minutes to kill, I’ve logged into my Moon Mappers account and done my bit for lunar science.  A Cosmoquest project, the goal is to map out every single crater on the moon from imagery returned by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and find unusual structures that require study.  There are an enormous number of craters, however, so volunteers can choose between one of two sub-projects.  In the first, where I’m … Continue reading →

Who are we?

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Urban Astronomer I have been a keen amateur astronomer for as long as I can remember. When I was a small child, my parents would borrow library books on astronomy and my grandparents would arrange for members of the local astronomical society to come and visit me. When I started High School, my uncle gave me my first telescope, and as the years passed he loaned me a series of more powerful instruments which I treasured and used for many … Continue reading →

New beginnings

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Hello?  Anybody still reading this thing?  If you’ve given up on me and my project, I couldn’t blame you.  Things have been pretty silent for a long time now, for reasons I’ve gone into in more than enough details previously.  However, over the coming week I’ll be unpacking my mirror, reclaiming my bucket and spray bottle from the housekeeper’s cleaning cupboard, and preparing to pay a visit to the ATM class this saturday.  Meanwhile, I’m hoping to put in a … Continue reading →

2011 among hottest years on record

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NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies have just released their annual Surface Temperature Analysis report, in which they release their findings on average global temperatures for the previous year.  You can read the report here, but the gist of it is that 2011 was the ninth warmest year since accurate global measurements began in 1880.  That puts nine of the ten hottest years in recorded history in the 21st century, and all ten in the past 13 years.  The warmest … Continue reading →