Build Telescopes

You're probably already impressed at some of the photos amateur astrophotographers can capture with their 16-megapixel digital cameras. I know I am. That's why I'm beefing up my camera skills, so I can also take some amazing pictures of our skies above. But if you can take pho ...more

WonderHowTo is a how-to website made up of niche communities called Worlds, with topics ranging from Minecraft to science experiments to Scrabble and everything in-between. Check in every Wednesday evening for a roundup of user-run activities and how-to projects from the most ...more

The peak of the Lyrid meteor shower of 2012 was the night of Saturday, April 21, and I went to Whiskeytown Lake near Redding, California and took about 1,000 pictures. I used 3 Panasonic GH2s with various lenses and edited all of the shots together to make the time-lapse video ...more

Forget backpacking through the Himalayas— Google lets you enjoy the vistas from the comfort of your own home with Google Earth. Forget about snorkeling on your next trip to the Bahamas— you can go under the sea without even getting wet with Google Ocean. Forget about stargazin ...more

How about a laser? One that is strong enough to nudge debris out of earth orbit. That's what NASA contractor James Mason wants to do, and his lab simulations suggest that the idea is possible. Mason wants to use a 5kW ground-based laser and a ground-based 1.5 meter telescope t ...more

If you haven't seen one, a comet is one of the most spectacular astronomical objects in the sky, partially because it is so close to Earth. At the closest, it is only 1.3 a.u. (194,477,400 kilometers) away from Earth. Comet C/2009 P1 Garradd was discovered by Gordon J. Garradd ...more

Have you ever felt the desire to reach out and touch a galaxy? Or "feel" those stunning nebulas and planets you see in Hubble photos? As alluring as it sounds, it's safe to say the odds of your whim coming true are nonexistent. You'd have to travel about 6 earth years and spen ...more

Grab your binoculars and telescopes, because there's a lot going on in the night skies this week. The usually dim Little Dipper will appear brighter as it moves to the right of Polaris, creating a cool effect with the Big Dipper. There's also a first-quarter moon and a really ...more

NASA announced yesterday that their Kepler mission has discovered the first Earth-sized planets orbiting a sun-like star outside of our solar system. Could this mean aliens? Unfortunately, no. The two newly discovered planets, Kepler-20e and Kepler-20f, are 0.87 and 1.03 time ...more

Earlier this year, NASA reported on findings that might point to water, and microbial life, on moons orbiting Jupiter and Saturn. Named Europa and Enceladus, those moons contain large oceans under their icy surfaces, which many speculate could hold microbial life. On Earth, l ...more

What's the next best thing to being an official scientist? Being a non-official one. A new website called Science for Citizens helps you find the science experiment of your dreams, hook up with the scientists involved, and actually take part in the experiment itself. Here are ...more

When photographer Gerco De Ruijter set out to reveal "the Dutch culturally defined landscape"—a hard regiment of efficiency, gridded out by urban and rural planners—he came up with a beautiful aerial representation of abstract patterns. The series, entitled Baumschule, was cap ...more

With smartphone cameras and software getting better and better every year, more and more users are getting passionate about photography. So when you're shopping for a gift to get someone, if they have a smartphone, chances are they'll more than appreciate some tools and access ...more

When Cerek mentioned astronomy-inspired artwork in his Astronomy World introduction post, I immediately thought of Russell Crotty. Crotty is a California artist who creates beautiful sculptures and drawings inspired by astronomy, landscape, and surfing. An enthusiastic amateu ...more

A little about myself and astronomy: I created this world because I love astronomy. I really, really, love astronomy. When I was ten, I went to a restaurant and saw a huge wall mural of the Andromeda Galaxy. At my house, we had a tiny refractor telescope. I knew this wasn't en ...more

I managed to take a few snapshots of the solar eclipse in the Malibu area, where it was just a partial. Just wanted to share a few. I've still got the same setup as when I took my supermoon pics, but hopefully one day I'll be able to get something bigger than my 105mm capabili ...more

Every Friday, Next Reality reviews the latest headlines from the financial side of augmented and mixed reality. This weekly Market Reality column covers funding announcements, mergers and acquisitions, market analysis, and the like. This week's column starts with a stock price ...more

I took a telescope mount from a tripod and converted it so it could be mounted on a microphone stand. For a step-by-step guide please visit my project at Make: http://makeprojects.com/Project/Mic+Stand+Camera+Mount+-+Steadycam+-+Camera+Boom/2770/1

In 2006, everything that revolved around my world shattered into tiny pieces as I learned that scientists had decided to rescind Pluto's planetary status. Given the ol' Jeff Probst treatment, Pluto was officially voted off our solar system in the blink of an eye, leaving us wi ...more

If you haven't heard the buzz about BioShock: Infinite, then you for sure are not cool enough to read this. We've been dishing out a few of the game's achievements and trophies, and we have another ready for you guys. While this one might not be as cool as the Heartbreaker or ...more

Thought I would cross-post a piece I did a while ago. So here is a piece I made a while back. I found this brass and glass bottle at the thrift store. At the time of purchase it had a broken music box on the bottom. I actually was able to fix the music box and it plays "How D ...more

So, I managed to take some pics last night of the supermoon. I was dropping someone off at LAX right around perigee, so all of the images I took off the side of the road were horrible, since there were tall buildings everywhere and nothing but street and parking lot lights blo ...more

Earlier today, a meteorite flew over the Chelyabinsk region of Russia, triggering a shock wave that injured hundreds of people and caused damage to buildings and vehicles in the area. Witnesses describe seeing a bright ball of light streak through the sky followed by a loud bo ...more

It's taken me several weeks to figure out the Meade Coronado SolarMax II 60 Double Stack telescope that I bought to produce a timelapse video of the solar eclipse but I'm pretty happy with the images I can produce now. Here's hoping for clear skies tomorrow! Here's a full unc ...more

Later today, an asteroid the size of a city block (about 3,000 feet wide) called 2002 AM31 will fly by the Earth. It will still be about 3.2 million miles away, so there's nothing to be worried about, but you can watch it make its journey in real-time online. 2000 AM31 now, as ...more

Whether you want to give a gift that your loved one has wanted all year or one that they never even knew existed, there's something awesome for everyone in these gifts. Just as exciting as their innovative features is their price. We've found the best deals on gadget gifts fo ...more

Hubble Catches Star Consuming Its Planet Hubble Telescope has discovered a planet-eating star.  According to NASA, the star is currently consuming the planet Wasp-12b.  But don't worry about missing this phenemona. Scientists say the star could take 10 million years to swal ...more

This guy made his own telescope, and you're never going to guess what he used for the body.

Researchers have created a possible replacement for traditional camera lenses, using an "optical phased array" to function as both a lens and sensor of a camera. The project from researchers at the California Institute of Technology is the first ever camera that works without ...more

Fads, Fiascoes and Good Stuff in FrontierVille This Week The second in a series of weekly columns. Fads first It’s still St. Patrick’s Day in FrontierVille, but it looks as though its days are numbered. I give it 'til the end of the month. Trees are in full summer leaf and ...more

Video: . Extraterrestrial life is life that does not originate from Earth. It is also called alien life, or, if it is a sentient and/or relatively complex individual, an "extraterrestrial" or "alien" (or, to avoid confusion with the legal sense of "alien," a "space alien"). Th ...more

The recent report of the ubiquity of extrasolar planets coupled with the fact that it bodes well for searches for life friendly Earth twins, brought me back to my reading of Carl Sagan's 1966 Intelligent Life In The Universe and later article in Sky & Telescope where he came u ...more