This week sees the UK’s biggest astronomy conference take place in Belfast. The location moves around but the news is always interesting and those attending always have fun. Institutions will be announcing results and nervous students will be giving some of their first major talks. NAM is always good fun…

Tonight: The Last Quarter Moon is in the morning sky. Look towards the south. The Moon is near the spout of the teapot of Sagittarius. With a telescope, look for the Apennine mountains. The Apennines are a 450 mile long curving mountain range forming the southeast wall of the Sea…

These are the top stories from the Digg Space category for the week ending Saturday 29th of March 2008:

• 1 13.7 Billion Years: Most Exact Measurement of Universe”s Age
• 2 Why matter matters in the universe
• 3 Gamma Ray Burst
• 4 Space Shuttle - 1, Bird - 0
• 5 Station, Moon and Earth

To find out what”s…

Tonight: Mars and Saturn are 53° apart in the evening sky. Look for Mars above the constellation of Orion the Hunter and below the twin stars of Gemini. Saturn is 3° from the star Regulus in Leo. Find Leo by extending a line below the bowl of the Big Dipper.…

Tonight: The waning gibbous Moon passes about 1° south of the star Antares. For observers far in the Earth”s southern hemisphere, the Moon occults the star. Look for the Moon and Antares in the predawn sky, low in the south.

Link to Skynotes

Apologies for the lack of blogging this week, I am away in Alabama. I have not been entirely disconnected from astronomy though. I have noted the reorientation of the stars, thusly commenting to all around me that this proves the Earth is round. I have been reading up on Native…

Tonight: The Moon is to the right of the constellation Scorpius the Scorpion. Look in the morning hours for the waning gibbous Moon and the star Antares, the heart of the Scorpion. Tomorrow morning, the Moon will pass very near Antares.Tonight: The International Space Station is expected to pass over…

Tonight: Jupiter and Saturn are 136° from each other in the predawn sky. Look for Jupiter in the southeast. Saturn is low in the west. The waning gibbous Moon is between the two giant planets low in the SSW.

Link to Skynotes

Tonight: Mars is 55° to the west of Saturn. Mars is moving eastward against the background star. Saturn is slowly moving westward. Saturn will end its retrograde motion in May but Mars will continue moving towards Saturn. The two planets will pass each other during the second week of July.…

Tonight: The Moon is near the star Spica. Spica is the brightest star in the constellation of Virgo the Maiden. Find Spica by extending a line from the handle of the Big Dipper. The line will arc to the star Arcturus. Continue the line and you will spy the star…

These are the top stories from the Digg Space category for the week ending Saturday 22nd of March 2008:

• 1 Light From Halfway to the Beginning of the Univer
• 2 Where is HD 189733?
• 3 Scientists Say that Mars is “Covered in Table Salt”
• 4 The UFO Phenomena - Religion or Science?
• 5 Sunset on Mars…

Tonight: The Moon is Full at 2:40 p.m. EDT. Look for the Moon at dusk in the ESE close to the horizon. With a telescope, look at the Moon for the rays of the crater Tycho. Tycho is a very prominant lunar crater. The rays radiate from the crater like…

This one could just be filed under ‘this is really cool’. Also, I can’t believe it has passed me by my entire life. Have you ever heard of a solar furnace? It’s a James- Bond-esque creation which focusses light from the sun on a massive scale to heat a very…

Tonight: The Sun crosses the celestial equator at 1:48 a.m EDT. This instant is known as the Vernal Equinox. Spring begins at this time for the northern hemisphere. Look for the Sun to rise due east and set due west. Daylight and darkness are approximately equal. The Sun is at…

This is my second conference poster and it is going up at the UK National Astronomy meeting in a couple of weeks. It will found in the Star Formation section of the conference proceedings. I have taken data from the HARP instrument on the JCMT and processed it as 3D…

As if Canadarm wasn’t the best name of anything in space (it’s a Canadian arm for the International Space Station), the Canadian Space Agency has now put Dextre into space. What is Dextre? Well he’s the hand to Canadarm’s arm.

The team that built him have kept referring to him as a…

Tonight: The Moon is below Saturn and Regulus. The ringed planet is 3.7° from the star Regulus in Leo the Lion. Saturn is still slowly moving towards Regulus. It will be 2.2° from the star at the start of May, when it will resume is normal west to east motion…

Two Oxford archaeologists have won the first ever ‘Dance Your PhD’ contest, which was held in Vienna last month. Dr Brian Stewart, (with help from one Giulia Saltini-Semerari) won the first annual contest by translating his thesis: “Refitting repasts: a spatial exploration of food processing, sharing, cooking and disposal at…

Tonight: Jupiter and Saturn are 135° apart. Look for the two gas giant planets two hours before sunrise. Jupiter is low in the southeast and Saturn is low in the west. The Moon will be setting to the lower right of Saturn. In the evening, look for the Moon very…

This is my first poster for a conference and it is going up at the UK National Astronomy meeting in a couple of weeks. Based on my SCUBA layer for Google Sky, it will found in the Education and Outreach section during the conference.

Tonight: A waxing gibbous Moon is in the constellation of Cancer the Crab. Two fist widths to the east of the Moon is the planet Saturn. Tomorrow the Moon will be closer to Saturn and the star Regulus. Mars is about four fist widths to the west of the Moon.…

Tonight: Mercury is 2.4° to the upper right of Venus. Both Venus and Mercury are rising a little more than a half hour before the Sun. Look with binoculars very close to the ESE horizon. The two planets are moving behind the Sun and will soon disappear from the morning…

Tonight: A waxing gibbous Moon is near the twin stars Castor and Pollux. Aim your telescope towards the Moon to look for the Straight Wall. The Straight Wall, also known as Rupes Recta, is a 67 mile long escarpment. The escarpment or cliff is about 1000 feet high. Look close…

These are the top stories from the Digg Space category for the week ending Saturday 15th of March 2008:

• 1 Spectacular Northern Lights in Iceland - Breathtaking
• 2 The puzzling “eye of a hurricane” on Venus
• 3 Google Sky Released!
• 4 Splendid View of Space Shuttle Endeavour, Kibo, and Dextre!
• 5 Endeavour into the Night

To…

Listen, I love APOD but I am a bit fed up of everyone on Digg filling up the digg/space category with endless APOD images. They’re very pretty, and we all like them, but how am I supposed to know when a really amazing one comes up if you all digg every…

Tonight: Today is Pi Day! 3.14. It”s a great day to eat a pie.Tonight: The Moon is very near the planet Mars. Mars is 60° west of Saturn. Mars is also 3.5° north of the star Eta Geminorium in Gemini the Twins. Mars is moving towards the ringed planet and…

Well what do you know, as soon as I make myself a wavelength slider for Google Sky, Google go ahead and pass me by by releasing the much anticipated web version of Google Sky complete with wavelength sliders. I still like my little mashup but I look forward to playing…

A new host for the Carnival of Space this week which you can find right here. Welcome to the community Missy Frye.

Tonight: A nearly First Quarter Moon is between Mars and the Pleiades. The Moon is close to the star Beta Tauri. Beta Tauri marks the tip of the northern horn of Taurus the Bull. Look for the Caucasus Mountains near the Moon”s terminator. The peaks of this 300 mile long…

Found this image via Digg and it’s so cool I thought I’d share. One of those pictures where the the photographer captured something we’re all fairly used to seeing in a different way.

Don’t forget to Digg it…

Tonight: The Moon is very near the Pleiades star cluster. During the daylight hours for North America, the crescent Moon passed in front of the star cluster. In the evening, the Moon will appear several degrees above the Pleiades. The Moon”s terminator, the line separating light and dark, is passing…