My latest Houston public library sidewalk astronomy event was moved indoors to the “program place” on the 4th floor so I thought I would throw together some free and easy astronomy tips to share. When the weather won’t cooperate there are other ways to get that astronomy fix!
Astronomy is one of the oldest of human past times. You DO NOT need expensive equipment or software to poke around in the world of astronomy.
One of the easiest things you can do is just use your eyes! If you want a map of what’s up in the sky, you can actually get a good one for free online at SkyMaps.com. Then you can start locating and naming constellations and star patterns and learning the names of the brightest stars which can indeed be seen from the city. The SkyMap comes with highlights of what’s good to see in the night sky and upcoming celestial events. It even works for both hemispheres and comes in multiple languages. There is a new one every month so check it out.
Then there is free and fantastic astronomy software that can turn your computer into a planetarium. In fact the software is used at the Houston Museum of Natural Science planetarium from time to time. It’s called Stellarium and works with Windows, Mac, and Linux. Did I mention it’s free!
Then of course there is the Astronomy Picture of the Day which has a different astronomical image posted daily. You can also see what the sun is up to over at the Solar Dynamics Observatory website. Up to minute coverage means you can see what crazyness the sun has in store for us and HD too.
