Articles by Josef Chlachula

Visitors of the Frontenac State Park had on Saturday November 6 opportunity to see celestial object through telescopes. There were three stations with telescopes on parking loop in short distance from beautiful overlook. People could watch sliver only four days old Moon above southwest horizon not so far from brilliant Venus. On South were shining Jupiter and Saturn. And of […]

A bright nova ignited in the constellation Cassiopeia, which is also available in the binoculars. The current brightness is around 7.8 mag (March 19, 2021) and still is getting brighter. Nova was given the designation Nova Cas 2021. It can be found close to the M52. The flare of the nova discovered Japanese Yuji Nakamura March 18, 2021 as an […]

On Monday December 21, 2020 at 10:02 UTC (4:02 AM CST) Sun has reached the southernmost point in the Earth sky. Picture shows sunrise above Root River Park, even though sky was mostly cloudy. There was a surprise on the opposite side of the horizon in form of Sun dog, something rare to see.

Weather permitting, second half of the November is a good time to see Mercury on East horizon before sunrise! To spot Mercury can be difficult. On Friday November 13 2020 it was actually very easy. Mercury was visible under sliver of the Moon between two trees, as you can see on picture taken at 5:52 AM (exposure 1.3s, ISO 800). […]

The first three weeks of February 2020 there is good chance to spot elusive planet Mercury on the evening sky. Mercury is the innermost planet and doesn’t go far from Sun. This time of year Mercury can be seen on the evening sky about half hour after sunset. High above southwest horizon, there is also visible much brighter planet Venus. […]