Thursday, June 30, 2011

Astro-LINKS (local and general)

Sky and Telescope Magazine
            - this week’s sky at a glance:
            - top ten telescope questions:

Stellarium 
 (a FREE high quality night-sky simulation /planetarium software program; avb. for PC or Mac)
             http://www.stellarium.org/ 

Star-Map downloads (free):
http://www.midnightkite.com/starcharts.html   = good basic map for the money (free!)
http://www.cloudynights.com/item.php?item_id=1052    = higher detail / more complicated

Moon-Phase CheetSheet (LINK) = everything you need to know for learning the Moon's cycle

Allegheny Observatory
Sorry, it seems Blogger can't handle the the observatory's address. Solution: click the link below; it will take you to a 404 error page; once there, ignore the text and simply place your mouse-cursor active in your browser's address-line and hit your "enter" key; it works...

Amateur Astronomers Association of Pittsburgh (AAAP) :
            http://3ap.org/

Mingo Creek Park Observatory   (off Rte. 88 between Finleyville and Monongahela PA)

AAAP (Amateur Astronomers Association of Pittsburgh) STAR PARTY Schedules 
for Wagman Observatory( Deer Lakes Park, North Hills) and Mingo Creek (South Hills)
            http://3ap.org/starParties.shtml

Bad Astronomy.com

Messier Objects
            http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Messier_objects

2012 - ? TWO THOUSAND SHMELVE !  Why the world probably wont end in December of 2012 
           http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/2012-the-end-of-the-world/

SpaceWatchtower 
a space and science news-blog by GAWalsh, a local space enthusiast and community activist