ASTRONOMY 130: USEFUL WEB LINKS

OBSERVING THE SKY

• Observing highlights this week (Sky & Telescope)
• Monthly sky calendars and maps (Skymaps.com)
• Sun, Moon, Planet Data for Any Date(USNO)
• Your Sky (interactive planetarium)
• JPL Space Calendar (astronomical & space program events)
• American Meteor Society
• Observing Comets (Gary Kronk)
• Planet, Minor Planet, and Comet Ephemeris Service
• Espenak's Eclipse Home Page (everything you could possibly want to know about eclipses)
• Heavens Above (info on artificial satellites; good sky & constellation charts)
  • Heavens Above Charts for Charlottesville
  • Daily Planet Position Summary
• SpaceWeather.com (information on current sky & magnetospheric phenomena)
• Night Sky Live (continuous fisheye camera views of night sky from several observatories)
• The Messier Catalog of Deep-Sky Objects (SEDS)
• The Caldwell Catalog of Deep-Sky Objects (Wikipedia)
• SAO Star Catalog
• Celestron CPC Telescopes Instruction Manual (PDF)
• ASTR 130 Weather Page

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

• Astronomy Without a Telescope (introduction to naked-eye astronomy by Nick Strobel)
• Observational Astronomy for Amateur Astronomers (David Haworth)
• The Constellations & Their Stars
• Constellations, Stars, & Deep Sky Objects (Peoria Astronomical Society)
• The Nine Planets (multimedia tour of the solar system, many images & links)
• Views of the Solar system (ditto)
• Planetary Fact Sheets (data for each planet, Goddard SFC)
• Digital Photography Tutorial (Cambridge in Color)
• Astrophotography (J. Lodriguss)
• Digital SLR Astrophotography (M. Covington)

ASTRONOMICAL IMAGE SITES

• Astronomy Picture of the Day
• Anglo-Australian Observatory/David Malin (best set of color, ground-based photographs of astronomical objects)
• Hubble Space Telescope Image Archive
• JPL Photojournal Image Site
• Photo Archive at Views of the Solar System
• Science and Art, a variety of nice small telescope images by Bill & Sally Fletcher
• America the Beautiful at Night (nice night sky scenes from Wally Pacholka)
• Mt. Wilson Virtual Observatory (nice pix by C. Gino)

MAGAZINES, BOOKS, & NEWS

• Sky and Telescope Magazine
• Astronomy Magazine
• "Seeing in the Dark" (by Timothy Ferris); [Also in UVa Library]
• Spaceflight Now Website
• Space Ref Website

SOFTWARE

• Starry Night (best of the planetarium simulators)
• Master List of Astronomy Software
• Sky View Cafe: Free Java Applet for Sky Info/Charts

CURRENT NASA MISSIONS

• The Hubble Space Telescope
• Mars Exploration Rover Mission
• The Phoenix Mars Mission
• Cassini-Huygens Mission to Saturn
• Mercury Messenger Mission
• Spitzer Space Telescope (orbiting infrared telescope)
• Galaxy Evolution Explorer (orbiting ultraviolet telescope)
• Kepler Exoplanet Search Mission

OTHER

• Charlottesville Astronomical Society
• How to Fight Light Pollution
• Universe Within (Powers of Ten) (interactive Java tutorial, FSU)
• Bad Astronomy (devoted to debunking misconceptions, fraud, and pseudoscience in the media, run by UVa Astronomy grad Phil Plait)
• Skyview Virtual Observatory (retrieve images of sky in all EM bands from radio to X-ray)
• Astronomy Guide (web index & guide for amateur astronomy)
• Astronomy Links, Lists, & Newsgroups(Sky & Tel)
• AstroWeb (web index & guide for professional astronomy)
• International Year of Astronomy (2009) Home Site
• Bennett, Donahue, and Voit The Cosmic Perspective (ASTR 121 text publisher's web site)

Return to ASTR 130 Home Page

Last modified April 2009 by R. W. O'Connell