Happy New Year 2025
from Edmund Weiss’ “Bilder-Atlas der Sternenwelt: Eine Astronomie für jedermann” (1888) via Stephen Ellcock
“Splat from the Past” Podcast Interview
Tommy Kovac has made a name for himself interviewing actors from the 80s in his “Splat from the Past” podcast. Some of his interviewees are famous, most are obscure, but he’s genuinely excited to talk to them all. Here’s our talk from yesterday. I’m afraid to listen to it; I suspect it’s filled with … Read more
Super Duper Moon on Tuesday, September 17
The astronomers might be going a little overboard on this one: a harvest moon + a supermoon + a blood moon + a partial lunar eclipse. All happening tomorrow night, Tuesday, September 17, in a sky near you. From NPR: A celestial trifecta: What to know about Tuesday’s lunar eclipse September 16, 20245:00 AM … Read more
Double Meteor Showers This Week
From Newsweek: Double Meteor Shower Zooming Over Southern US States Tonight No telescope or binoculars required By Jess Thomson Two meteor showers are due to light up the night sky over the southern states simultaneously this week as they both peak within days of each other. The Southern Delta Aquariid meteor shower is due to hit its … Read more
First Man on the Moon – Fifty-Five Years Ago Today
From the BBC: Apollo 11 Moon Landing: Everything You Need to Know IMAGE SOURCE, NASA Apollo 11 Moon landing: Everything you need to know It’s 55 years since US astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong became the first people to walk on the Moon. Neil Armstrong stepped onto the surface of the Moon on 20 … Read more
The Great Comet of 1881
The Great Comet of 1881, as observed 142 years ago today on the night of June 25–26th. Plate XI from Étienne Léopold Trouvelot’s “Astronomical Drawings” (1882). See more imagery of comets, meteors, meteorites and shooting stars through the ages at The Public Domain Review’s “Flowers of the Sky,” https://buff.ly/2M7wVjn
2024 TENNESSEE WILLIAMS FESTIVAL
If you missed MAURICE CARLOS RUFFIN’s spectacular launch last night of his new novel, The American Daughters, here in New Orleans, then don’t despair. You can catch him next month at the 2024 Tennessee Williams and New Orleans Literary Festival, where he’ll join our panel “Creating the Writer’s City.” With Maurice to talk about why … Read more
Creative Writing Workshop at American Library – New Delhi, India
We had over a 100 people at my creative writing workshop at the American Library in Delhi on Saturday, October 21–surprising everyone, including myself. But the biggest surprise was that one of the attendees, a local Indian girl, had actually read one of my books. She found it on Goodreads during the pandemic, she … Read more
Comet ZTF–“The Green Monster”–Coming Soon to a Sky Near You
Comet ZTF, which I’ll call “The Green Monster,” is coming soon to a sky near you. This is its first return since the Ice Age, so if you miss it now, you’ll have to wait another 50,000 years to see it again. In the US, you might spot it before dawn on Saturday, Jan … Read more
Nebulae, Supernovae, and Stars Captured by Hubble Space Telescope
This collection shows 99 planetary nebulae (and “Gomez’s Hamburger,” a protoplanetary disk) imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope. Copyright Hubble / ESA / NASA; processed by Judy Schmidt CC BY 2.0