Night Sky

These are my cell phone photos taken through a 203mm telescope, zooming in on successive shots. The last image identifies craters by name. Things to notice: 1) Sinus Iridum is partly buried. 2) Rays of brighter material fan out from Kepler Crater. 3) A mountain peak within Lansberg Crater is visible in close-up. I took these photos during the morning of March 27, 2025.

The night sky, when viewed from a dark rural location on a clear evening, is a spectacle of stars. Some of these stars shine quite brightly, forming familiar constellations such as Orion the Hunter, or creating distinctive shapes like the Summer Triangle. Other stars shine less brightly. The individual brightness of a star is determined by a combination of how much light it creates and its distance from Earth. These two fundamental characteristics result in varying levels of brightness among the stars we observe. To quantify and describe the brightness of stars, astronomers use the concept of magnitude. Magnitude and its Logarithmic Scale The magnitude of an astronomical object refers to its apparent brightness as observed from Earth. Historically, the ancient Greeks called the brightest stars first-magnitude stars, with the dimmest visible stars described as sixth-magnitude stars. Magnitudes 2, 3, 4, and 5 fell in between. The key takeaway from this early classification is that the lo...

  Here are my photos of a lunar eclipse through varying clouds. It was nice to watch even though I couldn't get a clear sky image. I took the photos on March 14, 2025, using a cell phone camera on a 203mm Newtonian telescope.

A fellow amateur astronomer and I, both members of the Auburn Astronomical Society, headed to scout camp with our telescopes to share the night sky with several dozen Cub Scouts and their families on a perfect, moonless autumn evening. Our purpose was to introduce them to the cosmos in a new way. I set up my telescope, focusing on the evening’s highlight: Saturn. Meanwhile, my colleague aimed his telescope at Vega, a bright star positioned high in the sky. Though we had only two objects in our lineup, each had a story. As the families trickled in, my counterpart welcomed the first few kids to his telescope. Vega didn’t reveal much detail; stars, even seen through a telescope, tend to look like brighter versions of themselves. But my colleague was well prepared to share Vega’s story. He explained that it was about 25 light-years away and described what that distance meant—light that had left Vega 25 years ago was only just now reaching us.    The group then made their way to m...

In the summer of 2022, I started a podcast called A Backyard Astronomer's Diary as a creative outlet. The podcast ran for ten episodes before I ended production. The reasons I ended it were twofold: first, it was taking me two months to produce an episode—too slow to effectively build an audience. Second, I wasn't satisfied with how my scripted approach worked in audio format. I decided the scripts conveyed their content better in written form. The first episode, presented as a written piece, is shared below. I've included the original illustrations that were available on the podcast website. I'll be editing and posting excerpts from additional episodes in coming weeks. Enjoy! A Backyard Astronomer's Diary, Episode One: An Introduction and Observing the Seedling Greetings from Montgomery, Alabama, USA. This is A Backyard Astronomer's Diary with Jim Harstad. In this episode: An Introduction and Observing The Seedling. I'm an amateur astronomer. I'm not a ...

Going old-school with a blog! Here you'll find a mix of stuff I've written, old and new. I'll be adding content gradually, so the site may be a bit sparse at first. Feel free to explore and check back for updates!