Buying a Telescope: How to Avoid Being Rippped Off
If your kid is crazy for Astronomy, get your hands on a $25 copy of Guy Ottewell’s Astronomical Calendar. You won’t find a better, more complete yearly almanac of astronomy anywhere. (In fact, most sources use Ottewell’s information in their publications.)
If a telescope is in your near future, here are a few of my personal recommendations. (Please note that I do not sell any of these telescopes, nor do I get paid for posting these links. Think of this as a sneak peek into my personal collection.)
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Well, I wasn’t sure where to put this, since this is un-related to this material. I just thought of this question last night as I went outside and looked at the moon. There was a clear definite huge circle, almost like a bubble, around the moon. It is still there tonight, just very faintly. I found out that this was a halo, but what does that mean? What IS a halo? How come we see it? How long does it last?
THANK YOU, Aurora! You are so awesome to do this for all of us!
-Stephanie T
Did it look like this image above? If so, it’s called a ‘moon dog’ (although scientists call it paraselene) is a bright circular spot on a lunar halo. This happens when ice crystals way high up in the atmosphere refract the moonlight (change the speed/direction of the moon light) . When there’s a lot of high clouds, like cirrostratus, you’ll find this ring around the moon. They opposite of a moon dog is a sun dog (no kidding), which is the ring around the sun also caused by light being bent by ice crystals. If you take a picture of a moon dog on film, you’ll pick up different colors you can’t see with the naked eye.
Wow.
That really clears it up! Thank you!