Venus

LUWD #0013 – Private Star Parties, Comet Atlas, Venus Meets the Pleiades

On: March 31, 2020

LUWD #0003 – Star Magnitudes And A Comet That Almost Got Away

On: January 21, 2020

Venus dances with Neptune, the magnitude scale explained, a new faint comet and let’s look at a bright comet. Podcast 3 Star Map 1 Podcast 3 Star Map 2 Podcast 3 Star Map 1 Podcast 3 Comet Hunting for 2020, Hours and CometsContinue Reading

LUWD #0002 – Starlink Satellites and Binoculars

By: Donald Machholz

On: January 14, 2020

Starlink satellites, binoculars for astronomy, Betelgeuse, The Pleiades Pod 0002 Star MapContinue Reading

LUWD #0001 – Lunar Eclipses, Betelgeuse and Meteor Showers

By: Donald Machholz

On: January 7, 2020

Penumbral lunar eclipses, the stars Betelgeuse and Castor, and the Quadrantids meteor shower.Continue Reading

is an American amateur astronomer, who is number one in the world for visual comet discoveries. Credited with the discovery of 12 comets, that include the periodic comets 96P/Machholz, 141P/Machholz, the non-periodic C/2004 Q2 (Machholz) that were visible with binoculars in the northern sky in 2004 and 2005, C/2010 F4 (Machholz), and most recently C/2018 V1 (Machholz-Fujikawa-Iwamoto) ^[1]^[2] In 1985, comet Machholz 1985-e, was discovered using a homemade cardboard telescope with a wide aperture, 10 inches across, that gave it a broader field of view than most commercial telescopes.^[3] Amateur astronomer Machholz utilizes a variety of methods in his comet discoveries, in 1986 using 29×130 binoculars he discovered 96P/Machholz.^[4]