May 2004

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The world's best-selling astronomy magazine offers you the most exciting, visually stunning, and timely coverage of the heavens above. Each monthly issue includes expert science reporting, vivid color photography, complete sky coverage, spot-on observing tips, informative telescope reviews, and much more! All this in an easy-to-understand, user-friendly style that's perfect for astronomers at any level.

Features

Great comets

By Richard Talcott

Lots of comets come and go, but only a favored few have all the magic ingredients-the five key properties, to be precise - that make a comet great.

pg. 36

Opportunity at Meridiani

By Robert Burnham

NASA's second Mars rover, Opportunity, landed at a site in Meridiani Planum that turned out to have been "drenched in water," as one scientist put it. It was once so wet and warm there as to be habitable.

pg. 42

A new vision for space

By Frank Sietzen, Jr.

U.S. president George W. Bush announced the boldest initiative in space exploration since Apollo: building a Moon base as a stepping-stone to Mars. Can it be done? Take a look at what's in store.

pg. 48

A tale of two comets

By Charles S. Morris

Comets C/2002 T7 (LINEAR) and C/2001 Q4 (NEAT) should be at their brightest in May, providing wonderful views to observers around the globe.

pg. 70

All-sky fireball network

By Jim Gamble

An interconnected group of all-sky cameras watches the sky 24 hours a day. The reason? The operators of this system are tracking brilliant meteors in the hope of actually recovering meteorites.

pg. 76

Robotic observing

By Tom Polakis

Scour the sky while fast asleep. Too good to be true? Tenagra Observatories' computer-controlled telescopes let you catch supernovae while catching some shut-eye.

pg. 80

Orion's Atlas 8

By Phil Harrington

A classic telescope design, a drive motor that follows the stars across the sky, and all the accessories you need to observe celestial objects make the new 8-inch reflector from Orion a winner.

pg. 86

Departments

This month in Astronomy

Astronomy Day

Beautiful universe

Letters

Bob Berman's strange universe

Einstein's frames

Glenn Chaple's observing basics

A galactic tale

Interview

Professor Owen Gingerich, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics