Jay Ryan

LJspectrumOn to a Third SarosThe Moon's shadow was still racing toward the eastern horizon when my brain inexplicably began to calculate: 1999-1963 = 36; 36/2 =18 = 1 saros cycle. Suddenly 1 realized that I'd been around the eclipse block exactly twice, from Maine in 1963 to Turkey in 1999. It's...

focal pointA Trail to the SkyChristopher Cokinos tries "starpacking" in the Montana wilderness.Some would scoff at hiking just zk miles from ourtrailhead to a tiny Forest Service workstation in Montana's West Pioneer Mountains. But our backpacks were stuffed with a week's worth of food and clothes,...

On March iith Roger Sinnott sauntered into my office grinning from ear to ear. "This is a first," he burbled, " an exclamation point in an lAU Circular!" Roger was referring to a just-issued statement by Brian Marsden that a mile-wide body called 1997 XF would pass some 29,000 miles from Earth on...