Borrow a Telescope: One Teen's Mission to Share the Stars
Off the Shelf Editorial Staff; Erik Bobilin
The Telescope Lending Library launched on a clear night in November 2021, with an outdoor viewing event attended by an enthusiastic mixture of public, library staff and members of the Amateur Astronomy Association (AAA) of New York. Absent from this experience, however, was the eleventh-grade astronomy lover whose plan to lend telescopes as freely as books—evolved over months of proposals and Zoom conferences—was finally coming to fruition. Yui H.’s passion for astronomy began with a different plan, formed at age nine while living in Singapore, after several screenings of…
Meet Pluto and Our Other (Celestial) Neighbors
Let's all raise a glass to celebrate a milestone in our relations with Pluto, our cosmic neighbor. Ninety years ago this month, on February 18, 1930, an aspiring astronomer named Clyde Tombaugh examined a pair of night sky photographs taken weeks earlier and noticed a faint light had changed position. For us, it was Pluto's welcoming wave. Located in the vast Kuiper Belt far beyond Neptune, and traveling in an off-kilter, ellipse-shaped orbit that sends it up to 4.5 billion miles from the sun, it's fair to say Pluto and Earth have never been particularly close. Many still feel we committed a…