Telescope

For five months, the telescope built by the master himself served as the centerpiece of the Franklin Institute's summer exhibition "Galileo, the Medici and the Age of Astronomy. " In that span - which Derrick Pitts, the institute's chief astronomer, described as "a semi-religious experience" - the museum's attendance swelled beyond expectations. Though museum-goers were not allowed to handle the priceless artifact, it did not take much imagination to put themselves in the 17th-century scientist's shoes.

For Ed Kaczanowicz, seeing Halley's comet, perched in the pre-dawn southeastern sky near Saturn, Mars and the constellation Sagittarius, was nothing compared to seeing the hundreds of people lined up outside his mini- observatory in Upper Dublin Township. "The crowd is a bigger spectacle here than the comet," said Kaczanowicz, a research technician for the physics department at Temple University's Ambler campus. He was charged with the difficult task of giving everyone in line a quick glimpse of the comet.

Amateur astronomers can catch a glimpse of a rare sight - three planets in the same visual area - during a free star party tomorrow night. The last time the planets - Venus, Mars and Jupiter - were in the same visual area was during the Revolutionary War, according to Marilyn Michalski, president of the Delaware Valley Amateur Astronomers. The club will sponsor a public viewing session of a wide range of celestial sights tomorrow from dark until 11 p.m. at the upper parking lot of the Harriton High School on North Ithan Avenue between Old Gulph Road and Morris Avenue in Rosemont.

As an astronomer, it is Wulff Heintz's job to take the long view of things - both literally and figuratively. Literally because Heintz, a professor of astronomy at Swarthmore College, spends most of his time looking at stars that are many light-years from Earth. Figuratively because it often takes decades before a star deviates from its expected appearance or location, which indicates something unusual and interesting is going on. "A few of the stars I'm studying I know are interesting now. " said the German-born Heintz, 59. "Some of them will become interesting long after I'm dead.

Mike Turco first saw the rings of Saturn through his telescope three years ago. And he has never forgotten the experience. "It's the most beautiful sight in the heavens," said Turco, who is president of the Chester County Astronomical Society. The group holds "star parties" to view planets, stars and galaxies. "We try to get a dark night when there is no full moon and a place away from the lights of towns and cities," said Turco, 54, of Thornbury. For that reason, star parties often are held at the Brandywine Valley Association property, consisting of woods and open fields on Route 842, west of West Chester.

Though it has only been running full-force for about a year, a small telescope in New Mexico has already broken the record for finding the most distant object ever known. It has also discovered scores of cosmic exotica, including a number of the star-planet hybrids called brown dwarfs. The telescope is designed to carry out the Sloan Digital Sky Survey - an ambitious attempt to conduct a census of the universe. Over the next five years it will scan its camera over one-fourth of the sky to map out the locations of about 100 million objects - everything from previously undetected asteroids in our solar system to galaxies millions or billions of light-years away.

To get the clearest possible view of the heavens you need to get above Earth's atmosphere, but you don't necessarily have to get there by space shuttle. Last month an international collaboration led by the University of Pennsylvania lofted a telescope to the edge of outer space on an enormous balloon. As it flew from Sweden to western Canada, it observed dusty regions where new stars are being born millions of light years away. That may help explain how stars and planets are formed from stardust.

The Italian museum's director pulled out a stack of letters and, one by one, laid them atop his desk at the Institute and Museum of the History of Science in Florence. It was late 2007 and appeals were pouring in from museums in China, Korea, Germany, New York, Chicago, and a host of cities around the globe, though the International Year of Astronomy was still more than a year away. "Tutti vogliono il mio telescopio," Paolo Galluzzi said. "Everyone wants my telescope," the only remaining functional telescope made by Galileo Galilei, whom Albert Einstein called "the father of modern physics - indeed, of modern science altogether.

Louis Green remembers the days he could walk out the door of his building on the Haverford College campus and see the Milky Way shivering in the sky. "You could even see the fainter parts," said Green, a retired astronomy and physics professor at the school. "What a gorgeous site. You could never see that now. " Blame that on Thomas Edison: Light pollution in the Philadelphia area makes it impossible to see any but the brightest stars. And even with a telescope, the brightness makes it harder to see heavenly bodies.

I was staring at a beautiful tree frog - its tiny, bright green body with huge black eyes and cute little pods on its feet that were perfectly designed by nature to stick to any surface. There was only one problem: Those cute little pod feet were perched on the toilet seat I was about to use, and they weren't letting go. This was not a camping trip or a portable toilet in a national park. This was our home life in Australia's bush country. After a month in cosmopolitan Sydney, we were itching to see "the real Australia" - the land famous for wide-open spaces and wild kangaroos.

When people think of Philadelphia, they might imagine cheesesteaks and Rocky, the Phillies and the Flyers. They don't necessarily think of our city as an intellectual hub or a center of scientific research, but they should, said Steve Snyder, vice president for exhibit and program development at the Franklin Institute. This region is packed with top-notch universities, illustrious science museums, and booming technology-oriented businesses. Philadelphia is among the top five U.S. cities in National Institutes of Health grants, Snyder said.

I was staring at a beautiful tree frog - its tiny, bright green body with huge black eyes and cute little pods on its feet that were perfectly designed by nature to stick to any surface. There was only one problem: Those cute little pod feet were perched on the toilet seat I was about to use, and they weren't letting go. This was not a camping trip or a portable toilet in a national park. This was our home life in Australia's bush country. After a month in cosmopolitan Sydney, we were itching to see "the real Australia" - the land famous for wide-open spaces and wild kangaroos.

Lonnie Thompson routinely scales the world's highest peaks, in the Himalayas, the Andes and beyond, notwithstanding his chronic asthma and 63 years of age. His wife, Ellen Mosley-Thompson, treks through the forbidding expanses of Greenland and Antarctica. But the real exploration comes only after they get back to the laboratory at Ohio State University. The two researchers bring back long cylinders of ice they've extracted from these remote locales, analyzing them to monitor the Earth's changing climate.

Logan Pszalgowski can't believe his eyes. "I can see the whole moon," exclaims the 7-year-old Mount Laurel resident, his wonder-struck little voice rising into the night sky. Logan, his twin brother, Aidan, and their mother, Bonnie, are exploring the heavens through Steve Mattan's 80mm refracting telescope at a Star Watch sponsored by the Willingboro Astronomical Society. Mattan, 50, a software-development manager from Edgewater Park, is among about 20 amateur astronomers gathered in an open field near the Batsto Historic Village Visitor Center in Wharton State Forest.

By Joseph Mascaro Last month, a team of researchers hunting extrasolar planets - those that reside around stars other than our sun - discovered a solar system with at least five and possibly seven planets. This is a remarkable discovery, bringing the number of known exoplanets to nearly 500. One of the planets sits smack in the middle of the star's "Goldilocks zone" - the area around the star where conditions might be just right for life. The name of this planet is HD 10180g.

Four hundred years ago, Galileo Galilei fashioned a telescope from eyeglass lenses and a piece of lead pipe and used it to change humanity's perception of its place in the universe. He discovered that Jupiter had its own moons, and that our moon had its own mountains and valleys. He was the first to see that the Milky Way was made of millions of stars. Every night for the coming month, residents of the Philadelphia region can see these sights and more through telescopes much more powerful than Galileo's homemade contraption.

For five months, the telescope built by the master himself served as the centerpiece of the Franklin Institute's summer exhibition "Galileo, the Medici and the Age of Astronomy. " In that span - which Derrick Pitts, the institute's chief astronomer, described as "a semi-religious experience" - the museum's attendance swelled beyond expectations. Though museum-goers were not allowed to handle the priceless artifact, it did not take much imagination to put themselves in the 17th-century scientist's shoes.

Venus was the goddess of love, but Mars is the big cosmic tease. No, the Red Planet will not appear as big as the full moon on Aug. 27. Not even close. Unless your flying saucer is parked a sun's diameter or two from its fourth planet. Sillier still, Mars will not even be visible at night on that date. So do not, NASA advises, believe "The Confusing-Email-About-Mars-You-Should-Delete-and-Not-Forward-to-Anyone-Except-Your-In-Laws. " Really, that was NASA's term.

The Italian museum's director pulled out a stack of letters and, one by one, laid them atop his desk at the Institute and Museum of the History of Science in Florence. It was late 2007 and appeals were pouring in from museums in China, Korea, Germany, New York, Chicago, and a host of cities around the globe, though the International Year of Astronomy was still more than a year away. "Tutti vogliono il mio telescopio," Paolo Galluzzi said. "Everyone wants my telescope," the only remaining functional telescope made by Galileo Galilei, whom Albert Einstein called "the father of modern physics - indeed, of modern science altogether.

When NASA launched a new space telescope called Kepler this year, mankind took another step in a quest that started 400 years ago with two eyeglass lenses and a piece of lead pipe. It was in 1609 that mathematics professor Galileo Galilei pointed his homemade telescope skyward and saw what looked like mountains on the moon and other wonders no one had imagined. His instrument - marginally more powerful than a cheap pair of modern binoculars - enabled him to shatter cosmological dogma as he carefully catalogued the phases of Venus, the moons of Jupiter, and the stars of the Milky Way. Starting Saturday, visitors to the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia can see one of two surviving original telescopes that allowed Galileo to open the heavens to science - and ultimately led to his house arrest for heresy.