Everyone’s watching Orion: The Hunter has become the hunted!
The famous star Betelgeuse is dimmer than anyone has seen it in a century.
Nature
Ready to go on a “carbon diet”?
Wednesday, Jan. 22: In his new book Live Sustainably Now: A Low-Carbon Vision of the Good Life, Karl Coplan chronicles the joys and challenges of a year on a carbon budget: kayaking to work, hunting down electric vehicle charging stations, eating a Mediterranean-style diet and enjoying plenty of travel on weekends and vacations while avoiding long-distance flights.
The American Chestnut can bloom again — with your help
Once in while, an opportunity arises to reverse environmental damage wrought by humankind. Such appears to be the case with SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry’s three-decades-long endeavor to restore to the landscape the majestic, near-extinct American chestnut tree.
Waghkonk Notes: Rollercoaster Sky
Cold arctic winds blow across the mountains, bringing their fierce reminder of winter’s power, scattering brown leaves and making the deer in their winter yards hunker down a little more. While protected somewhat from the worst of the polar blast by the hills themselves, these powerful winds still course through the cloves and down the hollows of the southeast Catskills. I pity any creature caught out in this season.
Test your eyes with a star
This is the very finest test of vision in all the heavens.
2020: A fantastic year to watch the heavens
Find out why the coming year will be so remarkable.
The increasingly popular First Day Hike tradition
The best way to endure the affronts of cold and snow, in the opinion of this ardent winter walker, is to acclimate. Fear not the sub-freezing and let it have its salubrious way with your adaptive core systems. Get comfortable at 15 degrees and 30 will feel like SoCal.
Ask a Naturalist: Birds are disappearing at an alarming rate while porcupines and fishers are making a comeback
According to a recent article in the journal Science, if you were alive in the year 1970, more than one in four birds in the US and Canada has disappeared within your lifetime. What’s happening, and which birds are most in danger?
Ring around the Sun: The magnificent 22-degree halo
Folklore says that such a ring around the Sun or Moon portends the arrival of a storm within 24 hours. There’s truth to that.
X-stuff and Planet Nine
Astronomers use the letter X followed by a constellation name to represent objects emitting X-rays — a rarity in the cosmos.
