A very good view of the ISS and dimmer Shuttle Atlantis flying from horizon to horizon almost directly overhead in the early evening yesterday (26th). Atlantis -- STS-129 -- has separated from the ISS and is preparing to return. The sight was...

Mars, which I last observed early last year , is now reappearing. I happened to be up around 2 am last night, and it was very bright and distinctly reddish-orange in the east between Castor and Pollux and the horizon. It was a very clear, cold night,...

A coincidence of rare events last night. Just after midnight, an hour or so after the start of heavy snowfall in Beijing (an event that occurs only a handful of times every year, despite very cold winters), there was a loud rumble seeming to come from...

Strangely Astromist on my Pocket PC failed to predict it, but Calsky did with great precision -- the emergence of Europa from Jupiter's shadow. I don't recall having witnessed this common event before from start to finish. Jupiter was quite low in the...

Sunspot 1029, unusually large and just unusual for being a spot on a normally -- these days -- spotless sun, was very prominent near the western limb close to sunset. This is my mirror image sketch, drawn around 0800 gmt on Oct 29 using a 15mm Super...