StarWatch: Moravian University Astronomy

MAY 2026

MAY STAR MAP | MOON PHASE CALENDAR | STARWATCH INDEX | NIGHT SKY NOTEBOOK

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1550 MAY 3, 2026: Olber's Paradox: The eighth of sixteen children, Heinrich Olbers (1758-1840) was a physician by training (1780), but a skywatcher by heart. After 1820 he retired from medicine and devoted himself strictly to astronomical pursuits. He was the discoverer of five comets; the most famous was 13P/Olbers discovered in 1815, last returning to the sun in 2024, passing Earth as a 7.4 magnitude object. Olbers also recovered in 1802, Ceres, the first asteroid discovered by Giuseppe Piazzi in 1801. Then Olbers went on to find both the second minor planet, Pallas, in 1802, and the fourth asteroid, Vesta, in 1804. However, Olbers is most famous for the contradiction he postulated in 1826, known as Olbers' Paradox, which asked why the nighttime sky was not ablaze with light. * He surmised that in a static universe containing an infinite number of stars spread homogeneously across the heavens, every position in the sky should be occupied by a star. According to this model, the nighttime sky should be incandescent, not dark as we view it. A similar analogy might be the scene created in a dense forest where every line of sight parallel to the ground eventually converges on the trunk of a tree. * Our universe is not static or infinite, nor homogeneous in stellar distribution, but should the heavens not have some of the characteristics about which Olbers predicted, and be much brighter than it is actually observed? The answer is still no! * A minor contributor to a darker universe is starlight that is obscured by dust. Also in a huge accelerating system like ours, approximately 54 billion light years across, the energy from younger stars may simply not have reached us yet. The speed of light (186,282 miles per second) is fast by our standards of motion and a constant in space, but the time required for light traveling across the universe makes that speed seem more like the movements of a snail. * So what causes our universe to appear dark? It is the expanding-accelerating universe. This same expansion causes the electromagnetic waves emitted by stars to stretch or redden as they move away from us. The amount of redshift in a galaxy has been used for nearly a century to determine the size of our universe. Visible light is shifted into invisible infrared light, but then higher energy, invisible ultraviolet energy, is shifted into the visible. However, there is no gain here. * It is estimated that coolest luminaries, K and M-type hydrogen burning stars, make up about 90 percent of the luminaries in the sky. Their predominant energy production is in the invisible infrared (heat) portion of the electromagnetic spectrum and very little in the ultraviolet, about 0.00014 percent of the sun's UV production which is also very low compared to Sol's visible signature. M-type stars do flare in the ultraviolet, but in total, the redshift actually makes these very common, cooler stars appear dimmer in the light human eyes receive. Another way to look at this concept is to understand the relationship between wavelength and energy, as described by the German physicist, Max Planck. The longer the distance between wave crests, the redder the light becomes, and the less energy that specific wavelengths possess. So the redshift drains the entire amount of energy coming to us, causing the star or galaxy to become less luminous than it would be if we lived in a static universe. This is the predominant reason why the sky is dark. * By tapping here, you'll see a recent image from Australia that I took looking near the heart of our Milky Way Galaxy. It highlights Ptolemy's Cluster (M7) near the center, almost completely obscured by the background haze of millions of stars. The reddening effect of dust is also present on the left side of the image. At the far left, dust created by countless supernova events over the history of the Milky Way virtually prevents any light from escaping. Ad Astra!

1551

MAY 10, 2026: The Automated Telescope Revolution

When I graduated from Kutztown University in 1972, I purchased a used 3.5-inch Questar, a Maksutov-Cassegrain reflector, as a graduation gift to myself. It was the Cadillac of optical precision and mechanical excellence in the world of ultra-small telescopes. That scope in a shoebox, well rather a convenient cardboard container including numerous accessories, traveled with me everywhere as I embarked upon discovering and camping in America's national parks during summer vacations with my friend, Allen Seltzer. I did visual observing and some astrophotography through it, but mostly I piggybacked my camera onto the Questar, sometimes hand guiding my images. * Digital photography entered my realm of thinking 30 years ago. However, it was not until about ten years later in the early 2000s, that I adopted it for all of my photographic needs, eventually using Canon products. They had excellent sensors that had superb low light capabilities for the time. * Now after nearly completing a backyard observatory with a 17-inch, Dall-Kirkham reflector, I've been introduced to ZWO's Seestars and Dwarflab's family of fully automated telescopes. A half-dozen years ago, I saw other competitors starting to break into the automated observing/astrophotography marketplace, but I was not overly impressed with the images they had produced. That has all changed in the last several years. * I was first introduced to the Seestar 50 at a Hawk Mountain StarWatch event that I organized last August, then to the Dwarf 3 when Peter Detterline brought one to Iceland to record auroras with Jesse Leayman and me in late October of last year. Intrigued by the ease of setup and the quality of the images it produced, I decided that one of these scopes would become part of my astronomy lineup in the near future. Peter's Dwarf 3 was a point-and-shoot system that produced more than acceptable stills and videos for a system that weighed next to nothing while using a tripod for support. I opted to photograph the trip and auroras with a tripod mounted DSLR, Canon R5 Mark 2 camera, while Peter made videos and some stills with his Dwarf 3 system. We both got results that highlighted the beauty of the night sky. My most recent Icelandic land and sky images can be found here, along with a few of Peter's Dwarf 3 composites. I think you will agree that they both have their place in wide-field astrophotography. * When I returned home, I investigated both the Seestar 50 and the Dwarflab's smart telescopes. I settled on the Seestar line of automated scopes because the 50mm model provided a larger aperture which would give me better resolution, as compared to the Dwarf 3 which was only 35mm. Nevertheless since then, I have also purchased the Seestar 30 Pro which offers a much larger field of view and better AI processing. * I have also begun recommending these easy-to-use, automated instruments to enthusiasts who are eager to purchase their first scope. Yes, I realize the photons of light are being directed onto a sensor, and then sent to a tablet or a smartphone via Wi-Fi. However, when the starscapes obtained in just two minutes of automatically stacking and processing photos are better than what much larger aperture instruments can produce visually, along with a price point of under 600 dollars, it seems like a no-brainer to give these instruments a serious chance before purchasing a more expensive telescope for visual or astrophotography pursuits. After all, the best telescope is the one you use the most often, and for me that has become my Seestar line of instruments. Consider it. Recent astrophotos are here. Ad Astra!

1552 MAY 17, 2026: Under the Influence of the Flower Moon: Most of the time before writing a StarWatch, I spend a few minutes working with Software Bisque's The Sky and running through the week to make sure I'm not missing anything important. The events that I discovered for this week's blog proved once again that following the moon, in this case May's Flower Moon, could create some very rewarding sky views for the visual observer, as well as permanent memories for the astrophotographer.
Sunday, May 17; Extremely Young Moon Visible in the WNW: The 2.4 percent razor-thin, waxing crescent moon was new on May 16 at 4:01 p.m. Now less than 30 hours later, it should become visible 30 minutes after sundown, 8:45 p.m., 10 degrees above the WNW horizon. These moons are easiest to observe during late winter and spring when the orbital plane of Luna is tipped at a high inclination to the western horizon. The moon's pale, thin-lipped smile should first be revealed using binoculars, then as skies darken, look for earthshine on the unlit portions of the moon, where reflected sunlight from a nearly full Earth is mirrored back to us from Luna's surface. Also called the old moon in the new moon's arms, earthshine on a thin waxing crescent gives the moon an ethereal manifestation that becomes more vibrant during nautical twilight when the brightest stars of the evening first begin to peek from the heavens, but before the contrast between a darkened sky and a brighter moon is greater.
Monday, May 18; Young Moon Passing Venus Tonight: One day later, the 54-hour moon stands less than three degrees to the right of Venus at an altitude of 21 degrees. View 30 minutes after sundown. The Goddess of Beauty stands at magnitude -4.0, while the moon is at -7.1, 17 times brighter than Venus. This is actually a minor difference. The full Blue (full) Moon on May 31 will be 145 times brighter than it is on this evening. Smartphone images of the pair will easily reveal earthshine on the moon.
Tuesday/Wednesday, May 19/20; Moon Near Jupiter: The waxing crescent moon is positioned between Venus and Jupiter on the 19th, but favors Jupiter and is above Jove by nearly seven degrees on the 20th. Both evenings offer opportunities for wide-field photography and for the ability to incorporate land and sky in the images.
Friday, May 22; Moon Near Regulus: Last month, the waxing gibbous moon occulted Regulus, the alpha star of Leo the Lion, and right on cue, the weather went south. It rained! This month, the first quarter moon passes within three-fourths of a degree from Regulus, the brightest star of Leo the Lion. Unfortunately for us, that occurs three hours after it has set. At 10 p.m., the pair is about 3-1/2 degrees apart. Use binoculars for the best views.
Sunday, May 31; Blue Moon Near Red Antares: You can wait until 3:30 a.m. at the latest to catch Antares low in the SW, above and less than two degrees from the moon, or observe the pair about three-quarters of a degree farther apart in the early morning sky just after midnight. In both cases, Luna will be a Blue Moon, the second full moon of the month. This observation will be best seen with binoculars. You can also occult the moon with a distant tree, as I did on the morning of May 4 when Antares and the moon were separated by only 1.5 degrees.
Hoping everyone has pleasing views of the waxing Flower Moon this May. Ad Astra!

1553 MAY 24, 2026: