Observatories editor
Cosmo Tate is a science writer and former planetarium director who edits Last Light's Observatories section.
Beats
Catalogues
Patrick Moore published his list of 109 deep-sky objects for amateur observers in December 1995, intending it as a companion to Messier. Three decades later, the list is still in print, still used, and still a little controversial.
Equipment
Cosmo Tate spent a winter learning a sub-five-hundred-dollar dedicated astrocamera and reports honestly on what it does and does not deliver to the beginning imager.
Solar
Six stations around the world, one Sun continuously observed since 1995. Cosmo Tate on the Global Oscillation Network Group and its slow accumulation of solar interior data.
Dark Sites
Four thousand three hundred and sixty-seven square kilometres of New Zealand's South Island form the world's largest accredited dark-sky reserve. A late autumn night at Mount John Observatory above Lake Tekapo.
Meteors
Cosmo Tate looks back at the great Leonid storms of 1833, 1866, and 1966, and forward to the comparatively quiet shower today's amateur observers will encounter in November.
History
In a brief 1912 note from Harvard, Henrietta Swan Leavitt established the relationship that would give astronomy its first reliable yardstick beyond the Milky Way.
Observatories
The Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope has operated on Mount Graham in Arizona since 1993. A spring visit to a small instrument that runs an unusual research program.
Equipment
Cosmo Tate spent six months learning a small German equatorial mount in a Cambridge driveway, and reports on the experience for the observer who is considering one.
Solar
The next transit of Mercury falls on 13 November 2032. Cosmo Tate on what amateurs are doing in the six years between then and now to be ready.
Catalogues
Released in June 2022 and now four years into its working life, Gaia DR3 has reshaped what professional and amateur astronomers expect from a catalogue. A small audit of what it has actually changed.
Meteors
Cosmo Tate spent three nights in December 2025 with an amateur observing group near Craftsbury, Vermont. The Geminids did not disappoint, and the cold was instructive.
Dark Sites
Wales's only Dark Sky Reserve covers 1,344 square kilometres of common land and high moor. A week of observing from a small farmhouse near Libanus produced two clear nights, one partial, and four written off to weather.
Observatories
The Goodsell Observatory at Carleton College in Minnesota has hosted student observing for one hundred and forty-nine years. Its rooftop 0.4-meter is still on the curriculum.
Observatories
The 2024 visitor restrictions on Mauna Kea Access Road did not close the summit. They changed who reaches it, and why. A report from the visitor information station at 9,200 feet.
Catalogues
A retired schoolteacher in upstate New York spent three winters working through Charles Messier's hundred and ten, one entry at a time, and kept a notebook every night.
History
In a small garden at Slough, between domestic duties and a brother's instructions, Caroline Herschel discovered eight comets and built the first independent career in astronomy held by a woman.
Observatories
The 36-inch refractor on Mount Hamilton turned a hundred and forty-eight in 2026, and the dome around it still opens most clear nights. A visit during the spring open house.