Wartburg College Observatory

12/14/2025

Look up TONIGHT! The Geminids are one of the most reliable annual meteor showers worldwide, thanks to their broad peak that lasts nearly 24 hours every mid-December. They originate from 3200 Phaethon, an asteroid or a possible “rock comet.”

For the best view, find a dark location away from streetlights. Dress warmly, lie flat, face south, take in as much of the sky as possible, and be patient. It takes about 30 minutes in the dark for your eyes to fully adapt to the darkness. The show lasts until early Dec. 15, so there’s plenty of time to catch a few shooting stars! ✨

11/17/2025

Following the amazing “light show” of last Tuesday’s aurora, tonight brings another celestial spectacle, the Leonids meteor shower! The streaks of light are debris from a 33-year visitor, Comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle. You can expect to see 10-15 meteors per hour, with the peak occurring after midnight. No telescopes are needed. Here in Waverly, fingers crossed for a clear night sky. If the rains/clouds give us a break, head somewhere dark and look up to watch the burning comet dust! If not tonight, don’t worry. Another strong one, the Geminids, will arrive in just a month. Stay tuned!

03/13/2025

This year's Pi Day (3/14 at 00:00) will kick off with a celestial spectacle—a Blood Moon! If you are up late tonight, look to the sky as a partial lunar eclipse begins at 12:09 AM (local time). The total eclipse will paint the Moon a dark red for over an hour (1:26 - 2:31 AM, with the dimming gradually fading by 3:47 AM. Night owls, don’t miss this rare and breathtaking event! (see detailed time below from Adler Planetarium)

02/27/2025

Look to the west this evening around 6:33 PM, just after sunset, for a stunning chain of ALL planets (except Earth) in the solar system! It begins with Saturn near the horizon, followed by Mercury. Just above Mercury—though hidden from the naked eye—lies Neptune. Brilliant Venus will shine prominently above. Uranus hides further away from its siblings - it may become visible in a dark-sky location as night deepens. Higher up, Jupiter and Mars will complete the planet lineup, remaining visible for most of the night. If the skies are clear tomorrow, you may catch this amazing display again right after sunset!

10/11/2024

Incredible northern lights lit up the sky this Thursday night, thanks to a G4 geomagnetic storm—another intense solar storm following the G5 storm in May! Solar flares, the solar system’s biggest explosive events, are behind these spectacular displays. The most powerful one ever recorded, the legendary "Carrington Event" of 1859, even sparked fires in telegraph stations worldwide! Luckily, Earth hasn't experienced a superstorm of that scale since. And with solar activity ramping up, we can expect even more stunning auroras this year!

05/11/2024

Changing Northern Light last night on campus! You might see green lights - the most common color - above the horizon, resulting from solar winds colliding with oxygen. As oxygen becomes thinner at higher locations, solar winds collide with nitrogen in the air more, emitting blue/purple lights. When red and blue/purple blend, you may also see pink/yellow lights. The most rare aurora color is red at the higher end of the aurora. This only happens when the solar activity is strong enough to trigger powerful emissions from the extremely thin oxygen at very high altitudes. We may see some northern light again tonight (https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/communities/aurora-dashboard-experimental). Cameras are more sensitive to these colors than our eyes. Look north tonight, and what color will you see?

04/12/2024

Pictures of the total solar eclipse are here! Thanks to the solar maxima we are reaching this year, we can clearly see solar prominence in pinkish-bright light during the total eclipse with our naked eyes! 🤩 20-hour drive, anxiously checking the weather for 7 days, multiple travel backup plans, changing locations in the last 30 minutes due to clouds... All worth it!

04/05/2024

T-minus three days until the 2024 Total Solar Eclipse on Monday! Free solar eclipse glasses can be picked up in the Science Center. You can also use a pinhole projector. DO NOT look at the Sun with your bare eyes or any sunglasses, even during a partial eclipse of 90%. As we get closer to Monday (i.e., 24 hours in advance), weather predictions will be much more solid and agree with each other better. Here are a few useful links to weather forecasts and solar eclipses. You can also save the image below with links to your device.
Solar Eclipse path and time: https://eclipse-explorer.smce.nasa.gov/
More info (path, safety, images/videos, resources, totality app) on Solar Eclipse: https://eclipse.aas.org/
National cloud coverage: https://www.windy.com/-Clouds-clouds?clouds,42.777,-92.408,5
Waverly cloud coverage: https://www.cleardarksky.com/c/WrtBrgCoObIAkey.html?1
National/Waverly weather with direct comparisons using different weather models
https://weather.us/ (search for the location you desire, then select any model under "ENSEMBLES" on the left, then you can see a line chart in the center. On top of the chart, you can choose the "Sun/Cloud" tab to check the cloud coverage)

11/19/2020

One of astronomy's legendary tools is going dark. After two support cables were lost in the past several months, the NSF has decided that work to stabilise or repair the 305-m Arecibo telescope would present too much risk to the safety of the workers, and the observatory will be decommissioned.

NSF's mission is to advance the progress of science, a mission accomplished by funding proposals for research and education made by scientists, engineers, and educators from across the country.

05/28/2020

Happy Birthday, Frank Drake!!

Dr. Frank Drake, one of the NRAO’s first astronomers, poses with the NRAO’s first radio telescope, the 85-foot Howard E. Tatel in Green Bank, West Virginia. Drake set up our first millimeter-wave telescope and pioneered the use of radio telescopes in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI).

His Project Ozma used the 85-foot Tatel telescope to observe the stars Tau Ceti and Epsilon Eridani for signs of civilization. None were ever found. Drake is well known for his thought experiment we now call the Drake Equation. It multiplies factors for finding life in our Galaxy based on physical and political variables. The Order of the Dolphin, a group of philosophically-minded scientists that included Nobel Laureate Melvin Calvin and Carl Sagan, convened in Green Bank in 1961 to discuss this equation.

Credit: NRAO/AUI/NSF

Credit: NRAO/AUI/NSF

02/25/2020

Day in History - February 24, 1968, discovery of first pulsar announced. Jocelyn Bell Burnell's work with the radio telescope was routine, until August of 1967. Later in December of 1967, Bell Burnell was analyzing data from a different part of the sky and found another regularly pulsing radio source with a slightly shorter period of 1-1/5 seconds. And then, over the Christmas holiday, she discovered two more such pulsing sources. The announcement in the journal Nature was sensational, and soon afterwards the objects were given the name pulsars. Credits: Encyclopedia.com