Watching the skies is just part of the day, and night for some people. I am one of them. The first thing I do every morning is go outside and look up at the sky. The last thing I do before going to bed, each night, is to watch the sky for awhile. Sometimes, I even lay in bed and just look up through the window until it is morning. When I am not outside looking at the sky, often with a camera in my hand, I check in with my favorite websites to catch up on space weather and the new photos of sky watchers around the world.

The sky is always changing, revealing itself in glimpses. I think that is why I find it so fascinating. Space is a mystery we will never stop discovering and its interaction with our earth's atmosphere create some of the most spectacular sights we will ever witness.

These are some of my favorite websites. I've been checking in with them for the last several years and everytime I go there, I am amazed at all the activity happening in space.

My number one favorite website, Space Weather, has an incredible video up on its homepage right now that I highly recommend. It was taken by enthusiastic skywatcher and photograher, Laurent Lavendar in Bretagne, France showing Venus, Saturn, and the Moon rising together over a local marina. It is extremely romantic.....

Space Weather keeps you up to date on solar wind, activity on the face of the sun, asteroids, comets, and all the movement happening in space. And believe me, there is more movement than you would ever expect! This is the weather station site for space, updated daily and globally.

Space.com is a more polished site that provides information on NASA missions, satellite images, links to telescope stores, videos, and overall takes a non-specialized approach to space news. Space.com is the CNN of space, you get everything. Currently, on their site is a clip of U2 calling the astronauts in space and a plethora of interesting videos, including scientists monitoring potentially hazardous asteroids heading in our direction.

And of course, we have the old standby at NASA.gov which, is obviously full of brilliant information. Catch up on space station news and find satellite and probe pictures here first. NASA.gov is where the most cutting edge and current space mission info can be found. NASA.gov is definitely space mission-centric but, also provide a wealth of information on the solar systems, galaxies, asteroids, star clusters, and anything else space related- you just have to do a little clicking around. Naturally, their deep space photos are first-rate. 

Right now, they are reminding us that Oct. 11-17th is Earth Science week and have provided a series of six short videos on the chosen topic of "Understanding Climate." The six NASA videos complete a series called "Tides of Change," which all focus on the ocean-climate connection. Each video features a specific component of the connection, such as marine life or the water cycle.

While catching up on space news this past week, I was just blown away but, all that is happening. The new technology and photos are really making space less of a mystery and more of a place. I was reading about NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer, or IBEX, spacecraft has made it possible for scientists to construct the first comprehensive sky map of our solar system and its location in the Milky Way galaxy and so I decided I would try to comprehend a lightyear. Like, truly understand how far that is. I was never great at math, so the long equations were meaningless to me. I found some comparisons in this graph that finally made me understand. Hope you enjoy!