Resources

Astronomy Websites

Here are a number of links to interesting astronomy websites as well as some tools and programs used by astrophotographers.

Night Sky Network!
Get it all here… the clubs in your area, night sky planner, moon phase, and outreach resources

The Weather Channel
Check out the current weather conditions for the Phoenix area

Arizona State Parks – Star Parties & Astro Events
Astronomy events right here in our own Arizona state parks

Astronomy Picture of the Day
This is a link to the “full” website with Search, Calendar, etc. capability.

NASA New Horizon Mission
This exciting mission launched in January 2006 and is enroute to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt. It is the fastest spacecraft and arrived at Pluto in July 2015 where it flies by this mysterious, frozen world and its moon Charon. The mission has already discovered two new moons around Pluto and many more discoveries are in store.

International Dark Sky Association
The International Dark-Sky Association is the only non-profit organization fighting to preserve the night, working to protect wildlife, cut energy waste, and stop light pollution.

Astronomy Games
Astronomy: Computer Software games for kids

Moon Calendar
Moon rise, Moon Set and Moon Phases Calendar

Deep Sky Stacker
Free Astrophotography software with manual and tutorials

Light Pollution Map
A color coded interactive map of light pollution around the world with Bortle scale and more.

Stellarium
A free and open source planetarium for your PC that has just about everything you could ever need to find a wide swath of deep space objects and so much more.

PHD2 (Push Here Dummy 2)
A free and open source powerful telescope guiding program used with guiding scopes for astrophotography.

PolarFinder
A free PC based polar alignment tool used for aligning your equatorial mounts with alignment scopes.

APT (Astro Photography Tool)
An optional camera control program for astrophotography compatible with a large number of cameras.

Backyard EOS/Nikon
A paid and powerful tool for all you DSLR astrophotographers looking to control your DSLR with ease.

ASCOM Controllers
A open source software required by many other softwares to connect and control electronic scopes and mounts.

Create your own Sun/Moon Rise/Set Calendar

Kalamazoo Astronomical Society: Introduction to Amateur Astronomy lecture series