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.
Kalamazoo Astronomical Society: Introduction to Amateur Astronomy lecture series
Part 1 Video: Our Place Amount the Infinities
Notes document in PDF format
Some additional links to even more…
What Hubble was looking at during you birthday https://www.nasa.gov/
Meteor Shower Info 2020/21: https://www.amsmeteors.org/
Arizona Science Center: https://www.azscience.org/%20
Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory: https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/flwo
Lowell Observatory: https://lowell.edu/
The Large Binocular Telescope Observatory: http://www.lbto.org/
Astronomy Magazine: http://www.astronomy.com/
Sky & Telescope https://www.skyandtelescope.com/
Cloudy Nights https://www.cloudynights.com/
Telescopius (Astronomy Planning Made Easy) https://telescopius.com/
Constellation Guide https://www.constellation-guide.com/
44 Closest Stars compared to the Sun 44-closest-stars
Astrospheric view forecasting https://www.astrospheric.com/
The Night Sky – Hooray for Mr. Messier Video
The 88 Constellations and Their Brightest Stars
