The illustrated astronomy journal "
Sky Candy" has two new articles out:
Sky Candy #5: How Isaac Newton discovered spectroscopy
One day in 1665, fresh-out-of-college Isaac Newton spotted a curious triangle of glass at a country fair. When he put it to his eye, everything he saw smeared into long bars of color. The seller told Newton that the prism ‘corrupted’ light in some way. Such a glib definition didn’t impress Isaac. He took the object back home and turned his eyes and his mathematical ingenuity into the theory of how color results from optical refraction. This free-to-download 10-page
Sky Candy story reveals how an inquiring mind can deduce major physical laws that starts with a casual observation.
https://issuu.com/do...?fr=xKAE9_zU1NQ
Sky Candy #6: Cameos on Black Velvet– Precocious Planetaries
This cross-post from the CN "Experienced Deep Sky Imaging" forum is a 24-page article devoted to the images and techniques of the London-based astro-imager Peter Goodhew. Although many of the ultra-faint planetaries revealed in the article are beyond our visual-observer capabilities, the details of why planetary nebulae have such varied looks will interest anyone who can look up M57, the Helix, the Eskimo, M27, or M76. On Earth we recycle glass, tins, plastic, paper, and rubbish into bins behind a shopping mall. In the sky, stars recycle simple and heavy elements, organic molecules, dust, light, and heat energy into bins called planetary nebulae. The most notable difference is that neighborhood recycling bins are anything but pretty, while planetary nebulae are among the most arresting baubles in the sky.
https://issuu.com/do...ZGRkMzY2MjI5MDQ