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Classical Astronomy represents the traditional study of the sky as it has been done for centuries, even before the telescope.

A telescope can be useful piece of astronomy equipment, as long as the person is adequately prepared. Too many people make the mistake of rushing out to buy a scope before they are prepared, and after a few unfruitful nights under the stars, the unprepared observer can become very disappointed and disillusioned.

I’ve always wondered how mariners have used stars to navigate. Is it as simple as locating star alignments known to point in a certain general direction (e.g. north)?

Twilight is that brief part of each day in between day and night, when the Sun’s rays light up the sky, but the Sun itself is below the horizon.

Mel Gibson’s stunning motion picture, “The Passion of The Christ,” opens with a dramatic closeup view of the Full Moon. From there, we see Jesus and His disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane, and the subsequent events from the Gospels are shown set against the pale brightness of the Moon’s light.

During the heyday of classical astronomy, “The Doctrine of the Sphere” was the cornerstone of astronomical study. In essence, the starry sphere has North and South Poles and also an Equator.

In the modern world, we use “Standard Time” in which the whole world is divided into 24 time zones. As a result, on any day of the year at any latitude, the times of actual sunrise and sunset vary depending on your location within a time zone.

Since the early centuries of the church, Christians have honored the death and resurrection of Jesus in the celebration of Easter. And while the observance of Easter has changed over the centuries, it is based on the Hebrew Passover.

One fun thing to notice in the springtime is how the waxing crescent Moon appears as a “smile” in the evening sky.