Greetings Reader!

Welcome to Sky Lights! I hope you enjoy what you find, and return often. If this is your first visit, take the time to read these 8 helpful tips. Whether you use Sky Lights for your own education, use it in the classroom for your students, or just enjoy looking at the pretty pictures, there’s a few things you should know to best utilize this resource.

1. Subscribing to Sky Lights is easy. Just click the Subscribe to Sky Lights link, enter your email address, and you’ll receive a notification every time a new Sky Lights article is posted. No charge, no gimmicks, no ads, and your email address will never be shared, sold, or used for any other purpose.

2. New or unfamiliar terms are introduced in italics, and then defined where used. If you run into a term you don’t understand, you can search online, or you can search here in Sky Lights. Scanning our BROWSE ALL POSTS for related titles often works, and you just might see something else you’d like to read while you’re there.

3. Estimating angular distances in the sky is a helpful technique. This is a lot easier than it sounds. It’s a simple process of extending your hand toward the sky, and using it as a “ruler.” See our FAQ for more details.

4. What’s up in the sky posts are date and time sensitive, but more or less repeat every calendar year. So if you want to read about “what’s up” on any given date, use the BROWSE ALL POSTS to match the current month and pay attention to the time and place info given. This also explains why you’ll see some of the same topics covered in multiple years when you browse earlier posts.

5. The Moon and planets are not usually where the older sky charts show them to be. That’s because the Moon and planets (the word “planet” means “wanderer”) drift through the constellations of stars, and are always in motion. The stars and constellations will be exactly where the sky maps show them … at least for a few thousand years.

6. Q&A type posts are much less sensitive to date and time, and will generally provide useful information about whatever you might be interested in.

7. Meteorology type posts are, for the most part, totally insensitive to date and time. So if your interest is more about the weather, and other things seen in the atmosphere (day or night), browse freely and enjoy. Sky Lights was expanded from covering only astronomy to include meteorology in 2007. People are naturally curious about the weather, and we felt this addition would provide our readers a wider range of content.

8. Color photos were added shortly thereafter, when Sky Lights was moved from print media to the online version of a local newspaper. Future posts will use color whenever possible. Older posts are still largely grayscale.