Astronomy May 2004

Great comets
Lots of comets come and go, but only a favored few have all the magic ingredients — the five key properties, to be precise — that make a comet great. — Richard Talcott

Opportunity at Meridiani
NASA's second martian rover, Opportunity, landed successfully within a small crater in Meridiani Planum. With a suite of scientific instruments, it joins the hunt for water in the Red Planet’s past. — Robert Burnham

A new vision for space
U.S. President George W. Bush announced the boldest initiative in space exploration since Apollo: building a Moon base as a stepping-stone to Mars. Can it be done? Take a look at what’s in store. — Frank Sietzen, Jr.

A tale of two comets
Comets C/2002 T7 (LINEAR) and C/2001 Q4 (NEAT) should be at their brightest in May, providing wonderful views to observers around the globe. — Charles S. Morris

All-sky fireball network
An interconnected group of all-sky cameras watches the sky 24 hours a day. The reason? The operators of this system are tracking brilliant meteors in the hope of actually recovering meteorites. — Jim Gamble

Robotic observing
Scour the sky while fast asleep. Too good to be true? Tenagra Observatories’ computer-controlled telescopes let you catch supernovae while catching some shut-eye.
— Tom Polakis

Orion’s Atlas 8
A classic telescope design, a drive motor that follows the stars across the sky, and all the accessories you need to observe celestial objects make the new 8-inch reflector from Orion a winner. — Phil Harrington