An amateur astronomer’s notebook with observation notes, constellation guides, skywatching articles, and a calmer archive of favorite nights under dark skies.
What’s up there right now
What’s visible this evening from mid-northern latitudes, after astronomical twilight.
My dark site is about 40 km from the city. On moonless summer nights, the gravel road brightens enough that the whole place feels gently backlit by the sky.
Celestial highlights for the months ahead
“The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars.”Carl Sagan
What to look for in each season
One September night I drove out for galaxies and ended up watching green curtains pulse across the horizon instead. That is the real joy of keeping a sky journal: the sky never agrees to your plan.
Notes from recent sessions
Transparency was unusually good, enough to trace the Milky Way from Cassiopeia down toward Sagittarius through a low spring haze.
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After dozens of sessions, it still feels like the telescope that taught me the sky rather than just showing it to me.
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The Moon stays the easiest high-reward target in the hobby: bright, detailed, and constantly changing from night to night.
Read moreBooks that shaped how I look at the sky, plus a few short shelf notes
The best astronomy books lower your expectations in the right way. They tell you how faint galaxies really look, which objects survive bad transparency, and which tools matter less than patience.
Read noteI mark pages with dates, moon phase, seeing, and whether an object actually worked in my telescope. Over time, the book becomes a record of the sky I really saw, not just the one I wanted.
Read noteI keep returning to star-hopping basics, binocular observing, and lunar detail. Those chapters reward repetition because they improve almost every casual observing session.
Read noteAll horizontal frames, selected from the past two years
The person behind the telescope
I am a software engineer in Northern Europe who accidentally got pulled into astronomy after one clear view of Jupiter and its four bright moons.
This site is part observing logbook, part quiet reminder that dark skies reward repeat visits more than perfect planning.
The best sessions are still the simplest ones: a thermos, a notebook, and enough patience to wait for the sky to settle.