Complete Space And Astronomy Video Game

The Complete Space And Astronomy Video Game is an interactive educational tool in a CD ROM format. With the four CD-ROMs included in Complete Space & Astronomy 2.0, your child – or you ! -  can experience what the astronauts experienced right through your computer, among many other outer space delights. Other elements include close-up views of Mars, a trip of the actual route taken to the Moon, including the Moon Walk.

This is Patrick Moore’s Guide to the Universe. It  is a wonderful educational tool – a concise and informative guide to the field of astronomy, constructed so that the subject does not overwhelm any new students to astronomy. The “Solar System Explorer” CD-ROM launches users into outer space, based on their chosen coordinates and mission. The primary goodies include much actual NASA footage and photographs, giving a superb view of what the original astronauts really went through.

This is a wonderful item for any family, guaranteed to awaken or deepen any member’s interest in space and our fascinations as a world with it.

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Medium Priced Telescope

BINOTECH Telescope offers ease and understanding, which is what it is all about for a child just entering into the science of astronomy. Curiosity  is the learning tool for discovery. This telescope can be used as a toy for schoolwork or as a hobby for your children’s friends. The eyepieces are binocular for ease of use (size changes) adjusted manually.  You never know, there may be another planet out there that is yet to be discovered!   It can be good for bonding with Mom or Dad, and a mutual interest in your child’s  schooling  is also an absolute plus !

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Home Planetarium

Easy to use, complete with Instructional DVD, this Space Theater Planetarium is a very cool, hands-on way for a child to experience the heavens in the comfort of his own home. Matching identifications of constellations and the night sky are made easier by the proportionate rendering through the templates provided. Mom and Dad and anybody also curious get to experience the sky together and discuss all the many wonders in a protected and secure atmosphere.

This is suggested as a “starter planetarium” which does not show the entire sky, yet it is perfect for a flat surface inasmuch as it does represent well what one actually can reproduce in a ceiling setting. There is educational achievement with this unit of a high order, made easier by its simplicity. It does require a very dark room but that fact makes it seem somehow even more private and wonderful.

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Backyard Astronomer’s Guide

The Backyard Astronomer’s Guide is a lot more than a review of heavenly objects and locations, although there is plenty of that inside. There are the expected and awfully useful lists of constellations, star charts, night sky maps, or details about planets, stars, and galaxies and all that. But there is also a wealth of information about the equipment used in astronomy, including some prices, consumer-type information, advice on when to use and when not to use binoculars, telescopes, cameras, film, lenses, filters, and other items for the amateur astronomer. As a practical guide for amateur and learning astronomers, this is a virtual and very helpful compendium of information. The recommendations for this book are excessive – all written by very accomplished people in the field. Coffee Table sized, it makes a colorful and informative guidebook for anyone taking seriously their interest in the Heavens.

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Active Star Watching – Hubble and The Amazing ‘Slooh’

There is more than one place to become actively engaged with the sky. Some more immediate and active than others.

The Hubble Site has to be the entire world’s most important and most accessible astronomical site among any and all others. I love it! Its wonders are available online at any time of day and features an evolving list and gallery of photographs, taken by this unbelievable instrument. There is absolutely no downside to immersing oneself in the Hubble’s wonders. They are totally open for your exploration and delighted to share. This is what we most definitely call a “good thing”.

But for active engagement, complete with viewing the heavens in Real Time, Slooh is the place.

Signing up with Slooh yields 350 minutes of live mission time on the Slooh worldwide telescope network. What is this “network”? This – 3 active observatories, based in Chile, the Canary Islands and in Australia – real live observatories, devoted to star-watching, all with preset and announced gazing times. The additional package with this interesting site includes 2  Slooh Workbooks containing 28 celestial objects, inclusion, as mentioned, in their Northern and Southern hemisphere coverage through Slooh’s network of worldwide observatory sites and the software and instruction on how to take, store, and share pictures taken all on one’s own.

The offer includes 350 live minutes of shared time on these elegant and powerful telescopes, complete with one’s own detours and wanderings. As well, the notebooks and software include tours with “Otto”. Choose numerous mission packs focused on various categories of space. Otto will launch the participant into space and guide you through your mission. You can snap and share recon photos of the entire adventure. Kid friendly in the extreme, this site has won numerous awards for astronomical excellence and educational virtue.

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Stars Are Like People

Billed as an educational tool for kids aged 8-80 might be taking things a bit far, but this nice little tome describes the stars, galaxies and the constellations from a human-based perspective, mirroring well the literal transfer of power down to us persons, here on Earth. Only 28 pages, it has most interesting illustrations, perfect for culling from the night sky those wonders we relish. This is a starter book, perfect for the novice who wants to understand more about the sky.

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The Kids Book Of The Night Sky

Here is another absolutely fabulously informative book for kids aged 6-12 who have an active interest in what’s going on up there. Illustrated perfectly and highly recommended by teachers, this loaded little book gives information on a wide variety of subjects, from eclipses and their periodicity to the phases of the moon to the conditions on the ground from the latest photos and explorations on Mars.

It has the record of myths, legends and even some jokes, all imminently readable and few requiring asult help. This is a sweet little book, perfect for the curious child with an astronomy bent. Pleasantly-worded and entertaining, kids should get a loads of information and fun from this book.

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State Of The Art Telescopy

This compact and very serious telescope is the next step up from “practicing” at astronomy. I could not leave out this amazingly accurate and easy-to-use piece from any telescope list, even if it costs what it offers. In this case, I think we get value for value. The images and easy alignment aids of this piece of telescopic art is phenomenal. For the serious astronomer, this item is something one dreams about as a kid. What may be most remarkable about it, however, is how much easier it becomes to locate what we’re searching for. This one also lets us get far deeper out into the Universe itself.

The Nexstar 8 SE upholds Celestron’s reputation for quality optics. When you look at Jupiter, the pale orange color of Jupiter’s famous Great Red Spot is visible, and you can even be able to identify the polar caps and spot dust storms on the planet Mars. Here is a great view of Jupiter through this telescope:

This one is for real. It also has automatic aligning features based on current date and time plus a database of over 40,000 celestial objects. It is sturdy, compact and has the brain of a true astronomical wizard inside its chip. This is a truly wonderful item and a goal, if nothing else, for any serious home astronomer.

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The Search For The Perfect Starter Telescope

Finding the perfect starter telescope involves many things, foremost of which for most of us is price. This telescope goes for a bit less than $100 and represents what I consider the best buy in the “starter” telescope range. It has a few plastic parts, notably the dials, but all-in-all, it offers some fabulous viewing at a great magnification. Nice rig here.

The Celestron 21045 offers a 4.5 inch reflecting mirror and gathers three times more starlight than popular 60mm refractors. The Powerseeker package includes two eyepieces (K20 and SR4), a plastic 3x barlow, and a lightweight equatorial mount. The Tripod is an excellent composition and quite steady. At 30 pounds, it is a nice and serious piece of star-gazing equipment. In my experience, it is hard to find units offering this much power for under $100. Using the K20 eyepiece included as standard equipment, about 45x magnification, it’s easy to see the Andromeda Galaxy and its smaller satellite galaxy M32. That’s some good power!

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Astronomical Learning Gizmo

This little gizmo is an ultra attractive learning tool that does not even need the night sky to learn with, although it certainly helps. One can tour the sky with its help and see the realities he reads about during the day. It’s like a hand-held Gameboy, full of amazing information and correct placements of planets and constellations based on the current date and time. Kids can switch modes to see the scribed in pictures of the mythological beasts and personages who populate the sky and whom the constellations were named for.

Self-illuminated, it is a small planesphere complete with light and sound. An audio presentaion heklps the viewer navigate the machine, leading to an understanding of what’s going on up there. It has a glow in the dark compass and a cool back lit LCD clock display. I really like this little thing and I suspect it could be a real educational attention grabber.

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