Caoimhín's Content

Astronomical and Educational content, in English and Irish

All Posts

  • The Dark Side, or Far Side, of the Moon and Sampling

    Today we are looking, once again, at the Moon. For a change, we are going to take a look mostly at the side of the Moon that we don’t normally get to see. The Chinese Space Agency, or the China National Space Administration, has recently landed a lander, Chang’e 6, on the Far Side of

    Read more

  • Icy Moons: What, Where and Why do we Care?

    Recently, we took a look at the difference between the gas giants like Saturn and Jupiter and the ice giants like Neptune and Uranus. Today, we are going to look at something else icy: icy moons. We already passed by an icy moon in the ice giant video, Triton, Neptune’s largest moon. Triton is tough

    Read more

  • Undiscovering the Planet Vulcan

    Today, we are mostly going to take a look at some mistakes. Mistakes from the past can leave behind little quirks and inconsistencies in things we use today, and catching mistakes is often a good thing. Realizing that we were wrong about something can help us prevent similar mistakes in the future. This is inspired

    Read more

  • Ice Giants versus Gas Giants: A Closer Look at the Biggest Planets

    Every month or so, I usually make a video talking about a particular planet. beginning with several months ago, up Jupiter and Saturn in the past couple of months. Having looked at the gas giants, the ice giants are next. Before giving them a specific video, I though it would be nice to compare the

    Read more

  • June and the Summer Solstice

    In the previous video we took a look forward to the very early part of June, particularly the planets that we will get to see in the morning. Despite Mercury and Jupiter being too close to the Sun for us to see in Ireland, from other locations four planets would be visible in the sky

    Read more

  • Solar Day, Sidereal Day, and the Parade of Planets

    I mentioned in the last article that there are different ways to measure a day, among them are the sidereal and solar days. This little tidbit was not mentioned in the previous video attached to that article, just one of the many little bonus facts readers of the website get. In the above video, I

    Read more

  • What we Can See in Late May and Early June

    At the start of May, we looked ahead to the whole month, but now as we approach the end I think it’s worth a second look. Even though the weather is getting hotter, the Earth is actually approaching its furthest from the Sun in our elliptical orbit. How close we are to the Sun in

    Read more

  • Na Gealaí, nú Gealán agus an Spéir Anois

    Today, as we come up to the end of May and beginning of June, we are going to review the kinds of things that are visible in the sky, starting by looking forward the 24th of this month and the Full Moon. The Moon can be quite bright, especially when it’s full, and the Irish

    Read more

  • The Aurorae and the 11 Year Solar Cycle

    Recently, the Aurora Borealis or the Northern Lights has been visible from the South of Ireland. This is thanks to a solar storm, so we will begin by looking at the Sun and move from there to the aurorae and how likely we are to see more of them. Although you should never look directly

    Read more

  • Transits of Venus and an Eclipse on Mars!

    Continuing the theme set by last week’s video, where we looked at the transit of Mercury coming up in 2032 and the return of Halley’s Comet in 2061, we are going to look even further into the future this time. the next transit of Venus that will be visible from the Earth is almost 100

    Read more