The stars have always fascinated mankind. Telescopes aren’t exactly cheap though, so how do you know which ones are worth the money?  Where do you find charts that show you which stars are which?  How do you know when the weather will be best suited for viewing?  Luckily there are numerous resources on the Web to help you find all the astronomy answers and recommendations that you need.  We’ve gathered up over 15 that will help anyone become a backyard astronomer.

Are you a backyard astronomer? Tell us about your favorite sites.

Community Sites

Astromart.com - Has reviews of telescopes, binoculars, and accessories. Also provides classifieds, forums and a calendar of events.

Astronomy.net - Very Web 1.0, but has lots of articles, information, a classifieds area and a large forum archive covering numerous subjects.

CloudyNights.com - CloudyNights has a large collection of telescope reviews, articles, forums, and a great section for kids called “Tiny Eyes on the Sky,” where amateurs help get children involved in the hobby.

IceInSpace.com.au - An Australia-based amateur community site that focuses on promoting amateur astronomy in the southern hemisphere.

General Information

AstronomyForBeginners.com - A good advice site for those just starting out.  Features advice, tips on equipment, and more.

Backyard-Astro.com - Lots of information for the budding backyard astronomer, with suggestions on equipment, information about the solar system, and other tips.

EarthSky.org - Earth & Sky provides daily information on their blog about some of the highlights of each night’s stargazing possibilities.  They also have podcasts and are aired daily on NPR stations.

Eric Weisstein’s World of Astronomy - An encyclopedia of astronomy terms and facts.

NASA.gov - While NASA’s website is not very focused on astronomy, there is an amazing treasure trove of deep space photos from the Hubble telescope… the one we all wish we could use from our backyards.

Magazines

Astronomy.com - The online arm of Astronomy Magazine.  Has maps of the stars, a sky dome showing your current sky for your location, a Q&A column, further in-depth back stories to their articles, and more.

AstronomyNow.com - AstronomyNow is the sister site to the Astronomy Now magazine, which is published in the UK.

SkyandTelescope.com - Sky & Telescope Magazine has a website filled with links to various resources for astronomers, how-to’s, equipment showcases and more.

Miscellaneous Tools

CalSky.com - Allows you to look up numerous astrological events, and even see the path of solar eclipses from 1900 through 2100, just in case you plan on still being around.

Google Earth’s Sky - A while back, Google Earth added a Sky feature that allows you to look around our cosmic neighborhood, zoom in on items, overlay names and more.

Intellicast.com - Intellicast.com provides you with a Sky Watch forecast so you know if it’s worth setting up for an evening of stargazing.

MidnightKite.com - Offers an extensive list of astronomy software packages that are freeware/shareware, commercial and interactive websites.

WeatherUnderground.com - Enter your zip code and see what the current stars are for your area and where to find them in the sky.

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Source:Mashable!

Were you bullied in school or out of school by classmates or students from warring institutions? Would you tell a parent or guardian about it?

Some of you would answer Question #1 in the affirmative, and would give a “probably not” or a “definitely not” to the followup. In part because the only thing worse than dishing those details to your folks is to have your folks talk to their folks about their unruly kid. So let us begin by saying that a study published in The Journal of School Health is telling you much of what you already know. Which is that you just don’t mention that stuff.

Most don’t mention it, anyway. This has long been the case on the playground, in the cafeteria, in the gym locker room, on the athletic field, and the lavatory. As well as for the last few years in which teens have come to call the Internet their digital home, where friendly faces meet taunts and teases and out-and-out venom and aggression that inevitably gets tagged as the classic war amongst peers. The problem is that the graffiti is particularly hard to erase on the Web.

The study was organized by Jaana Juvonen and Elisheva F Gross, a fellow and a professor at UCLA, respectively, and the core finding is that bullying is prevalent among teens (at least 41% of the 1,454 surveyed). Go figure. Also, Juvonen and Gross found that teens think slander is only being directed at them.

The first point I can accept, with some duh for garnish. But I imagine the second is misinterpreted. Or has simply been taken too much at face value. For one, students today, as I imagine students of years past, have largely been groomed to be self-absorbed. Not anti-social or anything of that sort, but focused inward. Instead of cultivating interpersonal relationships with others, its been about “fitting in” to a particular bloc. Which gives peers in general the perception that there are social rules and barriers where there really are none. Hence the tribal, not communal and productive nature of the classroom and all things beyond that generations have tried to achieve. So to be effective in stopping bullying, online or off, has hardly anything to do with placing restrictions or limits or parental controls on matters. It has much to do with uprooting long-held behavioral norms and conventions. How does that happen?

Well, making such changes is harder to do the advent of free online tools, and tools that essentially do away with physical barriers. Users cannot only just connect with people within their own communities, but with the world at large. Which on the one hand is a phenomenal convenience, but alternately is something that can carry a measure of permanence and inescapability. There’s no easy way to whitewash MySpace, in other words.

Which brings us to an item that the researchers responsible for the survey about cyberbullying reveal, something that warrant heaps upon heaps of attention. And that is that parents and educators alike need to get in tune with children’s lives, online and off. That is what can initiate a stop, or a least a major decrease, in “nastiness,” for lack of a better word. (Feel free to contribute better phrasing in the comments.)

No, no, none of that “my Mom and/or Dad want to be my friend on MySpace and Facebook” stuff. That’s borderline nonsense. Rather, elders need to be familiar with such services to the point that a conversation, a real-world, kitchen-table conversation, can be established about them.

Some adults may have no desire to do so, but children naturally recognize this disinterest, and it only makes it less likely that if problems do occur, children will have the inclination to bring them to parents’ view. Given enough time, fixing a situation can be a major undertaking. With plenty of pills in the middle. If parents swallow some of their pride and their fear of their offspring, a psychological jump can be made there. If the jump proves successful, on the other side of the divide is trust. And trust dictates behavior.

There then is the start of a “trickle down” effect that happens not only in family life, but that can eventually permeate the educational and social ecosystem. Of course, it’s a far more complex picture with Internet activity involved, but it may well be possible that, with the availability of online networks, a shift to the positive will be accelerated rather than taken asunder. That’s an optimist’s view for you. Any takers? Any dissenters?

(Image credits: top: Current.com; middle: Sperryclass.com)

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