Tucson CitizenTucson Citizen

Ask the Astronomer

Q: At around 9:15 p.m. I’m looking above the southern horizon of the night sky and I see a bright, multicolored star. It twinkles lots of colors. But after 20 minutes it never gets any higher into the night sky. It’s amazing to look at but what is it?

A. What you are seeing is Canopus, the second brightest actual star in the night sky. Through a telescope or even an ordinary pair of binoculars, Canopus is an interesting sight due to the refraction, or bending of its light, in our atmosphere. The lower an object is in the sky, the more its light is disturbed by our atmosphere, hence the “light show” you are seeing.

Citizen Online Archive, 2006-2009

This archive contains all the stories that appeared on the Tucson Citizen's website from mid-2006 to June 1, 2009.

In 2010, a power surge fried a server that contained all of videos linked to dozens of stories in this archive. Also, a server that contained all of the databases for dozens of stories was accidentally erased, so all of those links are broken as well. However, all of the text and photos that accompanied some stories have been preserved.

For all of the stories that were archived by the Tucson Citizen newspaper's library in a digital archive between 1993 and 2009, go to Morgue Part 2

Search site | Terms of service