This week on Looking Up Bruce Bookout tells us a bit about the naming process for asteroids. During another 80's musical interlude, I wondered how asteroids are named. Asteroids are those left-over parts of the cloud that formed our solar syste

Looking Up: Mars Meets The Moon

Feb 17th, 2020 1m 30s

Mars does a disappearing act in the early morning sky on February 18. But not to worry, it's just hiding behind the moon, as Hal explains on this week's Looking Up. We’ve talked before about how the planets revolve around the Sun in pretty much

Looking Up: Seeing Double

Feb 10th, 2020 1m 30s

This week on Looking up Hal informs us about a star named Porrima. But is it one star or two? High in the east in the Colorado night sky is the very interesting star Porrima. Or rather, I should say stars, because there are actually two stars o

Looking Up: Free Streaming Featuring Major Stars

Feb 3rd, 2020 1m 30s

This week on Looking Up Hal grabs a celestial lion by the tail. One of my favorite constellations is Leo the Lion, now rising in the east after sunset. Leo has lots of interesting stars, and it also actually looks a bit like what it is supposed

Looking Up: The Spectral Light Knows

Jan 27th, 2020 1m 30s

This week on Looking Up Bruce Bookout takes on a listener question. One of our listeners, Scott K., asked a great question that is the basis of how we know, what we know about the universe. His question is: “How do astronomers determine things

Looking Up: Together Forever

Jan 20th, 2020 1m 30s

This week on Looking Up Hal doubles our pleasure and doubles our fun by revealing some of the secrets of the Gemini Twins. Did you ever wish you had a twin brother or sister? Someone to be with and to talk to all the time? How about to spend al

Looking Up: A River Runs Through It

Jan 13th, 2020 1m 30s

This week's Looking Up has a certain flow to it as Hal talks about the river constellation. There are lots of constellations up in the Colorado night sky all year round, with 88 total constellations all told. Today I want to tell you about one

Looking Up: (We Long To Be) Close To You

Jan 6th, 2020 1m 30s

Fortunately, our very own star won't be falling down from the sky anytime soon. However, we are the closest to ol' Sol right now than at any other point of our yearly path around the sun, as we learn on Looking Up this week. Well, we are now in

Looking Up: Just The Cold Hard Facts

Dec 23rd, 2019 1m 30s

This week on Looking Up Hal gets around to telling us about an asterism visible in the night sky this time of year - the Winter Circle. If you are a weather wimp, like I am, you prefer warm weather. That point of view is a bit unfortunate for a

Looking Up: It's Always Darkest Before The Spring Equinox

Dec 16th, 2019 1m 30s

Yes, the darkest days are still ahead but spring can't be too far behind as we learn on Looking Up this week. We’ve talked before about how the Earth is tilted on its axis, and that tilt gives us seasons and days of varying length, in terms of

Looking Up: It's A Wonderful Light

Dec 9th, 2019 1m 30s

This week on Looking Up Hal informs us about a beautiful cosmic conjunction in our evening sky. There are things in our Colorado night sky that are really interesting, and there are things that are really beautiful to look at, and there are som

Looking Up: It's All In The Point Of View

Dec 2nd, 2019 1m 30s

This week on Looking Up Hal speaks of the star Furud, which means "the solitary one". I’m sometimes asked how I pick what objects in the Colorado night sky to talk about. Sometimes I pick things that are beautiful and other times I pick things

Looking Up: Spinning Under Control

Nov 25th, 2019 1m 30s

This week on Looking Up Bruce Bookout sets his sights on the Earth's precession. During a recent 80’s musical flashback, I wondered about a fundamental part of our movement in the universe. It is well understood that our spherical earth spins o

Looking Up: California Nebula... Some Assembly Required

Nov 18th, 2019 1m 30s

This week on Looking Up we are California Nebula dreamin'. We humans like to find order in chaos, and we have a trait, called Pareidolia, which leads us to try to see patterns in, well, lots of things. That’s why we think we see a man in the Mo

Looking Up: Happy 250th!

Nov 11th, 2019 1m 30s

This week Looking Up reaches a milestone episode. For some reason that I’m sure sociologists and anthropologists fully understand, humans tend to like things in nice round numbers, or at least I do. And so, the topic of this week’s episode of L

Looking Up: Mercury In Transition

Nov 4th, 2019 1m 30s

The planet Mercury will transit the sun on November 11th, and you're invited to the party! Today I want to invite you to a very special party here at KRCC, coming up a week from today. It’s a very special event that rarely happens, and if you m

Looking Up: The Ages Of Aquarius

Oct 28th, 2019 1m 30s

Bruce Bookout steers this week's episode of Looking Up and guides us to the constellation of Aquarius. Constellations are fickle things. Defining what shape you see and what that means is all derivative of your culture and what that pattern app

Looking Up: Knee High To A Queen

Oct 21st, 2019 1m 30s

This week on Looking Up Hal kneels at the throne of Cassiopeia in order to pay homage to the star Ruchbah. Today I’d like to tell you about an interesting star, high in the Colorado night sky right now, the star Ruchbah. Ruchbah is the 4 th bri

Looking Up: Backup Is Just A Wobble Away

Oct 14th, 2019 1m 30s

This week on Looking Up Hal goes to Plan B, which is always good to have if you're heading into outer space. I don’t know about you, but I like to have backups for things in my life. I carry an extra pen, and I like to have a backup plan if I’m

Looking Up: My Very Existential Mother Just Served Us Noodles

Oct 7th, 2019 1m 30s

This week on Looking Up we go on a planet hunt with Hal. How many of the 8 planets can you see? (sorry, Pluto fans, there are 8). I admit, it is a bit of a trick question. But the month of October is an especially great month for planet watchin

Looking Up: Scooting Off To Scutum

Sep 30th, 2019 1m 30s

This week on Looking Up we are 'shielded' from ignorance about the constellation Scutum, thanks to Bruce Bookout. The night sky contains many odd objects besides the menagerie of strange creatures. This time of year, in our southwestern sky, yo

Looking Up: Tilt A Whirld

Sep 23rd, 2019 1m 30s

Happy Autumnal Equinox from Looking Up! Today marks the September Equinox. Most folks have heard of the two equinox events we have every year, the beginning of spring, with the Spring Equinox in March, and the Fall Equinox that falls in Septemb

Looking Up: Dolphin Dreams

Sep 16th, 2019 1m 30s

On Looking Up this week we hear about a diamond encrusted dolphin visible in the late summer skies above Colorado. Quite often on these broadcasts, I talk about things that are really big. Heck, the universe is pretty large, so it makes sense t

Looking Up: A Not So Tiny Dancer

Sep 9th, 2019 1m 30s

Tonight's the night for a tiny dot of light to dance across the sky in full opposition of the sun, as we learn on Looking Up. Tonight is a special night for a tiny dot of light, and today’s episode could be titled “far out,” because the dot of

Looking Up: Star Hunt

Sep 2nd, 2019 1m 30s

This week on Looking Up Hal takes us on a star safari to search for possibly the southern most star visible from the Colorado sky. Do you feel like going on a bit of a star hunt? If so, pay attention as I tell you about the elusive star Al Nair