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 a flat plane that is roughly circular.

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 orbiting each other, only 38 ly away.

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 to be, a lion.

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?

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.

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.

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.

Yes, the darkest days are still ahead but spring can’t be too far behind as we learn on Looking Up this week.

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 some things that are both.

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 that are inherently interesting, and sometimes it’s both.

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.

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.

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.

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 4th brightest star in the northern constellation of Cassiopeia.

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.

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.