Jim Colyer's Blog

I have had three rounds of astronomy. Round one was as a teenager in the early 1960s. I learned the constellations and watched meteor showers. Round two was in my 30s. I got into cosmology, learned the features of the moon and wrote my first astronomy paper. Round three was in my 50s. I subscribed to Astronomy Magazine, wrote a second paper and went to an Australian Star Party to see the stars of the Southern Hemisphere. Hopefully, I have achieved a permanence in the Internet age since astronomy ...

I was born in Louisville, Kentucky, on December 29, 1945. Famous people with whom I share a birthday are Mary Tyler Moore and Andrew Johnson, the only president besides Bill Clinton to be impeached. I grew up 15 miles east of Louisville in Middletown. School began for me in the fall of 1952. I hated school, everything about it. My first grade teacher grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me because I tried to work a puzzle which was too hard for me without first asking. She was a dominatrix. She ...