Articles written by Dale Hawkins
Sorted by date Results 1 - 25 of 35
Alaina Riggs to be first Tehachapian to attend Coast Guard Academy
The United States Coast Guard Academy announced that Alaina Riggs from Tehachapi High School has...
Airport star party is back, Sept. 11
[Editor's note: On page 2 of The Loop newspaper's Aug. 14, 2021 issue, the incorrect date was...
Airport star party is back, Sep. 11
The COVID pandemic has shut down our community star parties for far too long. At last, it's time to...
A checkmark on the bucket list
Seeing a total solar eclipse never was on my Bucket List. Yet, when I was twelve years old, I...
Total Solar Eclipse and other astronomical events
Most of you have heard about the unusual total solar eclipse that is about to cross America on Augus...
The year of 'Mission Ends'
Last month I focused our eyes on the many exciting manned space activities underway this year....
The year ahead in space
This winter has been unusually brutal for Tehachapi astronomers (and less than optimal for local...
Supermoons on the rise
I'm sure most of you witnessed the brighter-than-average moon in mid-October. Many of you also...
Juno survives its first Jovian Orbit
On the Fourth of July, NASA/JPL's Juno spacecraft arrived at Jupiter. It's the first probe...
Star Trek is Alive and Well at 50
On September 8th, the venerable TV series Star Trek will officially turn 50. While a number of old...
It's Meteor Season
August is often called, "Meteor Month," because some of the best meteor showers of the year occur...
Five Years After the Shuttle
President Obama is a lame duck. That means that his primary focus is no longer on bold plans for the...
Juno on Final Approach to Jupiter
Launched almost five years ago, the NASA/JPL spacecraft Juno will arrive at Jupiter on July 4th to...
Adventure to the Consumer Electronics Show yielded few Martian technologies
As an electronics engineer, I've always wanted to visit the fabled International Consumer...
How much has changed as things remain the same....
By the time this goes to press, most of you will have seen episode VII of Star Wars. A friend...
New Horizons Changes Course as Pioneer 6 reaches 50
After dazzling the world with high resolution images and high-tech data from Pluto, New Horizons is...
Occultations, conjunctions, eclipses, oh my!
8 has certainly been a year for celestial alignments! As we go to press, there will be a total...
Cosmic flight plans
As we look out at the night sky, one of the greatest challenges is seeing it properly in three...
"The 'Dog Days' of Summer"
The Ancient Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians called the hottest days of summer the ‘Dog Days’ of sum...
'New Horizons' zeroes in on Pluto
When I was a kid, the best image of Pluto from Mount Palomar was a fuzzy dot. The great Hubble...
It's time to party! 'Star Party', that is
With April showers and May flowers behind us, summer nights will soon be upon us. This year...
Citizen astronomers
How many of us still cling to the image of the astronomer as a stiff-moving caricature in a white la...
Gould's Belt defines our galactic neighborhood
The warm winter we've been enjoying has also afforded us many extra nights of skies clear enough to...
Dawn Makes Its Second Rendezvous at Dwarf Planet Ceres
Three-and-a-half years ago, a sophisticated NASA space probe named Dawn caught up with an asteroid...
Tehachapi Pays Its Dues as We Reach for the Stars
Tehachapians are on the front lines of the conquest of space. Many work at Lockheed Martin, Boeing,...