Janna Levin Instagram – Joe Patterson was my first astronomy professor. He would pace at the front of the old lecture hall in Columbia’s physics department, writing equations on green chalkboards while a hundred undergraduates sat scattered among the worn, wooden auditorium seats. Joe was everyone’s favorite. He’d throw chocolates to anyone who piped up enough to ask a question. Around the 1990s, Joe wrote and illustrated a seasonal newsletter, in the style of an old-fashioned paper zine, of astronomical highlights visible from New York City. His affable style mixed wit and history with astronomy for a completely charming, largely undiscovered cult classic: Big Apple Astronomy. We hope to convince Joe to revive the zine as a quarterly column on The Broadcast; in the meantime he has shared with us a February 2022 issue of Big Apple Sky Calendar, the daily guide to sky viewing that used to conclude the seasonal newsletter. Steal a few moments of reprieve from the city’s mayhem to take in these sights. As Oscar Wilde said, “we are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
Now on The Pioneer Works Broadcast:
https://pioneerworks.org/broadcast/big-apple-sky-calendar-Feb-2022
@pioneerworks #PWBroadcast #astronomy | Posted on 06/Feb/2022 01:38:26
