Happy New Year - Astronomy Forecast for 2015

In one of my other lives, I'm an astronomer, so I'm looking forward to a year full of fun astronomy stuff. Granted, 2014 was also interesting, from eclipses and occultations to landing a little Philae on a comet.

I can't think of a single human who doesn't get a kick out of looking up into the night sky, especially when they know what's up there. You wanna hook a human on astronomy forever? Show 'em Saturn through a telescope. That'll set 'em up for life.

Universe Today has compiled the Top 101 Astronomical Events for 2015. Guaranteed there will be something in there to catch your interest.

Because a year is an astronomical measurement, I thought I'd share this list with you.

Highlights: 

• Comets Lovejoy and PanSTARRS may become visible to the naked eye.
• Lots of planetary conjunctions (ie clusters of "Evening Stars" as the planets pair up for a few nights).
• A total lunar eclipse.
• New Horizons visits Pluto. Whether or not you accept it's Dwarf Planet status, you have to admit this is gonna be totally cool.
• Philae may wake up. I hope so.

 So turn your eyes heavenwards for 2015. There's lots of exciting stuff happening up there.

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Her Grace can't remember if she wanted to be an author before she wanted to be an astronomer, or vice-versa. It was so, so long ago.