View the full issue in the Magazine Archive There are very few things in this world that I love more than flowers. Every year in late winter I get thoroughly excited about that year’s garden and...
Articles & Stories
Where My Macro Photography Setup Met With Snowflakes
View the full issue in the Magazine Archive For a long time now, several years actually, I’ve been wishing to try a new approach to photographing snowflakes. Just how I’ve wished to try this...
Eridanus
View the full issue in the Magazine Archive Eridanus, the River, is a large constellation that begins just west of Orion’s brightest star, Rigel. From Rigel, it stretches about 60° southwest before...
Winter Trails
View the full issue in the Magazine Archive Snowshoe hare in winter. Photo by Denali National Park and Preserve|CC-BY-2.0, detail. “I love fall, but I dread to think what is coming afterwards,” the...
Treasures of the Snow
View the full issue in the Magazine Archive Snowflake design. Photo © Don Komarechka. As I write, I am also looking out the window and seeing lazy snowflakes silently swirling, floating, twirling...
Wondernose: What tree has seeds that will start sending out roots even before they have separated from the fruit?
View the full issue in the Magazine Archive That’s right, Wondernose. While the fruits are still on this tree, the seeds germinate and begin growing roots. Down, down the roots grow; sometimes they...
God Feeds The Birds!
View the full issue in the Magazine Archive I have often wondered how God feeds the birds when northern Pennsylvania is grasped firmly in the jaws of winter. I couldn’t really picture the birds...
Fun Facts About Gravity
View the full issue in the Magazine Archive Gravity seems fairly straightforward and predictable. If you throw a ball up and then catch it, the speed at which it falls back into your hand will be...
Winter Sowing
View the full issue in the Magazine Archive Just after the winter solstice when the daylight is at its shortest, the weather at its coldest, and the gardens smooth and barren, seed catalogs begin to...
Treasures of the Snow: How I Learned to Photograph Them
View the full issue in the Magazine Archive Editor’s Note: With the focus on snowflakes in this issue, I decided to go back Memory Lane and pick up the first time we wrote about snowflake...
Focus Illustrated, January 2025
View the full issue in the Magazine Archive Editor’s Note: After Priscilla Wenger’s lesson came out in March 2011, Ezra Morley used her lesson as a springboard. This is a reprint of his story from...
Cassiopeia
View the full issue in the Magazine Archive Cassiopeia lies high in the northern sky in December. Like Cepheus, our target constellation last month, Cassiopeia is a circumpolar constellation. It...
Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS)—Delightful
View the full issue in the Magazine Archive Light from a full moon illuminates this landscape one hour after sunset. Rain clouds are closing in, and the touch of a moonbow can be seen in a cloud....
Wondernose: What tree is among the world’s oldest living things?
View the full issue in the Magazine Archive Come with me to the Rocky Mountains of the southwestern United States. Climb with me to a height of 8,000 feet (2400 m). Here we come upon a gnarled,...
My Mountaintop Aurora Adventure
View the full issue in the Magazine Archive Northern lights. Photo © Cheryl Shank. Twigs snapped and leaves crunched as my three comrades and I plodded up the wooded mountainside in southwestern...