Australian Sky & Telescope

OUR SENSE OF SIGHT is perhaps the most precious of our senses. It not only enables most of us to function in the everyday world, it also lets us experience the wonder of the universe in which we live. For those of us who have sight, imagine if we cou

EDITOR Jonathan Nally ART DIRECTOR Lee McLachlan CONTRIBUTING EDITORS John Drummond, David Ellyard, Alan Plummer, David Seargent, EMAIL info@skyandtelescope.com.au ADVERTISING MANAGER Jonathan Nally EMAIL jonathan@skyandtelescope.com.au Ian Brooks E

A study led by Christopher Kyba (GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences) shows that while streetlights are an important source of light pollution, they’re far from the only culprits. The city of Tucson, Arizona, has connected more than 19,000 LED

The main belt extends from about 2 to 3.3 astronomical units, between Mars (at 1.5 a.u.) and Jupiter (5.2 a.u.). The asteroids in it range in width from about 965 km to less than 10 metres. ■

It might seem a silly question, but astronomers aren’t certain Orion’s red supergiant will have a spectacular demise. Observations haven’t turned up clear examples of supernovae from red supergiants born with more than about 20 solar masses. (Betelge

Most T Tauri stars are young pre-main-sequence stars that were born within the last several million years and are less than 2.5 times as massive as the Sun. T Tauri itself, however, may be an even younger variety of star, called a protostar. Despite

Early March 10 pm Late March 9 pm Early April 8 pm Late April 7 pm These are standard times — add Daylight Savings if it applies to your location.  Go outside within an hour or so of a time listed above. Hold the map above your head with the bottom

For most of the hours of darkness during March and April, the sky will be largely devoid of bright planetary targets, with Mars being the sole exception. Let’s take a look at what we can expect to see. Mercury (mag. 0.0, dia. 6.3”, Mar. 15) can be s

US price: $2,350 skywatcherusa.com Excellent optics Smooth, dual-speed 2-inch focuser Rugged carrying/ storage case Eyepieces, star diagonal and finder not included (but see below) Tube slips in its mounting rings Eyepieces, star diagonal, and finder

There are only two minor southern meteor showers of note for March and April. The first is the Gamma Normids, active from late February through until late March with a maximum of sorts around March 14. The word ‘active’ is probably a bit misleading —

Last Quarter …… 6th, 01:30 UT New Moon …… 13th, 10:21 UT First Quarter …… 21st, 14:40 UT Full Moon …… 28th, 18:48 UT Perigee …… 2nd, 05h UT, 365,423 km Apogee …… 18th, 05h UT, 405,253 km Perigee …… 30th, 06h UT, 360,309 km Last Quarter …… 4th, 10:02

In astronomy, the main sequence is the continuous band of stars spanning the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram, which plots stellar colour and intrinsic brightness. When a large main-sequence star runs out of hydrogen fuel, it becomes cooler, redder and ra

2 Moon 7° north-east of Spica 3 Mars 2.7° south of the Pleiades 5 Moon 6° north-west of Antares 6 Jupiter 0.5° south-west of Mercury 6 Mercury greatest elong. west (27.3°) 10 Saturn 4° north-east of the Moon 11 Jupiter 4° north-west of the Moon

No other family of proplyds has yet been identified outside M42. The best-known correlate might be M16, the Eagle Nebula in Serpens, first observed in detail with the Hubble Space Telescope in 1995. In what some have voted to be Hubble’s most beautif

ON A TRIP TO SOUTH AMERICA a year or so ago, Robert Capon made the decision to travel light, leaving his portable telescope at home. That was a mistake, as all he had to appreciate the sky was his 8x42 binoculars. He did take his carbon-fibre trekkin

When we first began to hear about a new virus in China, it dawned on me that the city of Wuhan where the outbreak had occurred was where a former colleague of mine lived. Having become enamored of Chinese culture, he’d moved there several years befor