Australian Sky & Telescope

WHICH SORT OF ‘SEASONED’ STARGAZER are you? Do you prefer the warmer but shorter nights of summer, or the colder, longer nights of winter? Do you long for the ‘bright lights’ of the turn-of-the-year constellations, or are you more fascinated by the m

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 PUBLISHER Ia

AMATEUR ASTRONOMER José Luis Pereira of Brazil has discovered a probable impact at Jupiter. Weather conditions were poor at the time, but Pereira decided to search for possible flashes anyway using the DeTeCt software. The program alerted him that th

NASA has announced that its VIPER rover, set for launch in 2023, will land just outside the western rim of Nobile Crater near the lunar south pole. The study area covers 93 square km; VIPER is expected to traverse 16 to 24 km during its primary, 100-

There’ll be four eclipses during 2022 — two partial solars and two total lunars — but unfortunately we’re only going to be able to see one of the latter from our part of the world. The year’s first eclipse will be a partial solar on May 1 (Australian

Magnetars have strong magnetic fields locked into place by the star’s crust, both inside and out. Magnetic stresses and electric currents combine to force the internal magnetic fields to twist into a new configuration. The movement within fractures

In the century since Henrietta Leavitt died, the observation that she first published in 1908, then elaborated in 1912, has achieved the status of an astrophysical law. Her quiet life has become the subject of books, stage plays, art exhibitions, poe

To appreciate and honour the level of sustained attention that Henrietta Leavitt achieved, artist Anna Von Mertens assigned herself a copying task — not a page of notes from a logbook, but several glass plates that had passed through the astronomer’s

We are going to be treated to some fine planetary sights in the first two months of 2022, including a spectacular occultation of Mars by the Moon (or a very close approach, depending on your observing location). I’ll get to Mars in a minute, but firs

We have two meteor showers during the January/February period, one northern and one southern. The Quadrantids is a good shower, but its northerly radiant is well below the horizon for most southern observers. Nevertheless, you might catch one or two

1 Moon 5° north-east of Antares 1 Lunar occultation of Mars 4 Earth at perihelion, 147,105,121 km 4 Saturn 7° north-east of Moon 4 Mercury 4° west of Moon 6 Jupiter 5° west of Moon 7 Mercury, greatest elong. east (19.2°) 9 Venus in inferior co

The first unambiguous record of the Great Red Spot (GRS) dates from 1831, when German astronomer Samuel Heinrich Schwabe glimpsed a portion of its outline as a pale “bay” indenting the southern edge of the dusky South Equatorial Belt. This muted appe

New Moon …… 2nd, 18:33 UT First Quarter …… 9th, 18:11 UT Full Moon …… 17th, 23:48 UT Last Quarter …… 25th, 13:41 UT Perigee …… 1st, 23h UT, 358,033 km Apogee …… 14th, 09h UT, 405,805 km Perigee …… 30th, 07h UT, 362,252 km New Moon …… 1st, 05:46 UT Fi

JANUARY IS THE FINAL COMPLETE month of the current Jupiter apparition and offers your last chance for decent telescopic views of the planet before its conjunction with the Sun in early March. On the 1st, Jupiter has an altitude of roughly 30° at suns

AFTER A SOLID TRIPOD, a good-quality, fast lens is the best investment an aspiring astrophotographer can make. It need not be an expensive purchase. But it does require research, as the lens market has become rather complex in the past few years, to