May - June 2022

Australian Sky & Telescope

The Essential Magazine of Astronomy

Australian Sky & Telescope1 min read
The Moon – Love It Or Hate It
MANY ASTRONOMERS have a love/hate relationship with the Moon — some really adore it, others can’t stand it and some are halfway in between. Which camp you’re in depends to some extent on how you enjoy your astronomy. Deep sky enthusiasts, of course,
Australian Sky & Telescope1 min read
Australian sky & Telescope
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
Australian Sky & Telescope2 min read
How Many Moons Can An Asteroid Have?
RECENTLY, ASTRONOMERS found a third moon orbiting the asteroid 130 Elektra, breaking the record for moons among asteroid systems. The discovery of the first quadruple asteroid raises the question, just how many moons can an asteroid have? And where d
Australian Sky & Telescope2 min read
Apollo 17 Is Preparing Artemis For A Return To The Moon
RESEARCHERS HAVE released initial results from the Apollo Next Generation Sample Analysis (ANGSA) project currently underway at NASA’s Johnson Spaceflight Center. Started in 2019 under both NASA and the European Space Agency, the project is looking a
Australian Sky & Telescope1 min read
Tamworth Astronomy Experience October 2022
The Tamworth Regional Astronomy Club Inc. offers you are a rare opportunity for an astronomy experience like no other. Visit observatories and be guided by experts as you link into the amazing world of citizen science in astronomy — comets, variable
Australian Sky & Telescope2 min read
1,000-light-year ‘Bubble’ Is The Source Of All Nearby New Stars
BEGINNING 14 MILLION years ago, more than a dozen stars near the Sun have ended their lives as spectacular supernovae. These ongoing blasts have swept up intervening gas, creating nurseries for stellar newborns along the edges of an expanding shell,
Australian Sky & Telescope1 min read
New Exomoon Candidate Found
ASTRONOMERS HAVE NOT yet confirmed the discovery of a single exomoon, even though a dozen candidates have been put forward. Now, David Kipping (Columbia University) and colleagues have announced in the journal Nature Astronomy another potential exomo
Australian Sky & Telescope2 min read
The Most Distant Galaxies Yet Seen?
IN TWO STUDIES posted to the arXiv scientific preprint server, Yuichi Harikane (University of Tokyo) and his colleagues report the detection of two sources that appear to blaze at us from a mere 330 million years after the Big Bang (corresponding to
Australian Sky & Telescope1 min read
Starlinks Don’t Affect Science (yet)
A new study of SpaceX’s Starlink satellites impact on astronomy gives cause for both relief and concern. Przemek Mróz (University of Warsaw, Poland) and colleagues monitored satellite trails in images taken by the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF), whi
Australian Sky & Telescope1 min read
Largest 3D Map Of The Cosmos
Only seven months into a five-year survey, the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) has already surpassed all cosmic surveys to date, creating the largest and most detailed map of the universe. The instrument is installed on the Mayall 4-metre
Australian Sky & Telescope2 min read
Do The Plumes From Saturn’s Icy Moon Reach Down To Its Ocean?
Astronomers long thought that the watery plumes erupting from the surface of Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus might provide access to its subsurface ocean. But computer models designed for studying sea ice on Earth suggest that the plumes might have a dif
Australian Sky & Telescope3 min read
The Power Of Ptolemy
How can we objectively assess the contribution to astronomy of a person whose major writing is commonly dubbed ‘The Greatest,’ whose theories held sway over astronomical thought for 1,500 years, but which are now judged as putting astronomers on the
Australian Sky & Telescope2 min read
Celestial Ruins On Our Galaxy’s Edge
LONG AGO, the Milky Way’s gravity rent a globular cluster and crumbled its thousands of stars across 15 degrees of sky. Now, new measurements of some of those stars show that they used to belong to the oldest stellar association in or around our gala
Australian Sky & Telescope2 min read
Shooting For The Stars
HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS recently used research-grade telescopes, visited a supercomputing centre and completed real-world astronomy projects as part of a new astronomy camp for girls. The three-day Stargirls STEM Camp was organised by the International
Australian Sky & Telescope11 min read
Ocean Underworlds
ASK ANY AMATEUR ASTRONOMER and they will likely tell you that of all the planets in the Solar System, Jupiter holds a special place in their heart. But for me and many others, the gas giant itself plays second fiddle to the Galilean moons merrily dan
Australian Sky & Telescope11 min read
A Most Unusual Galaxy
MARLA GEHA DIDN’T WANT TO get her hopes up. She was poring over images of distant dwarf galaxies that surround hosts galaxies similar to our own Milky Way, when she realised that the dwarfs looked surprisingly different from the ones in our backyard.
Australian Sky & Telescope10 min read
The comet HIGHWAY
WHEN TALKING ABOUT COMETS, we often refer to them as visitors from the outer Solar System (or beyond). But not all comets hail from the same place. Some originate from the Solar System’s most distant region, the spherical cloud of debris loosely boun
Australian Sky & Telescope11 min read
Untangling the Cosmic Web
WE LIVE IN A HIERARCHICAL COSMOS. Earth is one of eight planets orbiting a middle-of-the-road star in a spiral arm of the Milky Way, which, in turn, is in the outskirts of a cluster of similar galaxies. Galaxies are often seen as the ‘building blocks
Australian Sky & Telescope1 min read
Using The Star Chart
WHEN Late April 11 pm Early May 10 pm Late May 9 pm Early June 8 pm Late June 7 pm These are standard times. HOW Go outside within an hour or so of a time listed above. Hold the map out in front of you and turn it around so the label for the dire
Australian Sky & Telescope2 min read
A Classic Rediscovered
No list of showpiece open clusters would be complete without IC 4665 in the constellation Ophiuchus, the Serpent Bearer. The cluster is easy to find, just a little more than 1° northeast of the star Beta (β) Ophiuchi. At 4th magnitude it’s visible t
Australian Sky & Telescope3 min read
The Many Distinctions Of Arcturus
Arcturus, visible in the north on May and June evenings, may be one of the most distinctive of all the sky’s bright stars. That’s a big claim. But given the star’s characteristics, I think it holds up. The star’s name means ‘the Bear Watcher,’ which
Australian Sky & Telescope3 min read
A Sight For Dawn Eyes
All of the prime planetary activity during May and June will happen in the morning sky, so you ll need to stay up past midnight or rise before dawn to get a good view. Mercury (mag. 3.2, dia. 11.5", May 31) will be essentially impossible to see duri
Australian Sky & Telescope1 min read
You Can’t Beat The Etas
We’re about to be treated to one of the best southern meteor showers of the year, the Eta Aquariids, which has its radiant in Aquarius (as the name suggests). These meteors are tiny particles that have been left in the trail of the famous Comet Halle
Australian Sky & Telescope1 min read
Lunar Phenomena
First Quarter …… 9th, 00:21 UT Full Moon …… 16th, 04:14 UT Last Quarter …… 22nd, 18:43 UT New Moon …… 30th, 11:30 UT Apogee …… 5th, 13h UT, 405,285 km Perigee …… 17th, 15h UT, 360,298 km First Quarter …… 7th, 14:48 UT Full Moon …… 14th, 11:52 UT Last
Australian Sky & Telescope1 min read
Sky Phenomena
1 Jupiter 0.3° north of Venus 2 Mercury 4° north-east of the Moon 5 Uranus in conjunction with the Sun 7 Moon 5° east of Pollux 9 Moon 8° north-west of Regulus 14 Moon 8° north-west of Spica 17 Moon 5° north-east of Antares 22 Mercury in infer
Australian Sky & Telescope5 min read
The Story Of The Sungrazers
Unless there is an unexpected bright discovery (fingers crossed!), the only comet likely to be 10th-magnitude or brighter and visible from southern latitudes during May and June is the intrinsically bright but distant C/2017 K2 (PANSTARRS). Rising in
Australian Sky & Telescope1 min read
The Red Giant In The Centaur
Our target this issue, V744 Centauri, is located just three degrees south-east of the globular star cluster Omega Centauri, one of the greatest showpieces of the sky. V744 Cen is a semiregular variable star, an evolved red giant that varies in bright
Australian Sky & Telescope4 min read
Venusian Cusps, Caps And Collars
For telescopic observers, the dazzling face of Venus is a bitterly disappointing sight compared with the detailed disks of Mars and Jupiter. The planet’s surface is concealed from prying eyes by an unbroken canopy of clouds, overlaid by a thick haze.
Australian Sky & Telescope5 min read
Observing Large Quasar Groups
One of the pillars of current cosmology is the cosmological principle. It holds that at large enough scales any observer would see a homogeneous distribution of matter from every point — the universe would look isotropic, or the same in all direction
Australian Sky & Telescope5 min read
Image Stacking Demystified
Almost as soon as you start capturing the night sky with your camera, you’ll encounter the mysterious term stacking. “How many images did you stack?” “How long are the subs in that stack?” I remember having my own misconceptions about the subject of
Australian Sky & Telescope9 min read
Markarian’s Marvellous Chain
A RMENIAN ASTRONOMER BENIAMIN MARKARIAN published a paper in 1961 in which he speculated that eight prominent galaxies in the Virgo Galaxy Cluster are approximately the same distance from us. He showed statistically that the galaxies aren’t a “chance
Australian Sky & Telescope1 min read
Beniamin Egishevich Markarian (1913–85)
Armenian astronomer Beniamin Markarian was born on November 29, 1913 (December 12, 1913, in the Gregorian calendar) in Shulaver (today Shahumyan in Georgia). He graduated from Yerevan State University in 1938 with a degree in mathematics, and after a
Australian Sky & Telescope6 min read
Going To Extremes In The Moon’s Shadow
MANY ASTRONOMY BUFFS have a ‘must do or see’ list that they hope to complete. The hobby offers infinite possibilities, but to the strange breed called solar eclipse chasers (such as myself) one of these goals is to stand in the Moon’s shadow on every
Australian Sky & Telescope2 min read
New Product Showcase
Astro-Tech adds a new model to its extensive line of ED refractors. Astro-Tech AT102EDL (US$1,199) is a 102-mm f/7 doublet with an objective that pairs one FCD-100 ED element with a rare-earth lanthanum element to produce sharp, colour-free views. Th
Australian Sky & Telescope7 min read
The PrimaLuce Lab Eagle4 Pro
US price: $2,195 primalucelabusa.com Reliable wireless remote control of astrophotography Powers most every peripheral device Small and sturdy Requires many custom power cables YEARS AGO, the only cable attached to an astro-camera was a shutter re
Australian Sky & Telescope3 min read
A Plate-solving Finder
WHAT IF YOU COULD get your Go To scope to put an object dead centre in the eyepiece every time? Sure, modern scopes with plate-solving technology will image the sky, figure out where they’re pointed and centre the scope on the target. But what about
Australian Sky & Telescope3 min read
Astronomy By And For The People
There’s only a week or two to go until the start of the National Australian Convention of Amateur Astronomers (NACAA), now to be held as an online-only event over two Saturdays, April 16 and 23. NACAA, which has been running for many decades and is n
Australian Sky & Telescope2 min read
Donna Burton
Donna Burton’s lifelong interest in astronomy has seen her become a professional telescope operator, a hunter of near-Earth asteroids, a coordinator for Astronomers Without Borders, a public speaker and a discoverer of two comets. She’s also a commer
Australian Sky & Telescope2 min read
Astrophotos From Our Readers
It took around 20 hours of exposure (HaLRGB) from two different sites for Stefan to acquire this image of the NGC 1909, the Witch Head Nebula. He used a SharpStar HNT150 scope and ZWO ASI183MM Pro camera. The use of filters can bring out hidden deta
Australian Sky & Telescope3 min read
Decoding Light
CHEMICALS IN OUR SUN In this strip from a larger spectrum, wavelength increases from bottom to top (and from left to right). Superposed on the familiar colours of the visible spectrum are dark absorption lines, fingerprints from the elements that mak
Australian Sky & Telescope3 min read
The Final Frontier
ON OCTOBER 13, 2021, I watched with fascination as William Shatner, better known to the world as the fictional Captain James T. Kirk of the starship Enterprise, took a 10-minute ride on a rocket to the edge of space. Although a consummate actor, Sha

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