Innholdsfortegnelse for November 2022 i BBC Sky at Night

Visit www.skyatnightmagazine.com/bonus-content/GD67VIT to access this month's selection of exclusive Bonus Content NOVEMBER HIGHLIGHTS Interview: Amazing cosmic facts Astrophysicist Dr Jillian Scudder guides us through some of the most mindblowing quirks of the cosmos. Photographing the Universe In this special episode of The Sky at Night, the team reveal how you can capture images of what you see in the night sky. DIY astronomy: How to build a sextant Download extra materials to help with this month's project: building your own celestial navigator. The Virtual Planetarium Pete Lawrence and Paul Abel guide us through the best sights to see in the night sky this month.…

BULLETIN It sounds like the premise for a science fiction novel, but Saturn could have a long-lost moon. The moon, called Chrysalis by researchers, may have broken apart 160 million years ago to create the planet's majestic rings. “Just like a butterfly's chrysalis, this satellite was long-dormant and suddenly became active, and the rings emerged,” says Jack Wisdom from MIT, who led the study. The origin of Saturn's rings has been a long-standing question in planetary science. Over the last decade, there has been mounting evidence that the rings are a lot younger than the planet and have potentially only existed for 100 million years or so. The reason we can see them so well from Earth is because the planet is at a 26.7° angle. This tilt is thought…

Help confirm exoplanets The SETI Institute and Unistellar Optics are asking back-garden astronomers and citizen scientists to help confirm exoplariet candidates found by NASA's TESS mission. Visit science.unistellaroptics.com to find out how you can use your eVscope or other telescope to help characterise new worlds. Small nursery, big planet Thin planetary nurseries lead to a glut of large worlds. A new study has shown that if the gas and dust disc around a young star is super-thin, the dust settles into dense regions at its centre. This makes the grains clump together faster, leading to a higher portion of big planets. MOXIE breathes easy The MOXIE experiment on board the Perseverance rover has successfully generated breathable oxygen from Mars's thin atmosphere, it's been confirmed. A potential prototype for future life…

Our experts examine the hottest new research CUTTING EDGE Starlink is a constellation of satellites developed by Space Exploration Technologies Corp, aka SpaceX. As of July this year, over 2,700 Starlink satellites have been launched, with the aim of ultimately providing global internet coverage via tens of thousands of satellites. To put this into perspective, there are less than 5,000 active satellites currently orbiting Earth. Starlink already provides the only viable access to the internet for many remote parts of the world. While it is an admirable venture to connect the world to this marvellous network of human communication, it hasn't come without criticism, including from astronomers. Part of the problem is the Starlink satellites are positioned in low-Earth orbit, so appear particularly bright and move rapidly across the night…

In November 1986's episode of The Sky at Night, Patrick Moore took a look at one of the most bizarre stars ever observed: SS 433,18,000 lightyears away in Cygnus. It first rose to prominence in 1978, when astronomers at the Anglo-Australian Observatory found a star that had a pair of emission lines, one of which was blueshifted, meaning it was coming towards us, and another that was redshifted as it moved away, leading it to be dubbed the star that's both coming and going’. The more astronomers observed the star, the stranger it got. The lines were soon found to be shifting back and forth in wavelength, crossing over each other and back again in a 160-day cycle. Soon a third, stationary line was kaiso discovered, showing the lines were…

Kelling Heath Winterfest Kelling Heath Holiday Park, Norfolk, 24-28 November Timed for the new Moon for the darkest skies, this relaxed star party organised by Birmingham Astronomical Society is purely an observing event without sales stalls. www.kellingheath.co.uk Stargazing weekend Mungrisdale, Cumbria, 5 November Get away from light pollution to the Lake District for a weekend hosted by astronomer Andy Gray, with opportunities for astrophotography and telescope tips. Tickets are £20 per adult, £12 per child and include hot drinks and biscuits. www.nearhowe.co.uk/things-to-do/dark-skies Stargazing at Mugdock Mugdock Country Park, Glasgow, 8 November, 7pm Stargazing at Mugdock returns for a new season of observing the night sky. This session is all about the wonder of the full Moon and what you can see through a telescope. Booking essential. Entry is £7 www.mugdock-country-park.org.uk…

The revolutionary telescope under construction at Cerro Pachón was originally called the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, but in early 2020 it was announced the new observatory would be named after American astronomer Vera C Rubin (1928-2016). Starting in the late 1960s, Rubin, together with her Carnegie Institution of Washington colleague Kent Ford, measured the rotational properties Of the Andromeda Galaxy and a number of other nearby spiral galaxies, and found convincing evidence for the existence of invisible, dark matter in the outskirts of these stellar systems. The concept of dark matter is much older and radio astronomers had made similar observations before, but US Congress decided on the name change to honour Rubin's pioneering work in the field of dark matter research, as well as in overcoming genderbased discrimination, paving…

DON'T MISS Jupiter moon events BEST TIME TO SEE: 2/3, 6, 10, 18/19 and 27 November Jupiter is well-placed throughout November, showing a wealth of atmospheric detail to those with larger instruments. But owners of smaller scopes can enjoy some of the amazing interactions between the planet and its four largest Galilean moons: lo, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. These moons are bright and easily visible through smaller instruments as points of light. For those with larger-aperture scopes, it may be possible to perceive the moons as tiny discs, the apparent diameters being 1.2 arcseconds for lo, 1.0 arcseconds for Europa, 1.7 arcseconds for Ganymede and 1.5 arcseconds for Callisto. On 2 November, Europa and Ganymede can both be seen starting to transit the Jovian disc from 20:44 UT. lo is…

Mars Best time to see: 30 November, 00:40 UT Altitude: 62° Location: Taurus Direction: South Mars rises around 18:45 UT at the start of November and is able to reach its highest position in the sky, due south, in darkness all month long. Approaching opposition on 8 December, it is now a very attractive planet to view through a telescope. On 1 November Mars presents a disc with an apparent diameter of 15 arcseconds and shines at mag. -1.2. By the end of the month these values will have increased significantly, Mars presenting an apparent disc size of 17 arcseconds and appearing very bright at mag. -1.8. A bright 89%-lit waxing gibbous Moon lies near the planet on the evening of 11 November. Jupiter Best time to see: 1 November,…

Asteroid 324 Bamberga reaches opposition on 21 November, shining at 9th magnitude in the constellation of Perseus. It is fortuitously well placed at the moment, the asteroid describing a north-bowing arc between mag. +3.8 Nu (ν) Persei and eclipsing binary Algol (Beta ((β) Persei). 324 Bamberga begins the month 20 arcminutes southwest of Nu Persei, thereafter heading west and very gently north, before curving southwest towards the quadrilateral of stars formed by Algol, Omega (ω), Pi (π) and Rho (ρ) Persei, It ends the month a degree east and very slightly south of Algol. Over this period its brightness hardly varies, starting and ending the month at mag. +9.2, increasing fractionally to +9.1 in the middle of the month. Despite being the 324th officially recognised asteroid, Bamberga is quite large.…

As Mars approaches opposition on 8 December, its brilliance and position in the night sky will mean it will certainly be the centre of attention. Reaching opposition every 2.1 years, Mars is a tricky planet to get on with. Just as you're starting to advance in terms of observing its features, it moves away from Earth again, until the next opposition when you need to relearn your techniques! One skill to learn is how to capture the two dim Martian moons, Phobos and Deimos, the subjects of this month's challenge. Mars oppositions are special and a time to make the effort to push the limits of your observing and imaging skills. Some oppositions are better than others and 2022's, although not the best, is good for those of us in…

FREEWARE DeepSkyStacker deepskystacker.free.fr/english/index.html Stacking and derotating software with basic image processing. Siril siril.org Image calibration, stacking, processing and other capabilities. Sequator sites.google.com/view/sequator Basic Windows-only image stacking and some postprocessing features. PAID-FOR pixlnsight pixinsight.com An advanced and complex image processing program that can derotate, stack and process images. Astro Pixel Processor www.astropixelprocessor.com Feature-rich software for derotating, stacking and processing images. Maxlm DL diffractionlimited.com/product/maxim-dl A sophisticated image processing program that comes in a variety of versions. Astroart 8 www.msb-astroart.com The latest version of this all-inclusive image capture and processing software package.…

SOFIA housed six separate instruments that were swapped out regularly to allow the telescope to collect data at wavelengths ranging from near-, mid- to far-infrared, making it a versatile observatory. FORCAST (Faint Object Infra Red CAmera for the SOFIA Telescope) This instrument was in operation on my flight and that evening observed edge-on galaxies, the sunlit side of the Moon and the Galactic mid-plane. It is a dual-channel mid-infrared camera and spectrograph sensitive to the midinfrared range of 5-40μm. But SOFIA hosted a range of other instruments, depending on what astronomers wanted to observe. GREAT (German REceiver for Astronomy at Terahertz Frequencies) A far-infrared high-resolution multipixel spectrometer that didn't produce pictures of stars and galaxies, but rather extremely detailed spectra of their atoms and molecules. It was used in the…

This month's project is a sextant that you can use to measure the altitude of objects in the sky. At noon (taking care to use the built-in solar filter), you can measure the height of the Sun and use this to find your location on Earth. Our design uses two mirrors: the index mirror, mounted on a moveable pointer arm, and the fixed horizon mirror, which is half-clear, producing two images. In use, the left-hand image (usually of the horizon) is viewed through the clear side, while the right-hand image arrives via reflection in both mirrors (passing through a solar filter in between, when viewing the Sun). By adjusting the angle of the index mirror, you can align the image of the object you are measuring with the horizon on…

STEP 1 A smartphone will record Mars as a dot. Catch the planet shortly after rising or before setting; include foreground objects for more drama or the Moon if it's nearby. Even a cheap tripod phone holder will help with stability. The volume control on a headphone lead can act as a remote shutter release for many phones. STEP 2 A DSLR or equivalent with a mid- to wide-angle lens opens up many possibilities. Taurus is featurerich, with strong patterns and two large and bright naked-eye open clusters. Frame your shot to include the Pleiades and Hyades and you'll be onto a winner. A tracking mount allows you to use a lower ISO and longer exposure to preserve tonal colour. STEP 3 Shoot Mars against the stars in Taurus over…

EYE ON THE SKY VICTOR M BLANCO TELESCOPE, 12 SEPTEMBER 2022 MORE ONLINE Explore a gallery of these and more stunning space images The Lobster Nebula, NGC 6357 in Scorpius, glows majestically in this image taken by the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) at NOIRLab's Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, high in the Chilean Andes. The 570-megapixel image shows a starforming region 8,000 lightyears from Earth in which twisting braids of dust are shaped by magnetic fields, winds and radiation, and protostars shine through cocoons of the material that formed them. It was released to celebrate DECam's 10th year of operation, a decade in which the four-tonne camera, the Blanco Telescope's primary instrument, has taken over a million images. Studying hundreds of millions of galaxies, their motions and conditions, its mission is…

Stormy times continue for Artemis I after NASA returned the rocket to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB)on 26 September to protect it from Hurricane lan. The Artemis I mission is an uncrewed test of the Space Launch System rocket and Orion crew capsule that will return humans to the Moon for the first time in 50 years, but has been beset by problems. It has been returned to the VAB once already in April for repairs, then its first launch attempt on 29 August was called off due to an engine problem. Issues with the fuel lines delayed subsequent attempts. NASA will use the roll-back as a chance to investigate these issues, as well as resetting batteries with expired flight certifications. At the time of writing, the launch will be…

The spiral motion of stars inside a stellar nursery could help astronomers understand how star formation shaped the early Universe. Two new studies used 11 years of observations by Hubble and the Very Large Telescope in Chile to measure the motions of stars in stellar nursery NGC 346, located in the Small Magellenic Cloud. The region is poor in heavy elements, similar to galaxies from around two to three billion years after the Big Bang, making it an excellent proxy for studying these systems. “A spiral is really the good, natural way to feed star formation from the outside toward the centre of the cluster,” says Peter Zeidler from the Space Telescope Science Institute, who led the VLT observations. “It's the most efficient way that stars and gas fuelling more…

The Multiverse of Mystery In this month's episode, Maggie and Chris delve into the biggest astronomical mysteries that are yet to be solved. Do multiple universes exist? Will interstellar travel ever be possible? Are white holes only a theoretical concept or are they a reality? Join the team as they explore these and other fantastical questions in the final Sky at Night episode of 2022. BBC Four, 14 November, 10pm (first repeat will be on BBC Four, 16 November, time tbc) Check www.bbc.co.uk/skyatnight for more up-to-date information…

Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2022 National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London, until August 2023 The annual showcase of the phenomenal talent in the world of night-sky photography returns to the National Maritime Museum, with the exhibition of the choice picks from the 2022 Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition. These include notjust all the winning images, but also some of the best photos from the more than 3,000 entries received from 67 countries around the world. From planets, asteroids and aurorae to galaxies, our Sun, nebulae and so much more, you'll find out-of-this-world photos that will take your breath away. Running until next summer, tickets are £10 for adults. £6.50 for concessions, £5 for children, www.rmg.co.uk/whats-on/astronomy-photographer-year…

Scanning the dark Universe with the Some 15 minutes west of the town of Vicuña, in the Valle del Elqui in northern Chile, a steep and winding gravel road leads south from Highway 41 to the summit of Cerro Pachón, almost 2,700 metres above sea level. Since the early 2000s, the mountaintop has been home to the 8.1-metre Gemini South Telescope and the 4.1-metre Southern Astrophysical Research Telescope. But today, the scene is dominated by a huge, futuristic cylindrical building, housing a revolutionary telescope that will uncover the Universe's darkest secrets. Welcome to the Vera C Rubin Observatory. The observatory's main telescope is unlike any other ever built. Its 8.4-metre diameter mirror – a novel combination of a ring-like primary mirror surrounding a much more strongly curved tertiary mirror cut…

The Pleiades, M45 are a mainstay of the autumn night sky, an easy-to-find naked-eye bright cluster in the northwest corner of Taurus the Bull. The basic shape of the cluster is distinctive, resembling a box with a handle, reminiscent of part of the Plough asterism. The star furthest from the ‘handle’ is Electra, one of the named members of this cluster which represent the Seven Sisters of Greek mythology. The parents are present too: Atlas, the handle star furthest from the box, and Pleione, the dimmer one above it. Electro is a blue-white star with a spectral type B6 llle. ‘B6’ indicates the star's colour and temperature being around 14.000K. The Till indicates that it's a normal giant, while the ‘e’ reveals that its spectrum has emission lines present as…

STEP 1 Open Astro Pixel Processor. Select the tab marked 1) Load. Navigate to your working folder that contains all of your image files. Select the light frames of your target and click ‘Open’ to load them. If you have dark and flat frames, select and add those to the selection too. STEP 2 Give your image an appropriate name for when the processing run has finished (you can change it at the end if you wish). Then check tab 2) Calibrate and tab 3) Analyse stars. These can usually be left at their default values unless you feel inquisitive and want to test out some adjustments. STEP 3 Select tab 4) Register to bring up its window. ‘Quadrilaterals’ is the default setting for the pattern recognition descriptors, but if…

Step 1 Carefully mark out the MDF: print out the templates for the main parts (be sure to set your printer scale to 100% for all printouts), cut them out and glue them on to the MDF. Cut out all the parts with a coping saw, or similar, and sand the edges smooth. Step 2 Carefully drill the holes in the main panel and the mirror mount parts. Use a 4mm drill for pivots but a 4.5mm drill bit for the mounts, so that the angle of each mirror can be adjusted a little, relative to the mount. Step 3 Glue together the two parts of each mirror mount and leave to dry. You can also glue on the eyepiece parts and the support for the solar filter. Painting the…

We live in rather amazing times, with private citizens travelling to space and citizen scientists contributing to the knowledge base of professional astronomy. Now, just as it did with Hubble, NASA has made data from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) available for download, for anyone to process for themselves. Here we walk you through, step by step, how to do it. Start by searching for ‘MAST Portal’ in your web browser or visit mast.stsci.edu/portal/Mashup/Clients/Mast/Portal.html, an archive named after Barbara Mikulski, a retired US senator and staunch supporter of space exploration. Clicking on ‘Advanced search’ at the top of the page opens a new window. On the far right, type ‘JWST’ in the ‘Mission’ box and press ‘Enter’. At far left, under ‘Columns’, select ‘Release date’ and scroll down to…

How can radio astronomy tell us about the early Universe? When the early Universe expanded and cooled sufficiently, protons and electrons formed neutral hydrogen. The first stars and galaxies then ‘reionised’ the hydrogen – that is, their photons interacted with the atoms, causing the electrons to separate. This is the Epoch of Reionisation (EoR). Neutral hydrogen emits photons at a wavelength of 21cm. But since the EoR, the wavelength of these will have been redshifted (stretched by the expansion of the Universe) to between one and three metres, in the radio part of the electromagnetic spectrum. How this redshifted 21cm signal looks tells us about these first stars and galaxies that reionised the hydrogen. What are the main challenges of detecting this signal from the Epoch of Reionisation? This goal…

The latest astronomy and space news, written by Ezzy Pearson BULLETIN Could humanity save itself from a killer asteroid? On 26 September, the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission took us one step closer to taking on the challenge when it slammed into space rock Dimorphos at a speed of 22,530km/h (over 6km/s). Confirmation of the impact reached Earth at 7:14pm EDT (11:14pm UT), when the signal cut out halfway through sending back its final image. Launched on 24 November 2021, DART's destination was Dimorphos, a 160-metre-wide ‘moon’ orbiting the larger Didymos. Though DART's camera was only able to target Dimorphos in the last hour of its mission, it transmitted images of itsjourney right up until the last moment. “As we were getting close there was both joy and terror,”…

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has released its first ever direct image of an exoplanet. The planet, HIP 65426 b, is a gas giant that's a youthful 15-20 million years old. As a high-resolution infrared telescope, JWST can directly image exoplanets with relative ease. Planets appear brighter at infrared wavelengths than in visual light, while stars are dimmer. This makes a significant difference even though the star is still 10,000 times brighter than the planet. JWST used a set of masks, called a coronagraph, to block out the star, while still letting through the light from the planet orbiting 100 times further out than Earth does from the Sun. “I think what's most exciting is that we've only just begun,” says Aarynn Carter from the University of California, Santa…

The first analysis of samples brought back to Earth from the asteroid Ryugu have now been completed, showing the space rock probably began its life much further out in the cold, dark reaches of the Solar System. In 2019, the Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa2 took surface samples from Ryugu, returning them to Earth in 2020 to be examined by eager researchers around the world. These preliminary tests found the dust contained water laced with carbon dioxide. This could only happen if both substances were solid when the asteroid body formed, meaning its original orbit was three to four times the Earth-Sun distance; that's twice as far out as it is now. “The mineralogy of the Ryugu samples is similar to Cl chondrites, a carbon-rich meteorite collected here on Earth,” says Deborah…

My research mainly focuses on transient phenomena that come and go, particularly extremely powerful explosions known as gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). Some of these are produced by the deaths of massive stars, while others are from the mergers of binary neutron stars. The five questions I'm always asked about my research are: Have astronomers looked for the place that the Big Bang occurred? The surprising thing we find, looking far across the Universe, is we essentially see a similar distribution of galaxies in every direction. There's no special place that could represent the centre of the Universe. In fact, this is built into the foundations of the Big Bang theory, which starts by assuming a symmetrical Universe. It also assumes it is infinite, meaning there is no centre and every point…

Email us at inbox@skyatnightmagazine.com MESSAGE OF THE MONTH This month's top prize two Philip's titles The ‘Message I ofthe Month’ writer will receive a bundle of two top titles courtesy of astronomy publisher Philip's: Nigel Henbest's Stargazing 2023 and Robin Scagell's Guide to the Northern Constellations Winner's details will be passed on to Octopus Publishing to fulfilthe prize The excitement is building My son Jack is fascinated by all things space. He was delighted to receive this Lego Creator NASA Apollo 11 Lunar Lander set for Christmas from his grandparents. We decided to tackle this challenging build during the summer holidays, when wed have the time to dedicate to each of the sections. It took us over four weeks to build and Jack did a fantastic job as it's aimed…

Usk Astronomical Society meets regularly to observe the night sky and encourage the general public to enjoy the wonders of the cosmos. The society is over 40 years old and has about 30 members. Before the pandemic we met weekly, but that was reduced to fortnightly meetings online; we've since moved to hybrid meetings. We welcome speakers from the society and beyond, and have our own observatory with a 12-inch reflecting telescope. We're heavily involved with outreach, visiting schools, museums, youth groups and events with our inflatable planetarium and telescopes. We work closely with Brecon Beacons Dark Sky Reserve and the Brecon Beacons National Park Authority, through which we recently acquired a new digital planetarium, which we put to good use at an outreach event this summer. In September 2022…

As those who regularly keep a diary will know, the contents can often be of a very personal nature, an outpouring of feelings and opinions that speak from the heart and are for the sole eyes of the author. But some journals are written for a different purpose and with a wider, more public, readership in mind. Whether they're for private or public perusal, diaries from the past have revealed fascinating insights into events in the sky, including many astronomical ‘firsts’. Not all diaries are handwritten. The remarkable astronomical chronicles of Mesopotamia were committed not to paper but stone, in cuneiform, a symbolic form of script. Indeed, possibly the earliest reliable account of the aurora borealis was discovered on one particular Mesopotamian clay tablet. The diary-like text made by official…

Two upcoming space telescopes will work together with Rubin to understand the unseen Universe In 2023, even before the Vera C Rubin Observatory begins its unprecedentedly thorough survey of the distant Universe, the European Space Agency will launch its 1.2-metre diameter Euclid space telescope, which is pursuing very similar goals: studying dark energy and dark matter by precisely mapping and imaging billions of galaxies. Four years later, NASA will follow suit with its 2.4-metre Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. So how do the three projects compare? According to Catherine Heymans from the Royal Observatory Edinburgh, Rubin will dwarf Euclid and Roman in terms of sensitivity, because of its much larger primary mirror. But, she adds, the Rubin Observatory sits underneath the Earth's atmosphere and won't be able to obtain images…

One of the foremost pioneers in the search for extraterrestrial life (SETI), Frank Drake, died on 2 September 2022 at the age of 92. Born on 28 May 1930 in Chicago, Drake first began wondering about extraterrestrial civilisations at the age of eight, when his father told him of the existence of worlds beyond Earth. At 17, he enrolled at Cornell University on a Navy scholarship, initially intending to be an airplane designer, but he changed his plans when he first glimpsed the moons of Jupiter during an astronomy lesson. This renewed his curiosity about whether alien life existed and, crucially, how it could be discovered. Drake began his PhD at Harvard University in 1952, studying star formation and investigating the planets of the Solar System by bouncing radio waves…

PICK OF THE MONTH Uranus Best time to see: 9 November, 00:00 UT Altitude: 54° Location: Aries Direction: South Features: Greenish hue, atmospheric banding, moons Recommended equipment: 150mm or larger Uranus reaches opposition on 9 November, but unlike our nearer Solar System neighbours Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, its position in the opposite part of the sky to the Sun produces only a very subtle improvement in the general appearance of the planet, something that it shares with its outer neighbour, Neptune. We normally comment on the fact that Uranus, being able to reach a peak altitude of 53° when due south, is the best-placed planet to observe from the UK. However, we're happy to report that this is currently untrue, as Mars is able to appear higher this month. Uranus…

You could sum up crater Hainzel by saying it's large, easy to find but difficult to see. Let's address these in order. With a diameter of 70km, Hainzel is certainly big, just 16km smaller than the bright ray crater Tycho that is located 500km to its east. Then there's the fact that finding Hainzel is easy due, ironically, to the reason that it's tricky to see. It is overlaid by two other large craters: 24km Hainzel A to the north and 18km Hainzel C to the northeast. The degree of overlap is severe. Co-joined themselves, Hainzel C and A obliterate most of Hainzel, overlying in excess of 50 per cent of its area. The structures that form this interesting trio are best seen under oblique illumination, in particular when the…

1. NGC 752 and 56 Andromedae Put mag. +3.0 Beta (β) Trianguli at the south of the field of view and NGC 752 should appear near the north, just to the left of a close pair of 6thmagnitude orange stars (56 Andromedae). Unusually, the stars are yellowish (we normally expect hot blue-white stars in an open cluster), and this hints at its great age: nearly two billion years old! You should be able to resolve at least a dozen of these stars. □ SEEN IT 2. M31 Start with the mag. +2.1 yellow star Mirach (Beta (β) Andromedae) at the southeast of the field of view and find mag. +3.9 Mu (μ) Andromedae toward the other edge. Place Mu where Mirach was and the elliptical shape of M31 will be…

The time is 5:30pm on 8 September 2022 and I'm in the mission briefing room at NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center in Palmdale, California. I'm about to board a very special aircraft: the Boeing 747 SOFIA aeroplane, carrying a 2.5-metre infrared telescope operated by NASA and DLR, Germany's space agency. It is one of SOFIA'S last flights; by the time you read this the programme will have ended. Inside, the cabin is buzzing with activity. It's extremely loud, so headsets are essential for communication. I tune in to the flight deck comms channel and hear pilots Spike and Bill, and flight engineer Rick. Spike's the joker and the three enjoy a few laughs together as they wait for clearance. It's Spike and Bill's final SOFIA flight. They've been flying together…

One of the first things many of us learn when we start stargazing is that Sirius (Alpha Canis Majoris) is night's brightest A star. But what does it mean to say that something is bright, and what's the difference between brightness and luminosity? Astronomers use different terms to talk about how much light we see from celestial objects and how much light those objects actually produce. But first, let's talk about magnitude. What is magnitude? We generally talk about celestial objects in terms of magnitude. This doesn't measure how much light exists; rather it describes objects’ brightness relative to each other. The Greek astronomer Hipparchus devised a scale in the second century BC, grouping stars by their brightness: the brightest stars at 1 and the dimmest stars at 6. Today,…

The excitement is increasing as Mars approaches opposition on 8 December. This is because Mars oppositions are a big deal. The term opposition describes when a planet appears on the other side of the sky to the Sun. Geometrically, this also means we're closer to a planet at opposition than at any other time. For more distant worlds, the difference that makes to its appearance isn't so significant. An exception is Saturn, but only because of the ‘opposition effect’, a phenomenon that makes its beautiful rings glow brighter at opposition than at other times. However, Mars is a nearer world and its opposition appearance is considerably better than at other times. Mars oppositions occur every 2.1 years. At optimal oppositions it appears to have an apparent diameter over 20 arcseconds…

More ONLINE A gallery containing these and more of your images PHOTO OF THE MONTH The Heart and Soul Nebulae Basudeb Chakrabarti, remotely via IC Astronomy Observatory, Almería, Spain, 21 February 2022 Basudeb says: “Located about 6,000 lightyears from Earth, the Heart and Soul Nebulae create a vast star-forming complex that makes up part of the Perseus spiral arm of our Milky Way Galaxy. I have been obsessed with the sheer beauty of the nebulae since I started astrophotography one and a half years ago. I processed the Heart Nebula six months ago. But this time I have done a two-panel mosaic to capture these two beautiful nebulae in a single frame.” Equipment: FLI PL16083 camera, Takahashi FSQ-106EDX4 refractor, Paramount MX+ mount Exposure: Heart 26h 50'; Soul 20h 40' Software:…