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DEEP SKY Go off the beaten TELESCOPES How to build an IMAGING Your guide to
track, deep inside Orion P52 ultra-compact travel scope P72 grabbing great galaxy photos P62

ASTEROID
BELT
How the Solar
System came to
have one P20
THE ESSENTIAL MAGAZINE OF AS

RED SUPERGIANT
Just why did
Betelgeuse
fade? P28

P68
Sky-Watcher’s Evostar
150 APO Refractor SPACE SUCCESS
TEST REPORT Asteroid samples land in Australia P18 MAR/APR 2021
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 March | April 2021 ISSUE 130, VOL. 18 NO. 2

Contents
REGULARS
Betelgeuse’s enigmatic
5 Spectrum p.28
dimming episode
6 News notes
11 Discoveries
27 AS&T bookshop
45 Vistas

FEATURES
12 Celebrating celestial seas
We bring you the winning photos
from New Zealand’s premier
astrophotography awards.

18 Pieces of other worlds

Japanese and Chinese missions
have brought back samples of an
asteroid and the Moon.
By David Dickinson

20 How did we get the asteroid

belt?
OBSERVING & EXPLORING
Asteroids might tell us more about
the Solar System’s earliest years 42 Binocular highlight
than the planets themselves. Spotting the birthplace of new worlds.
By Nola Taylor Redd By Mathew Wedel
28 The great dimming of 44 Evenings with the stars
Betelgeuse In praise of the underdog, Procyon.
Delve into
Astronomers are working to By Fred Schaaf p.58
Orion’s depths
understand why the famed red
46 Sun, Moon and planets
supergiant faded so dramatically.
Mars has the evening sky to itself.
By Tom Calderwood
By Jonathan Nally
50 Exploring the Solar System
36 The story of T Tauri
47 Meteors Understanding lunar craters.
An infant star in Taurus helped
Two small meteor showers to see. By Charles Wood
reveal a truth once thought radical:
By Jonathan Nally
The universe still makes new stars. 52 Deep sky
By Ken Croswell 48 Comets Going off the beaten track in Orion
A ‘well-matured’ comet for autumn. brings pleasant surprises.
61 Catch an ISS transit
By David Seargent By Ken Hewitt-White
Find out how to photograph the
International Space Station as it 49 Variable stars 58 Going deep
transits the Sun or the Moon. Spot a triplet of variables. See newborn planetary systems in Orion.
By Bob King By Alan Plummer By Dave Tosteson

4 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE March | April 2021

 by Jonathan Nally SPECTRUM

Experiencing the
cosmos in images
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 couldn’t see the Moon or a meteor,
a galaxy or a nebula, or simply the amazing starfields of the Milky Way?
Imagery has opened our eyes to the splendour of the cosmos and
Sky-Watcher’s
all that’s in it. And of course it’s one of the primary scientific tools for
p.68
Evostar 150 APO understanding all of the processes that began and continue to guide the
evolution of all that is out there.
And how marvellous it is that we live in an age when amateur
astronomers have access to incredible imaging technology that they
THE ASTRONOMY SCENE can use in their backyards to easily produce their own portraits of
astronomical objects. Such as those we present on pages 12 to 17 of
62 Astrophotography
this issue, from the Auckland Astronomical Society’s Harry Williams
Helpful tips to get the most out of
Astrophotography Competition. Simply amazing, aren’t they? There
your galaxy images.
By Adam Block certainly are some talented astrophotographers out there.
If you feel that you’d like to have a crack at winning an astrophoto
68 Test report
prize, why not try for the Royal Observatory Greenwich’s annual global
ED glass and advanced optical
coatings push Sky-Watcher’s
competition (see page 75)? There’s a grand prize of £10,000 (about
Evostar 150 APO refractor to its full $17,600 Aussie dollars) up for grabs!
potential. Jonathan Nally, Editor
By Dennis di Cicco editor@skyandtelescope.com.au

72 Astronomer’s workbench
Build the ultimate travel telescope.
By Jerry Oltion
74 Night life
Events, activities and what’s
happening in the astronomy world.
75 In profile
76 Gallery
The latest images from our readers
81 Marketplace
81 Index to advertisers
82 Focal point
When catastrophes come out of the
blue, including from space.
By Joel Marks
ON THE COVER
To understand how the Solar System’s
planets formed, astronomers are turning to
minor planets for clues. Turn to page 20.
THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO ASTRONOMY
Check out the Australian Sky & Telescope
website for the latest astronomy news
from Australia and around the cosmos.
skyandtelescope.com.au
Printed by IVE. Australia distribution
EDITORIAL SKY & TELESCOPE by Network Services. New Zealand
EDITOR Jonathan Nally INTERNATIONAL distribution by Ovato Retail Distribution
ART DIRECTOR Lee McLachlan
Australia. © 2020 AAS Sky Publishing,
EDITOR IN CHIEF Peter Tyson LLC and Paragon Media. No part of
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
this publication may b e reproduced,
John Drummond, David Ellyard, SENIOR EDITORS
J. Kelly Beatty, Alan M. MacRobert translated, or converted into a
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EMAIL info@skyandtelescope.com.au without the written consent of the
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ADVERTISING ASSOCIATE EDITORS
publisher. Australian Sky & Telescope
ADVERTISING MANAGER Jonathan Nally is published by Paragon Media under
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EMAIL jonathan@skyandtelescope.com.au OBSERVING EDITOR
licence from AAS Sky Publishing,
LLC as the Australian edition of Sky &
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www.skyandtelescope.com.au 5
 NEWS NOTES
Arecibo collapse signals the end of an era
ON THE MORNING OF DECEMBER 1,
a rumble echoed through the hilly
terrain surrounding Arecibo, the iconic
305-metre-wide radio telescope nestled
in a natural sinkhole in Puerto Rico.
The 900-tonne receiver platform that
had been suspended above the dish had
come crashing down.
While no injuries occurred, the
collapse ended hopes for a controlled
dismantling of the telescope, which
National Science Foundation (NSF)
officials had announced less than two
weeks earlier after two unexpected and
devastating events that compromised
the safety of the telescope.
First, an auxiliary cable, which
helped suspend the receiver platform,
tore out of its socket on August 10,
gashing the dish below. A redundant
design transferred the load of that
auxiliary cable to the four original
cables and the remaining support cable.
Engineers were called in to assess the
damage and, after determining the
structure was stable, to begin repairs.
Replacement cables were on order, but
before they could arrive, one of the main
cables from the same tower snapped on
November 6. This unexpected second
break caused engineers to doubt the
entire structure’s integrity.
“Any engineering approach to
better understanding the strength
left in the main cables involves
considerable risk for human life and
could in fact accelerate the uncontrolled
6 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE March | April 2021
The 900-tonne platform
suspended above the
Arecibo telescope fell 140
metres, damaging the dish
and surrounding structures.
collapse of the structure,” said Ralph
Gaume, director of NSF’s Division of
Astronomical Sciences.
Engineers warned that another cable
break would cause “catastrophic failure”.
A representative from the engineering
firm Thornton Tomasetti wrote in
support of dismantling the telescope:
“We believe the structure will collapse
in the near future if left untouched.”
Drone footage in the days following
the announcement showed additional
breakages in the remaining cables.
Ultimately, the uncontrolled collapse
happened before engineers could devise a
plan for controlled decommmissioning.
A preliminary assessment indicated that
the top sections of all three support
towers broke off. Then, as the platform
fell, the cables also dropped, causing
significant damage to the observatory’s
learning centre.
The loss of the 57-year-old
observatory came as a shock to the
astronomy community. Arecibo’s huge
collecting area, incredible sensitivity,
and powerful radar capabilities enabled
it to study everything from near-Earth
asteroids to distant galaxies; scientists
had also used the dish to investigate
Earth’s atmosphere.
“I’m devastated,” says Alessondra
Springmann (University of Arizona),
who had used the facility to characterise
comets and asteroids. “There’s nothing
else like this in the world.”
“Arecibo is so much more than a
scientific instrument,” says Edgard
Rivera-Valentín (Lunar and Planetary
Institute). “It has been an icon in
Puerto Rico that has served to inspire
generations of scientists.”
“Pretty much every schoolchild on the
island has been to Arecibo,” Springmann
says. “Everyone has had family who
worked there, who helped build it. You
can’t have an observatory without the
people, and the people also derive great
benefit from the observatory being there.”
Arecibo is also irreplaceable for
scientists. “The Arecibo Observatory
is the world’s most powerful and most
sensitive planetary radar,” Rivera-
Valentín explains. “This makes Arecibo
invaluable for planetary defense.”
Technically, Arecibo is the second-
largest radio dish in the world — China’s
Five-hundred-metre Aperture Spherical
Telescope, or FAST, recently broke
the record that Arecibo had held for
decades. But FAST’s suspended platform
cannot hold the weight of radar
instrumentation. Other radar-capable
radio dishes, such as NASA’s Goldstone,
lack Arecibo’s sensitivity and availability.
Over almost six decades, Arecibo
survived multiple earthquakes,
hurricanes and funding struggles. Even
upon the telescope’s collapse, NSF
officials have emphasised that they are
not closing the Arecibo Observatory.
The NSF continues to authorise
repairs for the facility’s 12-metre radio
telescope and the roof of the LIDAR
facility, used for geospace research.
Both were damaged in 2017 during
Hurricane Maria. The observatory’s
A RECIBO: ESTA DESPR / SHU T TERSTOCK; RECEIV ER PL ATFOR M: A L A N DY ER
visitor centre has managed to survive
unscathed.
¢ MONICA YOUNG
 A ground view shows the suspended receiver
platform in better days.

False-colour image of Venus
Phosphine on Venus:
a calibration error?
IN THE MONTHS AFTER Jane Greaves
(Cardiff University, UK) and colleagues
published the possible discovery of
MOST DISTANT GRB YET?
IN MARCH 2016, astronomers found
a galaxy, called GN-z11, that was more
distant — and therefore more ancient —
than any seen before. This galaxy’s light
originated just 420 million years after the
Big Bang.
Now, a team based out of Beijing
has confirmed the extreme distance. It
also found something unexpected —
over a five-hour period of observation
using the Keck Telescope in Hawai’i, the
astronomers observed a brief, luminous
spike of ultraviolet light from GN-z11.
“It was surprising, because the object
is so faint,” says study lead Linhua Jiang
(Peking University). “The only way we
could have seen it is if we were looking
right there, at that moment, because a few
V ENUS: PL A NE T- C PROJECT TE A M; G RB: N ASA
minutes later, it was gone.”
Jiang and colleagues suggest that this
flash might have been the afterglow of a
gamma-ray burst (GRB), produced when
very massive stars collapse.
Before this, the youngest-known GRB
was one that went off 520 million years
after the Big Bang.
It’s entirely possible that the telltale
phosphine gas in the cloud decks of
Venus using data from the Atacama
Large Millimeter/submillimeter
Array (ALMA), their study attracted
a considerable amount of scientific
scrutiny. Several groups had posted
critical studies on the arXiv preprint
server by mid-November.
But the biggest recent upset came
from ALMA itself. “The publicity drew
the attention of people with experience
on other interferometers and ALMA
experts specialising in other fields who
made unexpected connections,” explains
Anita Richards, the team’s ALMA liaison.
“All of this has ultimately contributed to
a new reduction.”
The problem arose because Venus is
not a typical target for ALMA. The array
of radio dishes spends most of its time
looking at things that are far away and
thus faint. But for this study, ALMA
had to look for something barely visible
(the phosphine absorption line) inside
a large, bright, nearby object (Venus).
flash didn’t actually originate from GN-
z11. It could have come from something
that transited between Earth and the
galaxy at exactly the right moment, like a
cosmic photobomb. The team considered
all the likely culprits: satellites, asteroids,
stellar flares, even a coincidental GRB
in a closer galaxy. In the end, their
calculations suggested that it was
highly unlikely that the flash came from
anywhere other than GN-z11.
As for the source of the emission,
the researchers rule out a supernova or
tidal disruption event. Those can last for
days or longer, and what the team saw
was there and gone in less than three
minutes. In other words, the spectrum,
brightness and duration of the transient
were consistent with a GRB.
Péter Mészáros (Penn State University),
who was not involved in the study, says
that the spectrum is what he would expect
from a GRB. “This is potentially a very
important discovery,” he says.
Gamma-ray bursts are thought to be
produced by the collapse of massive stars,
and given that GN-z11 existed so shortly
Upon realising an error had occurred
with the way Jupiter’s moon Callisto
was used as a calibration target, ALMA
staff reprocessed the data.
After performing analysis on the
recalibrated data, Greaves reported in a
paper posted November 16 on the arXiv
that the signal is now not quite five
times the background noise, the “gold
standard” for a detection.
However, the feature hasn’t
disappeared and is still promising.
So the team has come up with a
new strategy: While their initial
observations had some restrictions due
to weather and the dish configuration
at the time, they now plan to use
optimised settings, which will enable
them to focus on distinct locations
where they think phosphine is present.
The team plans to re-observe Venus
when ALMA, which has been closed
for months due to the COVID-19
pandemic, reopens in 2021.
¢ ARWEN RIMMER
after the Big Bang, it would be tempting
to think that such an early GRB could
represent the death of one of the first
generation of stars, known as Population
III stars. “But what’s really interesting,”
says team member Bing Zhang (University
of Nevada, Las Vegas), “is that we saw
some strong carbon lines, meaning this is
a second-generation star.”
The universe began with only
hydrogen and helium and a smattering of
lithium. Heavier elements like carbon had
to be fused in the cores of massive stars
and distributed when they exploded. So
if there is carbon in GN-z11, the galaxy
must already be in the second stage of
its stellar evolution — even at the fresh
young age of only 400 million years old.
¢ ARWEN RIMMER
www.skyandtelescope.com.au 7
 NEWS NOTES

Big black holes dominate new LIGO-Virgo catalogue

THE LIGO AND VIRGO collaborations
have unveiled a new catalogue of
gravitational-wave detections from the
first half of their third observing run
(April to October 2019), which was
posted October 27 on the arXiv preprint
server. The 39 new detections raise the
total number of collisions to 50 and
reveal a surprising number of massive
black holes.
Before LIGO, astronomers had
predicted a dearth of black holes from
about 50 to 130 solar masses. Such
massive stellar cores ought to tear
themselves apart, leaving nothing
behind. But now, scientists have detected
Woosley (University of California, Santa
Cruz) is among those diving into this
second possibility. By making reasonable
changes to stellar models, he says, it’s
possible to nudge the lower boundary up
to about 65 solar masses — explaining
all but one of the gravitational-wave
sources. But no one knows quite what
to do with the 90-solar-mass black
hole. “That’s right in the middle of the
forbidden zone,” Woosley says.
One way to find out the provenance
of big black holes is via their spins. For
example, black holes born in a binary
should spin like tops around each other,
while a pair that has adopted each other
later on would be more likely to have
a random assortment of inclinations.
The catalogue’s spin data suggest that
roughly a third of the black hole pairs
were not born as binaries.
The new catalogue also seems to show
a gap at lower masses, Fishbach says.
“But it’s a messy picture,” she cautions.
“We’re not sure where the gap is, and
we’re not sure if the gap is empty.” This
picture will become clearer when data
analysis from the second half of the
third observing run becomes available.
¢ CAMILLE M. CARLISLE

MERG ER CH A RT: G REGG DINDER M A N / S&T, SOURCE: LIGO -VIRGO / NORTHWESTER N UNIV ERSIT Y / FR A NK EL AVSK Y / A A RON G ELLER; OBSERV ER A ND TELESCOPE: SE A N WA LK ER
seven cataclysms involving black holes Masses in the Stellar Graveyard
of at least 50 solar masses; one whopper 160
tips the scale at about 90 solar masses. LIGO-Virgo black holes
That surprised LIGO scientist Maya 80
Fishbach (Northwestern University). “It
could be that there’s a subpopulation 40
that’s actually contaminating the gap,”
Solar masses

?
Fishbach says. A previous generation of 20 ?

mergers, rather than dying stars, might

have made these larger black holes. 10
Or, perhaps stars find various ways to EM black holes
stave off their explosive destruction. Stan 5
? ?
?
u Black hole (orange) and neutron star (green) ?

mergers detected via gravitational waves 2

EM neutron stars
between September 2015 and October 2019.
Grey and blue denote black holes and neutron 1
stars, respectively, known via emitted light. LIGO-Virgo neutron stars

PANDEMIC INSPIRES SURGE IN TELESCOPE SALES

THERE’S A SILVER LINING to the
COVID-19 pandemic: a rediscovered
interest in the night sky. With that interest
come equipment needs, and telescope
vendors and manufacturers are reporting
a surprising surge in sales.
“I’ve never seen this kind of growth in
the industry,” Jeff Simon, director of Sky-
Watcher North America, tells Australian
Sky & Telescope. “We often see a bump
in interest around a big event such as a
total solar eclipse or a bright comet, but
this has been unprecedented.”
Some companies we talked to are
seeing an increase in business from
60% to 400% over the previous year.
Moreover, sales of entry-level telescopes
aren’t the sole driver of the increase in
sales. Astro-imaging cameras, robotic
telescope mounts, premium eyepieces
and other specialised equipment have
been flying off the shelves as amateurs
find more time to engage in their hobby.
“Who would have thought that it would
take a global pandemic to save amateur challenges. The global reaction to
astronomy?” says David Nagler, president the rapid spread of COVID-19 caused
of Tele Vue Optics. “People now have the international shipping to practically
time to discover (or rediscover) the night grind to a halt, leading to long waits
sky, and pull the trigger on that Go To on orders. This is especially true for
telescope or premium refractor they were vendors sourcing from China, who have
on the fence about purchasing.” encountered extended delivery delays.
But the boom comes with its own ¢ SEAN WALKER

8 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE March | April 2021


Stellar fossils reveal a ‘Kraken’
in our galaxy’s past
A RECONSTRUCTION of the Milky
Way’s history finds that our galaxy has
absorbed at least five large satellites
since its formation. Diederik Kruijssen
(Heidelberg University, Germany) and
colleagues published the details in
October’s Monthly Notices of the Royal
Astronomical Society.
Kruijssen and colleagues examined
globular clusters, ancient balls of
densely packed stars. A subset of these
have trajectories that suggest they’re
strangers in a strange land. They also
have a paucity of elements heavier
than hydrogen and helium, indicating
an origin in smaller galaxies. These
globulars accompanied satellites as they
were subsumed by our larger galaxy.
To understand where — and when —
the Milky Way’s globular clusters came
from, Kruijssen’s team turned to a set
of zoomed-in cosmological simulations
called E-MOSAICS. These simulations
show the evolution of Milky Way-like
galaxies as they cannibalise smaller
satellites, subsuming their globular
clusters. Kruijssen and his colleagues
used E-MOSAICS to train an artificial
LE AH TISCIONE / S&T, SOURCE: D. K RUIJSSEN E T A L. / MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE R OYAL ASTR ONOMICAL SOCIE T Y
neural network to relate globular cluster
properties to their galaxy of origin. They
Sagittarius
12.5
Lookback time in billions of years
11.5
10
8 >20 GCs
>7 GCs
5 satellite galaxies collided with the
Collision times are approximate.
0
108
then turned the neural network on our
own galaxy’s globulars.
The result is a history of our most
significant mergers with other galaxies,
starting with one dubbed ‘the Kraken,’
which collided with our galaxy around
11 billion years ago. A billion years later
came a smaller galaxy whose remains
appear as a rivulet of stars dubbed the
Helmi streams. Two mergers followed
with galaxies nicknamed ‘Sequoia’
and ‘Gaia-Enceladus’. The most recent
acquisition was the Sagittarius dwarf,
which joined us 7 billion years ago.
Gaia-Enceladus was the largest of
the newcomers, but the Kraken came
in when the Milky Way was four times
less massive. “The collision with Kraken
must have truly transformed what the
Milky Way looked like at the time,”
Kruijssen explains.
Helmer Koppelman (Institute
for Advanced Study) calls the study
“fascinating” but says there are caveats
associated with using simulations
of “Milky Way-like” galaxies. “This
‘average’ galaxy might not exist,”
Koppelman says. Further observations
will test these simulations’ accuracy.
„ MONICA YOUNG
Milky Way Helmi Gaia-
Sequoia Kraken Galaxy streams Enceladus
>13 GCs
>5 GCs
>3 GCs
This merger tree shows when five
Milky Way. Each one is labelled
with the number of globular clusters
(GCs) brought with it.
109 1010
Stellar mass
Streetlights and pollution
A study led by Christopher Kyba (GFZ
German Research Centre for Geoscience
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 streetlights in a ‘smart
city’ control system. From March 29
to April 7, 2019, Kyba and colleagues
manipulated public lighting in Tucson, then
took overhead images using the Suomi
National Polar-orbiting Partnership satellit
They found that Tucson’s streetlights
contribute less than 20% of light escapin
to space; the rest comes from other light
sources such as carparks and billboards.
Tucson’s streetlights have full cut-off
shielding, which gives the city darker
skies than most; nevertheless, the study,
published October 28 in Lighting Research
& Technology, suggests that fixing
streetlights does not fix light pollution.
John Barentine (International Dark-sky
Association) and colleagues measured sky
brightness from the ground, confirming
these conclusions in the September
Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy &
Radiative Transfer.
„ JAN HATTENBACH
Very small chance of
Apophis impact in 2068
Sunlight’s subtle effect may turn near-Earth
asteroid 99942 Apophis toward Earth
by April 2068, but chances for impact
remain small. David Tholen (University of
Hawai‘i) has announced that the asteroid’s
orbit is slowly tightening. Discovered in
2004, the roughly 350-metre-wide rock
was originally thought to be on a collision
course with Earth in 2029 or 2036, but
more precise observations reduced the
chance of impact in those cases to zero.
However, the Yarkovsky effect, the subtle
net force of sunlight on a small rotating
body, tweaks Apophis’s orbit over longer
periods of time. Tholen and colleagues
gauged this effect by precisely measuring
the asteroid’s position using the 8.3-metre
Subaru telescope on Mauna Kea, Hawai‘i.
Their results indicate that the semi-major
axis of the asteroid’s orbit is decreasing by
170 metres per year, so its Earth encounter
in 2068 may be closer than thought. The
chance of impact remains small, though,
currently about 1 in 150,000. Much
depends on how close Apophis comes to
Earth when it passes by in 2029.
„ GOVERT SCHILLING
www.skyandtelescope.com.au 9
 NEWS NOTES
Will the next solar cycle surprise us?
SUNSPOTS ARE PART OF AN 11-year
up-and-down cycle observed since
1610, “one of the oldest data sets that
humans have created,” says Dean
Pesnell (NASA Goddard), a solar cycle
expert. The sunspot cycle is itself just
half of the complete magnetic cycle,
called the Hale cycle, in which the Sun’s
magnetic-field changes come full circle
over a period of 22 years.
A few months ago, a panel of
scientists at NASA and the US
National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration announced that the
beginning of Cycle 25 had occurred in
December 2019. That means we’ve hit
bottom on sunspot number and are on
our way back up, and with sunspots will
come all sorts of other magnetically
driven activity, such as flares.
But while the timing of the sunspot
cycle is relatively predictable, its
magnitude isn’t. “The regular up and
down in count of sunspot number rarely
repeats itself,” Pesnell explains. The
inherent turbulence and chaotic nature
of the Sun’s dynamo makes predicting
its behaviour difficult at best. In the
end, the panel supported physics-based
models, which predict Cycle 25’s activity
will be similar to the surprisingly weak
10 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE March | April 2021
Cycle 24, peaking around July 2025 with
some 115 sunspots per month.
A consensus is useful for planning
purposes, particularly for those who
run power grids or launch satellites to
low-Earth orbit. For scientists, though,
the consensus serves primarily as a
point of reference. Because it doesn’t
mean that theorists are all done making
predictions — far from it.
Indeed, Scott McIntosh (US National
Center for Atmospheric Research) and
colleagues know that they’re going
against the consensus when they
write, “Sunspot Cycle 25 could have a
magnitude that rivals the top few since
records began.”
They arrived at this conclusion by
analysing 270 years of sunspot numbers.
Using a mathematical technique, they
realised that every 22-year Hale cycle
terminates markedly and quite quickly,
“in a quite astonishing time for a star,”
McIntosh says.
What’s more, the timing of the
cycle’s termination seems to correlate
with the magnitude of the next
sunspot cycle. If that correlation holds,
McIntosh and colleagues say that the
previous cycle’s brevity means a strong
Cycle 25, surpassing 180 sunspots per
 Images of the lower corona demonstrate the
Sun’s activity changing over time. The 11-year
cycle shown here is actually only half of the full
magnetic cycle, known as the Hale cycle.
month at peak. This prediction differs
so much from the consensus that we
won’t have to wait years, just months to
see which one is holding true.
Not everyone is persuaded, though.
“The fact that their prediction gives
a result outside the bounds of any
other cycle says that they are obviously
pushing the method into areas it has
never covered — extrapolating results
into unknown territory,” says David
Hathaway (Stanford University), who
was not involved in the study. Testing
the method on earlier cycles to see
how well it performed then would have
provided more convincing evidence, he
said.
The study is emblematic of the
ongoing debate in solar cycle prediction,
which has become “a high-stakes
event,” McIntosh and colleagues write.
There are dozens of models that predict
solar activity, some of them based on
simulations of the physics involved and
others based on the Sun’s own past
performances.
Upon examining the last cycle,
panel co-chair Lisa Upton (Space
Systems Research Corporation), says
that she and the others on the panel
recognised the advantage of physics-
based models, particularly those that
use measurements of the magnetic field
at the Sun’s poles as an input to their
models. These polar fields appear to
be the ‘seeds’ of the magnetic activity
over the next cycle. “We weighted those
forecasts more highly,” she says. “All
of us really felt like these physics-based
models had the highest accuracy.”
The suspicion that these polar fields
are a strong factor in determining
the Sun’s overall activity is one of the
driving forces behind Solaris, a NASA
mission recently selected for concept
study. Solaris would provide never-
before-seen views of the Sun’s poles
(though the European Space Agency’s
Solar Orbiter will provide oblique views
of the poles in 2025).
N ASA
¢ MONICA YOUNG

Dawn of the asteroids
Looking back at a pioneering mission to Vesta and Ceres.
W
e’ve known of the existence
of ‘minor planets’ or asteroids
in the Solar System since the
start of the 19th century, when Ceres,
Vesta and some others of the largest
ones were first detected. Since then the
number known, large and small, has
grown to many hundreds of thousands,
most of them orbiting the Sun in the
asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter
(see page 20).
For most of that time, these celestial
bodies were merely points of light
through our largest telescopes, just as
the other planets had been before the
invention of the telescope 400 years
ago. Analysing the light reflected from
asteroids using spectroscopes provided
insights as to their composition, but
they are so small and so far away that
for a long time we were unable to image
their surfaces.
The advent of the Hubble Space
Telescope and big ground-based
telescopes has certainly helped, but the
best way to increase our knowledge has
been to send spacecraft with cameras
and other scientific instruments right
up close — to fly by, to orbit or even to
land on the objects of interest. And so
by now every one of the planets, and
N ASA /JPL
many of their moons, have been seen
in detail.
And so it has been with some of
the minor planets, too, particularly
Ceres and Vesta. (To be precise, Ceres
is now classified as a ‘dwarf planet,’
along with Pluto and some others on
the fringes of the Solar System). One
such mission was conducted by the
spacecraft called Dawn, launched in
2007. It reached Vesta in 2011 and
orbited for a while, before moving on
to Ceres in 2015. Dawn thus became
the first spacecraft to orbit two extra-
terrestrial bodies, as well as the first to
visit a dwarf planet.
Why did it take so long to reach
its targets? The answer lies in its
propulsion system. Dawn was equipped
with an ‘ion drive’. It was pushed
along not by hot gases from chemical
reactions — your typical rocket fuel —
but by using electric fields (powered by
solar cells) to accelerate charged atoms
(‘ions’) of the rare gas xenon.
The thrust of the Dawn’s engine was
very gentle. Once launched into space,
at full throttle Dawn had to accelerate
for four days just to add its first 100
kph. But the beauty of an ion engine is
that the push can go on uninterrupted
for weeks or months, thus building
up very high speeds. Throughout the
mission, Dawn’s engine was thrusting
for nearly 60% of the time.
by David Ellyard DISCOVERIES
t The Dawn spacecraft’s ion engine enabled
slow but steady acceleration in order to reach
the asteroid belt.
Because it could pick up speed only
so slowly, Dawn could not head straight
for its targets. Rather it had to move
slowly outwards in a spiral. Along the
way it flew close to Mars, using that
planet’s gravity to kick it along.
Once it reached its targets, Dawn
went into a series of decreasing orbits,
moving ever closer until it was 100
kilometres or less above the surface.
This allowed for highly precise imaging
and mapping of the crater-strewn
landscapes beneath, while other
instruments collected gamma rays and
neutrons to determine what the surface
rocks were made of.
Clearly the mission was a technical
triumph, with its handlers overcoming
a raft of challenges along the way. But
what did it teach us? As with all such
missions, the data will be worked over
for years, but some things were clear
quite soon. The high-resolution images
of Vesta revealed two immense craters,
up to 500 km across, near its south pole,
evidence of a violent past. (Vesta is less
than 1000 km wide). One of these had
a central peak 20 km high (more than
twice the height of Everest), arguably the
highest mountain in the Solar System.
Vesta appears to be perhaps the last of
the ‘planetesimals’ that came together
billions of years ago to form the major
planets, including Earth.
Ceres was different in many ways,
suggesting a different history, perhaps
volcanic. Bright deposits of salts such
as sodium carbonate could be seen in
some of its craters. Evidence suggests
Ceres holds a lot of water ice, making
up 25% of its mass.
Dawn’s active life ended in 2018
when it exhausted its supply of thruster
fuel used to control its orientation
in space. That meant no more useful
scientific work could be done. Now
silent, it remains in lonely orbit around
Ceres.
■ DAVID ELLYARD is the author of Who
Discovered What When.
www.skyandtelescope.com.au 11
 ASTROPHOTOGRAPHY
Celebrating celestial seas
Every year the Auckland Astronomical Society holds
the Harry Williams Astrophotography Competition,
and each year it attracts the most amazing photos from
some very talented astrophotographers, each of them
sharing their views of the cosmos as seen from under
New Zealand’s pristine dark skies.
12 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE March | April 2021
THE ANTEATER NEBULA
OVERALL WINNER & DEEP SKY CATEGORY WINNER
PHOTOGRAPHER: Matthew Sole
On these pages we present just a taste of some of
the winning imagery, as judged by world-renowned
photographer, Babak Tafreshi. You can see the full
set of winning images at astronomy.org.nz.
Australian Sky & Telescope is proud to be a sponsor
of the competition.
COMET C/2020 F8 (SWAN)
WINNER: Solar System category
PHOTOGRAPHER: James Gossage

METEORIC GLOW
WINNER: Nightscape category
PHOTOGRAPHER: Stephen Voss

www.skyandtelescope.com.au 13
 ASTROPHOTOGRAPHY

SOLAR SYSTEM CONJUNCTION

HIGHLY COMMENDED: Solar System category
PHOTOGRAPHER: Stephen Voss

14 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE March | April 2021

 AURORA VORTEX
HIGHLY COMMENDED: Nightscape category
PHOTOGRAPHER: Larryn Rae

NUGGET POINT
HIGHLY COMMENDED: Nightscape category
PHOTOGRAPHER: Glen Butler

www.skyandtelescope.com.au 15
 ASTROPHOTOGRAPHY

GABRIELA MISTRAL NEBULA AND THE GEM CLUSTER

NOTABLE ENTRY: Deep sky category
PHOTOGRAPHER: Liam Murphy

16 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE March | April 2021

 NGC 1549
HIGHLY COMMENDED: Deep sky category
PHOTOGRAPHER: Rolf Wahl Olsen

STARLINK SATELLITES AND COMET NEOWISE

HIGHLY COMMENDED: Solar System category
PHOTOGRAPHER: Ian Griffin

www.skyandtelescope.com.au 17
 SAMPLE RETURN by David Dickinson
Pieces of
other worlds
Japan’s Hayabusa 2 has returned to Earth with samples
of asteroid Ryugu, while China’s Chang’e 5 has brought
back bits of the Moon.
AFTER A SIX-YEAR JOURNEY of
5.24 billion kilometres, the Japanese
Aerospace Exploration Agency’s (JAXA)
Hayabusa 2 mission returned to Earth
on December 6, releasing its sample-
return capsule during Earth flyby.
Aboard was the precious ‘treasure chest’
containing samples of asteroid 162173
Ryugu.
“We started to develop Hayabusa 2
in 2011, and since then, the dream
has come true,” says Hitoshi Kuninaka
(ISAS/JAXA) during a (translated) press
conference. “We performed the mission
100%… and the operations team did a
very good job.”
The sample release began when the
capsule separated from the spacecraft.
Spinning once every three seconds,
the capsule hit Earth’s atmosphere at
a speed of 12 kilometres per second
(43,000 kph). JAXA astronaut Soichi
Noguchi actually saw the capsule from
aboard the International Space Station.
The Saji Observatory in Japan also
18 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE March | April 2021
sighted both the spacecraft and capsule
flying together through space, shortly
after separation.
Re-entry return is always a difficult
time for any mission team: Many in the
space community still remember the
tragic return of NASA’s Genesis capsule
in 2004, when the capsule’s drogue
chute failed to deploy and the capsule
slammed to the ground at the Utah Test
Range in the US.
Sample in hand
The recovery of Hayabusa 2’s capsule,
however, went as planned. The capsule
blazed its way over Australia in the
early dawn hours for touchdown in
the Woomera Prohibited Area in South
Australia. Atmospheric entry started at
17:28 Universal Time on December 5.
The capsule deployed its radar-reflective
parachute, ejected its heat shield and
activated its radio beacon, signalling
that it was healthy and ready for the
awaiting search teams.
COMING HOME The ‘fireball’ as
Hayabusa 2’s sample capsule
entered the upper atmosphere.
LANDING SITE The sample return
capsule of Japan’s Hayabusa 2
spacecraft touched down within
the desolate Woomera Prohibited
Area in South Australia.
The teams located and collected the
capsule after a brief helicopter search,
then transported it to a facility at
Woomera for a ‘quick look’ inspection.
The team confirmed that the container
was properly sealed, before sending
it to JAXA headquarters in Japan for
opening.
“On behalf of everyone in Australia,
congratulations to the entire team at
JAXA on a wonderful achievement,”
said Megan Clark, head of the
Australian Space Agency, during a press
conference. “I also congratulate the
team in Australia and offer my deep
admiration for the project team in
Japan.”
The sample of pristine asteroid
material represents a look back to the
early years of the Solar System. The
spacecraft collected the sample by
firing a tantalum projectile at Ryugu’s
surface, stirring up a cloud of material
and drawing that material into the
spacecraft’s collecting horn. Then the
mission obtained a second, sub-surface
sample using the spacecraft’s Small-
3 X JA X A; XINHUA
Carry-on Impactor.
Hayabusa 2 also deployed the
first-ever asteroid rovers — Rover 1A
(HIBOU), Rover 1B (OWL) — along
with the MASCOT lander.
At the time of writing, it appeared
that at least 5 grams of surface and
sub-surface material had been gathered
— far more than the target mass of 100
milligrams.
The samples will ultimately be
stored at JAXA’s Extraterrestrial Sample
Collection Centre, along with the tiny
shards of 25143 Itokawa collected by
Hayabusa 1. These samples will be
available for analysis by international
scientists upon request.
Extended mission
After releasing the sample, Hayabusa 2
performed a short correction
manoeuvre to fly past Earth. JAXA
approved an extended journey for the
mission in September: The spacecraft
will make a high-speed flyby of asteroid
2001 CC21 in 2026, then rendezvous
with the 30-metre-wide asteroid 1998
KY26 in 2031, after two more Earth
flybys in 2027 and 2028. On its way,
Hayabusa 2 will conduct exoplanet and
zodiacal light observations.
Hayabusa 2 still has one target
marker left and may touch down on
1998 KY26 at the end of its mission.
The extended mission will make
Hayabusa 2 the first to explore a fast-
rotating asteroid — 1998 KY26 rotates
on its axis once every 10.7 minutes.
Pieces of the Moon
Sample-return missions abound these
days: China’s Chang’e 5 mission
brought its lunar samples back to
Earth in December. NASA’s Osiris-
 LUNAR PAYLOAD China’s Chang’e 5
craft returned to Earth on December 17 with
samples of the Moon’s regolith, the first such
fresh lunar samples received since Soviet
Union’s Luna 24 mission in 1976.
REX mission will return to Earth with
recently collected samples of 101955
Bennu on September 24, 2023. And
NASA and ESA have recently approved a
multi-piece plan to move forward with
sample collections from Mars.
After its whirlwind journey to the
Moon and back, Chang’e 5’s return
module entered Earth’s atmosphere,
deployed its parachutes and came to
rest in the Dorbod (Siziwang) Banner
region of Inner Mongolia. Inside, its
precious cargo: several kilograms of
lunar material collected from the top
two metres of the Moon’s surface.
The capsule made a skip-entry over
the Arabian Sea and south-central
Asia before landing at 1:59 a.m.
local time on December 17. After a
brief helicopter search, the recovery
team quickly located the capsule and
carried out retrieval under sub-zero
conditions.
The mission was a quick one and
went off without a hitch. Chang’e 5
launched atop a Long March 5 rocket
on November 24 and entered lunar
orbit on November 29. The lander
then separated from the orbiting
service module and touched down on
December 1 in Oceanus Procellarum
(Ocean of Storms) near the Mons
Rümker feature.
The lander collected lunar samples
within 24 hours after landing, and
the ascent vehicle launched from the
lunar surface on December 3. After an
automated rendezvous in lunar orbit
reminiscent of the crewed Apollo-
era missions, the sample return was
transferred from the ascent vehicle to
p PRECIOUS CARGO Japanese Aerospace
Exploration Agency technicians quickly found
Hayabusa’s capsule and secured it for return to
Japan, where its samples of asteroid Ryugu will
be studied.
the service module, which then broke
orbit and headed back to Earth.
The feat represents the first sample
return from the Moon since the Soviet
Union’s Luna 24 mission in 1976. The
accomplishment was a first for China
and represents the culmination of a
series of lunar missions in the Chang’e
program, including China’s first lunar
rover Yutu (Chang’e 3), the first-ever
landing on the lunar far side with
Chang’e 4, and the Chang’e 5 T1 capsule
return in 2014… a dress rehearsal for the
Chang’e 5 sample return.
The sample container is thought to
include well above the mission’s goal
of 2 kilograms of lunar regolith. The
collected material collected is relatively
young, ‘only’ 1.2 billion years old
compared to the 3- to 4-billion-year old
material collected by Apollo astronauts.
The material will be available to
Chinese researchers and international
collaborators for study.
www.skyandtelescope.com.au 19
 SOLAR SYSTEM RUBBLE by Nola Taylor Redd

HOW DID WE GET THE

ASTEROID
BELT?

The sparse swath of debris between Mars and Jupiter could tell us more
about the Solar System’s earliest years than the planets themselves.

THE ASTEROID BELT DIVIDES THE SOLAR SYSTEM IN TWO,
with rocky planets near the Sun and giants relegated to
the outskirts. Most of the belt’s mass is locked up in just
four asteroids, massive objects whose origins are under
investigation. But this strange dividing line itself holds
clues about the early Solar System.
Gas and dust left over from the birth of the Sun
ultimately became the planets, though scientists are still
struggling to understand the steps required. Main-belt
asteroids were long thought to either be a destroyed planet
or one that was never born, thanks to interference from
Jupiter’s gravity. Both theories had the asteroids forming in
their current locations.
The discovery of worlds around other stars helped to
change that view, as scientists realised that planets didn’t
necessarily stick around the region where they were born.
Suddenly, the early Solar System became an interstate
highway system where giant planets drove from place
to place, pushing material ahead of them as easily as a
plough shoves snow. The asteroid belt began to look less

20 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE March | April 2021

 like a collection of rejects and more like a refugee camp of
material ousted from elsewhere in the Solar System.
“The hard part is figuring out what came from where,
because it is all jumbled together,” says Sean Raymond
(Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Bordeaux, France). “It’s not like
a real refugee camp, where you can ask people or look at flags.”
Still, the stirred-up mess may make understanding
the first moments of planet formation easier. The
CAS E Y R E E D
processes that built planets are exceedingly complex, and
it’s virtually impossible to rewind the Solar System to
understand how everything fit together in the first billion
years. The asteroid belt — which has remained relatively
unchanged since that time — can provide the best look at
what happened more than 4 billion years ago. Scientists
are using several different frameworks to try to connect
modern observations of the belt with its birth.
“It may be that our best hope to try to understand planet
formation is to try to understand the composition and
nature of all the things implanted in the asteroid belt,” says
Bill Bottke (Southwest Research Institute, or SwRI).
www.skyandtelescope.com.au 21
 SOLAR SYSTEM RUBBLE
The dance of the planets
When astronomers spotted 1 Ceres and its fellow large
asteroids in the early 19th century, they quickly came to
believe they had found the remains of a torn-up planet. For
several decades, they argued about how the destroyed planet,
Phaeton, had met its end.
Like the supposed planet, the theory of Phaeton eventually
met its demise. As scientists discovered more asteroids, they
realised that the asteroid belt had never been a planet. Instead
of a destroyed planet, perhaps the belt was a failed one, kept
from coming together by Jupiter.
In this picture, the belt started off as much as a thousand
times more massive than it is today. Primordial worlds in the
region crashed together, grinding one another down to create
smaller asteroids and asteroid families. As they interacted
with other protoplanets, gas giants and one another, these
asteroids found themselves ejected or destroyed. Some were
hurled from the Solar System by Jupiter’s dominating gravity,
while others were sent plummeting into the Sun. Only a
fraction of the original asteroids born in the belt would have
survived the chaotic first few tens of millions of years of
planet formation and evolution.
But subsequent simulations of planet formation revealed
that shedding that much mass was more challenging than
astronomers originally suspected. In the last 15 years, two
strong theories have emerged that may work together, or
separately, to explain how to empty the belt.
A related conundrum that theorists had to also solve
was the small Mars problem. According to classical planetary
formation scenarios, Earth and Mars should be roughly the
same size. Instead, the Red Planet has less than a sixth the
mass of our own world.
“The low mass of the belt is linked to the low mass of
Mars,” says André Izidoro (Rice University, Texas). Because
Mars sits so close to the asteroid belt, the same process that
 ODD SHAPES Among the few asteroids we’ve imaged up close are
(left to right) 951 Gaspra, 243 Ida and 433 Eros. Ida (the largest here) is
less than 60 km long. The Galileo spacecraft flew past Gaspra and Ida;
Eros was the first asteroid orbited and landed on, by NEAR Shoemaker.
22 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE March | April 2021
THE MAIN BELT
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.
swept away the planet’s initial reservoir of building material
would also have removed part of the asteroid belt.
In 2011, researchers proposed the Grand Tack model
as a solution to the small Mars mystery. The giant planets
formed faster than the smaller terrestrial worlds, their
increased mass allowing them to collect even more material
in a case of the rich getting richer. According to the model,
as Jupiter and Saturn gathered material from the dusty gas
disk, they opened up gaps and launched spiral waves. These
waves’ gravitational influence then moved the two giant
planets inward toward the rocky region of the Solar System,
shepherding icy material along with them.
But it wasn’t smooth sailing to the inner Solar System. As
the two worlds edged closer to the Sun, Jupiter encountered
the original, more massive asteroid belt. Caught up in the
giant planet’s gravitational pull, the early asteroids found
themselves flung helter-skelter around the Solar System.
Many were likely ejected, while others were cast into
different regions. At the same time, material that would
have fed Mars was tossed out of the Red Planet’s reach.
Some of the rocks travelled to the inner Solar System and
collided with the planets there. Eventually Saturn caught
up to Jupiter and their two disk gaps merged, shifting the
torques on the planets. The giants changed course, tacking
like sailboats to return to the outer Solar System, with both
planets again tossing material willy-nilly.
The Grand Tack emptied the asteroid belt, leaving it an
open reservoir for new material. Almost immediately, it
N ASA / JPL (2)
began collecting refugees. As Jupiter and Saturn returned to
the outer Solar System, they interacted again with material
they had tossed behind them on their journey in. Most was
 ejected, but a very small amount — a tenth of a percent — was
hurled back towards the asteroid belt, refilling it. The asteroid belt contains
Grand Tack isn’t the only theory that explains the small less than 5% the mass
Mars problem, but it is one of the strongest and most- of the Moon.
discussed contenders. The model requires a very specific
migration path for Jupiter and Saturn, one that strongly
depends on the mass ratio of the two planets. Belt. A small percentage were hurled
“If Grand Tack happened, then it’s really powerful,” says inward to make their new home deep in
David Nesvorný (SwRI). He points out that the model not the asteroid belt. Others found their way into a shared orbit
only covers many features of the asteroid belt and solves the with Jupiter, creating a collection of more than 7,000 Jupiter
small Mars problem, it also answers several other questions Trojan asteroids.
about the Solar System, such as why it lacks the super-Earths
abundant around other stars. Determining whether Grand Build-a-world
Tack did or did not happen, he says, is “the most important While some researchers have been probing the large-scale
issue there is” in planetary science. movement of the planets, others have been exploring how
Grand Tack wasn’t the first accepted theory to propose that the Solar System’s raw material moves on a smaller scale.
the planets had moved. Early studies in the 1980s also suggested The question of how rocky planets coalesce has long puzzled
that the giant planets migrated, but astronomers later discarded scientists. Astronomers once envisioned a simple process
those theories. In 2005, the Nice model of planetary formation of bigger and bigger rocks colliding with one another. But
emerged and has continued to evolve over the last 15 years. planetesimals growing from accumulating chunks hit
Named for the French city where the idea was born, the Nice trouble when they reach the metre-size level. Material of that
model proposed that the Solar System formed from the gas disk size appears more likely to drift into the Sun than to form
with a slightly different configuration. While Jupiter began worlds, slowing and eventually stopping the movement as
slightly farther from the Sun, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune the planetesimals grow larger.
were all closer than they are today, with Neptune closer than Now researchers think they have the answer in the form
Uranus. A fifth world, another ice giant, may of pebble accretion. It turns out that small
also have been present in the chain. Just past bits sticking together can build a planet
the giants sat a handful of planetesimals that SPARSE faster than large asteroids colliding. These
weighed as much as 20 Earth masses. As the NEIGHBOURHOOD ‘pebbles’ are more easily captured by growing
giants interacted with these planetesimals and The average planetesimals than by larger objects simply
one another, they triggered what scientists refer distance between whizzing by. Although pebbles only add a
to as an instability that caused Jupiter to move, two asteroids is small amount of mass, they do so far more
perhaps even jump, inward toward the Sun. about 966,000 km. quickly than a single large collision that can
The process scattered the other giant planets, That’s 2.5 times blow a growing world apart.
perhaps ejecting one or even two ice giants and greater than the The original assumptions behind the
causing Neptune and Uranus to swap places as distance between initial mass of the asteroid belt emerged
they moved outward. Earth and the Moon. during the era when scientists suspected
“The composition of the asteroid belt in high-speed planet growth and a fairly smooth
different places might tell you that a fifth distribution of material in the disk. Pebble
planet existed, and you had to have it to get the asteroid belt,” accretion brings an alternative: Perhaps the collection of
Bottke says. “It could be that having five giant planets is the asteroids didn’t start off quite so large, after all. After an
easiest way to explain certain aspects of the asteroid belt.” initial burst of asteroid formation, small pebbles would have
But samples from the belt can be challenging to obtain. drained inward toward the Sun, emptying much of the belt
M OON: LE A H TISCIONE / S&T; EROS: N ASA / JPL / JHU A PL

Most of the meteorites that have found their way to Earth are
rocky or iron-rich. Carbon-rich samples from the outer Solar
System make up less than 5% of the meteorites that make
it to Earth. And while there has been evidence that some
meteorites once held ice, no frozen water has survived the
brutal heat of Earth’s atmosphere. That’s one reason that the
asteroid sample-return missions Hayabusa 2 and OSIRIS-REX
are so important.
The planets weren’t the only things moving around in
this early era. The dance of the giants would have stirred up
the icy objects in the outer Solar System, too, pushing most
of them out past Neptune to create the modern-day Kuiper
region. But a growing Jupiter might have acted as a dam,
keeping pebbles from the outer Solar System from moving in
to replace those that left. The result would have been a belt
born with only a fraction of the previously predicted mass.
The idea that the asteroid belt could have started off less
massive has been gradually gathering attention. Previous
studies by Raymond and Izidoro revealed that it was relatively
easy for material tossed into the asteroid belt during planet
formation to stick around. That led them to speculate that,
instead of starting with lots of mass and being whittled
down, the region between Mars and Jupiter started off with
no asteroids or planetesimals. Every object there today could

www.skyandtelescope.com.au 23
 SOLAR SYSTEM RUBBLE

have been hurled in from somewhere else in the Solar System.
“It’s certainly an interesting idea,” says Bottke. “I suspect
maybe it’s too [extreme], but I like it because it gets you thinking.”
A completely empty asteroid belt at the start of the Solar
System would change how modellers view the first few years
around a newborn Sun. Models like Grand Tack and Nice
might not be needed to explain the asteroid belt itself.
“If the belt was low-mass from the beginning, you don’t
need the dramatic migration history of the giant planets
to explain the inner Solar System,” Izidoro says. “The giant
planets could have stayed in their orbits during the early Solar
System days.”
survivor. According to his simulations, roughly 10% of the
planetesimals stirred up by Jupiter and Saturn under the Nice
model should have wound up in the asteroid belt. Ironically,
that makes things more difficult, because it suggests that the
asteroid belt should have more carbon-rich asteroids than it
currently holds. Why it doesn’t remains a mystery.
According to Nesvorný, one of the best arguments for
A. LOW-MASS ASTEROID BELT
1-2 million years after start

Ceres and Vesta 1. Growing pebbles in the gas disk drift toward the Sun
Whether it started off empty or full, the asteroid belt still and pile up in rings, perhaps due to Jupiter’s influence.
The asteroid belt region becomes relatively empty.
appears to contain material from different parts of the Solar
System. Two of the most visible examples are Ceres and
4 Vesta, two of the largest objects in the asteroid belt. The Snow line
pair are different not only from each other but also from Planetesimals
many of their neighbours.
The largest object in the asteroid belt, Ceres, is a carbon-
rich world whose mass makes up nearly a third of the mass Sun
Jupiter
in the belt. While most of the asteroid belt is filled with dry
rocks, Ceres has long shown hints of being icy. Before NASA’s
Dawn mission arrived at Ceres in 2015, scientists suspected
the dwarf planet could hold an ocean of water beneath its
icy shell. The spacecraft identified bright spots on the dwarf 2. As Jupiter and Saturn grow, they kick out nearby
planet and a smooth, constantly changing landscape that icy planetesimals.
planetes These go all over the place,
including th
he belt region.
later revealed the existence of an extensive reservoir of
subsurface brine.
“Ceres, with its water and bright spots, is central to the
general narrative we’re coming up with for how the Solar
System formed and evolved,” Raymond says.
Bright salty spots and a young surface weren’t the only
surprises Ceres had. The spacecraft also found widespread
ammoniated phyllosilicates, muddy minerals that resemble Jupiter
Saturn
comet droppings. The ammonia indicates the dwarf planet
couldn’t have formed where it is now: Temperatures in the
disk that formed the Solar System meant that ammonia could
only condense into ice in the outer reaches, farther from the 3. As the terrestrial planets grow, they scatter dry
planetesimals outward. Some end up in the asteroid
Sun than the asteroid belt lies. belt, while others fall victim to Jupiter, which sends
Ceres’ icy composition isn’t the only reason planetary them elsewhere or even out of the Solar System.
scientists think the asteroid formed in the outer Solar System.
With its enormous size (for an asteroid), the dwarf planet
has long stood out from its neighbours. In 2008, after the
Nice model emerged, planetary scientist Bill McKinnon
(Washington University) suggested that the dwarf planet
could have come from the outer Solar System. McKinnon
later calculated that, as the giants danced their complicated
steps, icy objects from the outskirts could have been
hurled inward. Of them, only one would likely have been
successfully implanted in the belt, while the others were
ejected or tossed into the Sun.
Raymond says that as few as ten Ceres-size objects in the All diagrams, in all scenarios, are not to scale.
outer Solar System could explain Ceres’ existence as the sole

24 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE March | April 2021

 Ceres’ implantation comes from meteorites. Rocky and
carbon-rich meteorites are “different beasts,” he says, that
appear to have formed in separate places. C-type, carbon-rich
meteorites best resemble Ceres and most likely come from
the outskirts of the Solar System. The parent bodies for these
meteorites tend to orbit in the outer part of the asteroid belt,
farthest from the Sun.
B. GRAND TACK
3-5 million years after start
Jupiter Saturn
Sun
1. As Jupiter and Saturn form from the gas disk,
they create gaps in the disk. Jupiter forms faster.
2. Jupiter’s gap creates a torque in the disk that
forces the planet inward, scattering planetesimals as
it goes. Jupiter largely empties the asteroid belt.
3. Saturn then grows big enough to migrate inward
and catches up to Jupiter. Their combined gap
changes the forces on the giants and sends the pair
back out of the inner Solar System.
4. As they move out, Jupiter and Saturn again toss
planetesimals out of their way. A small number end
up in the asteroid belt.
Uranus Neptune
G REGG DINDER M A N / S&T
But they aren’t the only asteroids making up the outer
belt; stony S-type asteroids are also intermixed with their
carbonaceous siblings. For years, scientists have recognised
differences between C- and S-type meteorites. Now, new
research has quantified those differences, revealing a gap
in the isotopes found inside the meteorites themselves. The
variations between the asteroids’ isotopes indicates that they
C. EARLY INSTABILITY
Within 10 million years after start
1. After the gas disk clears, Jupiter is a bit
farther out than it is today; Saturn, Uranus, and
Neptune are much closer, and there’s a disk of icy
planetesimals beyond. An extra ice giant might be
present, too. This compact arrangement is unstable.
Saturn
Jupiter Ice giants
Sun
2. Interactions between the giants and the outer icy
disk create orbital chaos: Giants cross paths and
exchange orbital energy. Jupiter (or maybe Saturn)
kicks out the extra ice giant. The giants spread out
and clear out most of the icy planetesimals. Jupiter
clears out much of the asteroid belt and Mars’s
feeding zone.
Ice giant
ejected
3. The planets stabilise, with Uranus and Neptune
much farther out than they began and Neptune
controlling the orbits of a large number of the
remaining icy objects (today’s Kuiper Belt). The
remaining asteroids have orbits that are more
oblong and tilted than before.
Uranus
Neptune
www.skyandtelescope.com.au 25
 SOLAR SYSTEM RUBBLE

could have stripped off their mantles, leaving behind their

 CERES This view from NASA’s Dawn spacecraft shows the floor of
Ceres’ Juling Crater. The crater floor shows evidence of the flow of ice
and rock, similar to rock glaciers in Earth’s polar regions.
formed progressively farther out, with C-types placed firmly
in the outer Solar System.
“There has been this dichotomy between [meteorites] for
decades,” says meteorite scientist Conel Alexander (Carnegie
Institution for Science). “What’s changed is now these new
isotope anomalies have been found in the system that hadn’t
been looked at carefully before. It all comes down to their
isotopes.”
Combined, the simulations, meteorite isotopes and Dawn’s
denser cores. Interactions with planets and protoplanets
then hurled the iron-rich meteorites outward toward the
belt, leaving most of the lighter material behind to fall onto
the terrestrial planets or the Sun. Because hurling material
away from the Sun grows more challenging as you move
inward from the belt, Vesta and its siblings most likely
formed near Mars. Isotopes support this idea.
Another solution to the missing mantles is that the lighter
material was more easily destroyed in collisions than the iron
cores that remain today. “Vesta could be one of the asteroids
that was just lucky and didn’t suffer from a devastating
collision,” says Alexander.
While theorists try to rewind the Solar System to
understand how material was scattered, Alexander is turning
to meteorites to try to figure out what happened.
Meanwhile, samples brought home by Hayabusa 2 and
OSIRIS-REX from two carbon-rich asteroids should help to
reveal more about the composition — and thus the origin
— of these belt denizens. Launching in late 2021, the Lucy
spacecraft should also provide insights, visiting several of the
Jupiter Trojans in the late 2020s. Lucy’s observations will tell
astronomers how similar to Ceres these asteroids are.
“There are a lot of dots to connect along the way to get
from point A to B,” Raymond says. “It’s the funnest part of
the game, to really build a story that’s coherent.”
¢ NOLA TAYLOR REDD is a freelance science journalist
fascinated with space and astronomy.

CERES: N ASA / JPL- CA LTECH / UCL A / MPS / DLR / IDA / ASI / IN A F; V ESTA: N ASA / JPL- CA LTECH / UCL A / MPS / DLR / IDA
observations make a strong case for Ceres having formed in
the outer Solar System.
Vesta’s origins are harder to pin down. The second most
massive object in the belt, Vesta is differentiated, having
separated into a crust, mantle and core early in its lifetime.
The fact that it has all three layers makes it fairly unique in
the belt and might be key in solving an ongoing puzzle: the
mystery of the missing mantle.
When newborn objects grow large enough, the heaviest
elements in them sink to the centre, while the lightest
elements rise to the top. The result is iron-rich cores wrapped
in rocky mantles. Astronomers have found iron-rich asteroids
in the belt and collected iron-rich meteorites on Earth. But
the lighter elements that would make up mantle material are
surprisingly hard to spot in both.
One option, proposed by Bottke and his colleagues in
2006, is that differentiated asteroids formed closer to the
terrestrial planets than they are today. There, collisions

Four asteroids contain 55% VESTA Various craters and grooves along the equator stand out
in this image from the Dawn spacecraft of 4 Vesta. The grooves
of the main belt’s total mass: may be due to a massive, glancing impact that made the interior
Ceres, Pallas, Vesta and Hygiea crack and collapse.

26 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE March | April 2021

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 STELLAR FADE by Tom Calderwood
Great Dimming of
Professional and amateur astronomers are
working to understand why the famed red
supergiant faded so dramatically.
BETELGEUSE HAS BECOME A STAR — a media star, that is.
Never in modern times has so much public attention been
paid to a distant sun that hasn’t exploded. Astronomers have
been keenly interested in Orion’s alpha star for some time,
but now it’s a subject for the newspapers.
28 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE March | April 2021
UNUSUAL FADE Betelgeuse was around
magnitude 0.5 in 2013 as it approached
a regular minimum (left). But it was a
magnitude fainter in January 2020 during
a mysterious dimming.
Betelgeuse is a red supergiant (RSG), a swollen, puffy star
nearing the end of its life. These gigantic stars produce an
abundance of dust, seeding interstellar space with various
atomic elements. We still don’t understand exactly how they
disperse their chemical bounty. This is partly because red
supergiants are so few, and so many of them are so far away.
Betelgeuse, being nearby, is our backyard RSG laboratory.
BA BA K TA FRESHI (2)
But that’s not what brought Betelgeuse into the spotlight.
Between October and December 2019, the star’s ruddy
glow plummeted, then kept on fading. Popular speculation
abounded that it was about to go supernova.
 The “Great Dimming” electrified both amateur and
professional astronomers. Members of the American
Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO) have
followed the star for decades, and professionals regularly refer
to AAVSO’s data to add context to their own investigations.
With such instruments as Hubble, ALMA and the Very Large
Telescope (VLT) at their disposal, the pros can probe slivers
of the Betelgeuse spectrum in exquisite detail. But for overall
measures of brightness, they often depend on the modest
tools of amateurs, whose instruments are not saturated by
the star’s intense light.
I lead an AAVSO observer group that was in on a
campaign called the Months Of Betelgeuse, coordinated
by Andrea Dupree (Center for Astrophysics, Harvard
& Smithsonian). Known as the MOB, they are a loose
association of professional astronomers in the Americas
and Europe. Our group provided the MOB with precise
brightness measurements throughout Betelgeuse’s
strange episode, using a technique known as photoelectric
photometry. Together, the pros and amateurs saw the
supergiant dim and recover, watching from vantage
points on Earth and in space.
www.skyandtelescope.com.au 29
 STELLAR FADE

Inherently inconstant 0.0 Betelgeuse’s Brightness Over Time

A red supergiant starts out with a mass about 8 to 40 times
that of the Sun. On the main sequence, it furiously fuses
hydrogen to helium for perhaps 1 to 10 million years. The

Brightness (visual magnitude)

core finally fills up with helium, and hydrogen fusion stops.
No longer supported by an outward flow of energy, the core
contracts and heats up dramatically.
Around the outer core, the temperature rises high enough
to restart hydrogen fusion in a surrounding shell. Within
the core, the temperature will rise even higher, beginning the
fusion of helium into carbon and then oxygen. As the core
shrinks, the outer envelope expands to incredible proportions,
a process — not fully understood — called the mirror effect.
We think Betelgeuse is in this helium-fusing stage. After its
central supply of helium is exhausted, the core will go through
a series of flameouts, contractions and re-ignitions that finally
create a nickel-iron centre that can produce no more energy.
A collapse will follow, and likely a fantastic explosion, treating
earthlings to a spectacular sky show (see box below).
Almost all red supergiants are variable stars, changing
in brightness over time. Some of them literally pulsate,
expanding and shrinking over periods typically lasting
hundreds of days.
Betelgeuse currently pulsates over about 420 days, but
its brightness also varies on a cycle of 2,000 days (5.5
years). Many RSGs exhibit such a long secondary period
(LSP), the cause of which is unclear. Repeated upwellings of
hot material from deep inside the star may drive this slow
variation. Giant, hot convection cells rise to the top, each
one covering so much area that they collectively change the
surface’s temperature distribution.
Astronomers have indirectly detected convective cells on
Betelgeuse. Using the 2-metre Bernard Lyot telescope in the
French Pyrenees, Arturo López Ariste (University of Toulouse,
France) and others studied Betelgeuse from 2013 to 2018.
With specialised equipment, the researchers inferred the
presence of huge regions of upwelling bright material edged
by sinking, cooler material, and they mapped out these
hotspots. Further evidence from Doppler shifts enabled them
0.5
1.0
1.5
2.0
2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
Date
 ABNORMAL MINIMUM Betelgeuse’s brightness varies on multiple
time scales, and its dips every 420 days or so are fairly predictable. But
the fade it experienced in late 2019 and early 2020 was like nothing
astronomers have seen from the star. These data from AAVSO observer
Wolfgang Vollmann show about seven years’ worth of photometric data.
The data
Between pulsation and convection, Betelgeuse has a long
history of brightness variation. But the Great Dimming
and the minimum it reached in February 2020 before
rebrightening was extraordinary, causing much excitement in
the scientific community.
The 2018 minimum of the 420-day cycle occurred near
Christmas, so observers expected the next minimum about
mid-February of 2020. But by the end of November 2019,
the star had already broken through the 2018 low and was
clearly headed lower. In early December, MOBster Ed Guinan
(Villanova University) sent out an Astronomical Telegram to
alert those scientists who had not already noticed.
The buzz grew. The American Astronomical Society (AAS)
annually stages its big meeting for professional astronomers
in early January. As attendees began gathering in Honolulu

BRIGHTNESS GR A PH: S&T DIAG R A M, SOURCE: WOLFG A NG VOLLM A NN / A AVSO

to also estimate the velocities of the updrafts and downdrafts in 2020, I was getting urgent emails from the MOB: Tom . . .
— about 20 km/s (72,000 kph). The cells may take a few years What’s it doing? . . . What’s it doing? The AAS conference held
to finish rising, much longer than the day-long time scales of a special session to discuss the latest developments, and soon
similar motions in the Sun. after, Betelgeuse was featured in the New York Times.

WILL BETELGEUSE EVER GO SUPERNOVA?

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 to how the star burns its carbon.
solar masses. (Betelgeuse is Alternatively, the larger stars
potentially below that limit, but might lose enough material as
astronomers don’t know for they age that they evolve into
sure.) It’s possible stars above hotter yellow or blue supergiants
the limit instead implode directly before exploding.
into a black hole, perhaps due —CAMILLE M. CARLISLE

30 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE March | April 2021

 The iconic image of the Great Dimming was provided 0 Betelgeuse V-band and B-band light curves
by Miguel Montargès (then of KU Leuven, Belgium) and
others using the VLT. Taken in December 2019, it shows the
0.5
southeast of Betelgeuse starkly fainter than the rest of the
star. A similar picture from January 2019, when Betelgeuse V-filter values
was near its prior minimum, showed no such contrast. 1
But the Great Dimming is best summed up in a light
curve, a graph showing the brightness of the star over time.

Magnitudes
Astronomers work with light curves taken through standard 1.5
colour filters that reveal how the star looks at different
wavelengths. At right are V (green) and B (blue) light curves 2.0
that I gathered with a photometer during 2018–2020. The V
filter approximates the sensitivity of the human eye. In 2018,
Betelgeuse dimmed to a V magnitude of 0.88, whereas in 2020, 2.5
B-filter values
it bottomed out at 1.61 — an additional 50% drop in brightness.
Why take data in different colours (known as bands)? 3.0
Because the star’s behaviour may manifest differently at
one wavelength compared to another, potentially revealing
interesting information. For example, my group has 3.5
June 30 Oct. 8 Jan. 16 Apr. 26 Aug. 4 Nov. 12 Feb. 20 May 30
photometers that take data in the near-infrared (NIR). 2018 2019 2020
Compare the shape of the two light curves on the next page,
starting in January 2020 when we first began observing in
the J band (1.25 microns) of the NIR. AAVSO member Jerry Peeling the onion
Persha took the J-band data. Before we explore these theories, let’s have a look at the
While V-band brightness changed dramatically, the J-band outside layers of Betelgeuse. The visible surface of a star
data scarcely budged. Whatever affected the visible light had is called its photosphere. In truth, it’s not a surface at all
little effect on the infrared radiation, and that’s a clue to the (nothing could rest upon it). The photosphere is where the
LIGH T CURV ES GR A PH: G REGG DINDER M A N / S&T, SOURCE: THE AU THOR; BE TELG EUSE BEFORE A ND A F TER: ESO / M. M ON TA RG ÈS E T A L.

physics at work.
Based on the professional and amateur data in hand,
two main theories are competing to explain the fade of
Betelgeuse: a burst of new dust that partially obscured the
star, or an unusual drop in its surface temperature.
 PIECEMEAL DIMMING These VLT images show Betelgeuse as it
looked shortly after its 2018 minimum (left) and partway through its
abnormal minimum in 2019–20 (right).
atmosphere of the star becomes opaque to our vision. It looks
like a surface because we cannot see through it.
The photosphere of the Sun is about 5800 kelvin, so hot
that barely any molecules can survive there. Betelgeuse, on
the other hand, has swollen up so large — spreading its heat
over so much area — that its surface is only about 3650K. The
low temperature permits an assortment of compounds, such
as titanium oxide (TiO), to exist in gaseous form.

January 2019 December 2019

www.skyandtelescope.com.au 31
 STELLAR FADE
Above the photosphere of our own Sun lies the
chromosphere, a shell of very hot, very thin gas. But the
chromosphere of Betelgeuse is sandwiched between two layers
the Sun lacks: a molecular sphere (or MOLsphere) below, and a
dust shell above.
V-band and J-band Data
January–April 2020
–3.4
Magnitude
–3.2
J-filter values
–3.0
–2.8
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
Magnitude
0.8
1 from an unpolarised background — sort of like sunglasses in
1.2 V-filter values
1.4
1.6
1.8
Jan. 11 Jan. 21 Feb. 20 Mar. 11 Mar. 31
Date in 2020
The MOLsphere is a recently discovered oddity of
Betelgeuse, a region richer in gaseous molecules than the
photosphere, which is how it gets its name. In our own Sun,
it’s a puzzle how the chromosphere becomes hotter than
the photosphere below it. But in Betelgeuse the mystery is
compounded, for the MOLsphere separating the photosphere
and chromosphere is cooler than both of them.
The dust shell is the end-product of mass loss in an RSG.
Astronomical dust is not the fluff under your couch. It
consists of tiny solids that have condensed from material
that has escaped from a star. Within the star, all material
is gaseous, even metallic elements like aluminium and
magnesium. On the surface of a cool star like Betelgeuse,
the molecules, too, are in the form of gases. But if the atoms
and molecules can leap off and migrate to a cooler area, they
then have the chance to stick together and form grains such
as silicon monoxide (SiO) or aluminium oxide (Al2O3). These
grains are accelerated by unknown means and fly out to
enrich the composition of interstellar space.
Witnesses for dust
In the temperature versus dust debate over the cause of the
Great Dimming, Emily Levesque (University of Washington)
and Philip Massey (Lowell Observatory) staked the first claim.
Using a spectrograph on the 4.3-metre Lowell Discovery
Telescope, they determined that the surface temperature in
February 2020 was not much lower than it had been in March
2004, when the star was of normal brightness.
Earthbound astronomers cannot, of course, stick a
32 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE March | April 2021
thermometer into a distant star — the measurement was
indirect. Levesque and Massey examined absorption features
caused by titanium oxide (TiO) in Betelgeuse’s atmosphere.
TiO molecules start forming at about 3800K, and they
become more prevalent as the star gets cooler, absorbing ever
more light. The researchers didn’t see big changes in the TiO
lines compared to 2004, suggesting that the temperature had
changed little since then.
Professional astronomers also found evidence in support
of dust by studying polarised light coming from the envelope
around Betelgeuse. When sunlight reflects off the surface of a
lake or the bonnet of your car, it becomes partially polarised,
with the light waves vibrating at only certain angles. This
is why polarised sunglasses are so helpful when driving or
boating on a sunny day. Starlight reflecting off dust also
becomes partially polarised. A team led by Boris Safonov
(Lomosonov Moscow State University, Russia) imaged
Betelgeuse with an instrument that picks out polarised light
reverse. Their data showed a big increase in polarised light as
Betelgeuse recovered from its minimum. The interpretation
was that, first, dense dust had formed, blocking light and
causing the star to fade. Then, as the grains spread out
Apr. 20 enough for light to pass, a fresh wave of polarised reflections
emerged from a newly enriched dust zone.
Observations suggest an ejection of material happened
around the same time, which might be a source of dust.
Betelgeuse has been shedding mass for eons, as we can
see from the great cloud of dust that surrounds it. Dupree
and others discovered signs of a recent expulsion by using
Hubble’s Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) to
V- A ND J-BA ND DATA: G REGG DINDER M A N / S&T, SOURCE: THE AU THOR; L AY ERS: G REGG DINDER M A N / S&T
ll
she Molecular sphere
t
orona
s
Du
ndc
ea
er
h
sp
mo
Chro
Photosphere
 EXTRA LAYERS Betelgeuse’s atmosphere has two regions the Sun’s
doesn’t: a molecular layer and an outer dust shell. The perimeter of the
real dust shell is highly irregular, and the different layers flow into each
other as in a melting dessert. The diameter of the photosphere is about
the size of Jupiter’s orbit around the Sun.
 STELLAR FADE
take ultraviolet spectroscopy
February 26, 2020
of the chromosphere. The
Hubble team scanned across
Betelgeuse with the STIS,
sampling narrow rectangles
to build a kind of map of
the star in UV. The spectra
indicate that the southeast
chromosphere experienced a
0.05 arcsec
shock throughout its levels
during the fall of 2019. This
is consistent with a burst of
material passing through the chromosphere, material that
could have condensed upon emerging and cooling.
But the ultraviolet data cannot reveal fresh dust, if any
actually formed. And since we don’t know how fast the
material was moving through the chromosphere, we don’t
know when it would have reached a zone cool enough for
condensation to occur.
Research is now turning toward rogue cells: unusually
strong upwellings that could have the energy to push
material off the photosphere. Rather than create a uniform
circumstellar envelope, the result would be a kind of Swiss
cheese, with pockets of new, hot gas injected into a generally
cooler environment. The chromosphere does, in fact, appear
to have regions of high temperature that occupy only a
fraction of that layer. Dupree speculates that Hubble caught
an outflow caused by a particularly powerful cell surfacing
just as an outward pulsation peaked.
Cross examination
But the dust explanation has some problems. The dimming
of Betelgeuse aligned very nicely with the primary variation
period of 420 days. How did a dust event synchronise itself
with the pulsations? It is plausible that the star’s regular
expansion helped push material out of the star, but it’s
difficult to see how the dust would know to disperse right on
schedule.
And if dust absorbed a great deal of visible light, where did
that energy go? Dust that captures optical radiation should
re-radiate some of it as infrared light, boosting the overall
infrared brightness. Yet the near-infrared AAVSO data do
not show this, nor do broader infrared data from the O’Brien
Observatory of the University of Minnesota, taken by Robert
Gehrz and others.
Lastly, Thavisha Dharmawardena (Max Planck Institute
for Astronomy, Germany) and others observed Betelgeuse
in submillimetre-band radio. That radiation would not be
affected by dust and should stay fairly constant if the stellar
temperature were stable. But they saw the brightness drop by
about 20% compared to the pre-dimmed level.
These data raise the question of whether the near-
constant temperature inferred from the spectrum is correct.
The 2020 spectrum largely matches a computer-modeled
spectrum for 3600K. This model assumes a uniform
34 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE March | April 2021
 POLARISATION Images
April 12, 2020 reconstructed from polarised light
data show that the amount of
polarised light from Betelgeuse’s
dust-laden wind increased after
the star’s minimum in February
2020. The intensity indicates how
much light is scattering off dust.
The change could be due to a
change in the amount of dust, or
in the illumination. The white ring
0.05 arcsec
shows the size of Betelgeuse.
temperature across the disk. But what if the temperature
distribution is uneven? Hot regions would be less affected
by TiO absorption, filling the TiO bands of the whole-disc
spectrum with light that would wash out deeper absorption
features in the cool areas. Cool zones, by contrast, would
radiate less total light than the average temperature would
indicate.
Such a ‘dilution’ of the light is the conclusion of Graham
Harper (University of Colourado, Boulder) and others.
Graham’s team studied the TiO absorption using a different
method. The average temperature of Betelgeuse they calculate
is lower than that inferred by Levesque and Massey. Given
that Levesque and Massey did detect emission characteristic
of gas at about 3600K, a significant fraction of the surface
must be substantially cooler — about 3300K. That would be
sufficient to explain the dimming.
We can visualise the competing models by returning to
the strange December 2019 image of Betelgeuse. In the dust
model, the southeast is partly obscured by dust, while in the
temperature-drop model, the southeast has cooled off. The
results of Harper’s team imply that the analysis of Levesque
and Massey applies only to hot, bright areas of the surface,
not the whole star.
POL A RISATION: STER NBERG ASTRONO MICA L INSTIT U TE OF LO M ONOSOV M OSCOW STATE UNIV ERSIT Y
The jury is out
The verdict on the Great Dimming remains under
deliberation. Data from the last observing season are still
under analysis, with more scientific papers in the publication
pipeline.
Betelgeuse is a complex beast, and I have only scratched
the surface of the story. The contention between various
researchers using different instruments (more than are
mentioned here) can feel like the story of the Blind Men
and the Elephant. But although the men are always seen
as comical characters, keep in mind that none of them is
actually wrong. Each draws a conclusion based upon the best
information he has. Their collective challenge is to synthesise
a common explanation from everyone’s data. That’s how
difficult science gets done.
¢ TOM CALDERWOOD leads the AAVSO’s photoelectric
photometry (‘PEP’)section. He can be reached at pep@
cantordust.net.
 BABY STAR by Ken Croswell

The story of
T Tauri An infant star in Taurus helped
reveal a truth once thought radical:
The universe still makes new stars.

36 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE March | April 2021


T. A . R ECTOR ( U N I V E R S IT Y O F A L AS K A , A N C H O R AG E ),
H . SC HWEIK E R ( WI Y N A N D N OIR L A B / N S F / AU R A )
STELLAR INFANT
T Tauri (centre) is the prototype of
newborn stars comparable in mass
to the Sun. Hind’s Variable Nebula
immediately to the west (right) changes
in brightness and position as clouds
pass between it and the star. North is up.
A CENTURY AGO, the universe seemed a static place. No
one knew it was expanding. Indeed, Albert Einstein even
temporarily added a fudge factor to his equations in order to
keep his model of the cosmos stationary.
But surprisingly, even after recognising the universe’s
expansion, astronomers failed to appreciate another
fundamental feature of the cosmos. It’s something so
commonsensical that both professional and amateur
astronomers take it for granted today: The universe still
produces new stars.
“At that time it was assumed that all stars were formed
in some massive catastrophe in the early universe,” says Bo
Reipurth (University of Hawai‘i). Thus, no stars form now.
Today we know our galaxy is actually a prolific star creator,
spawning new stars in clouds of gas and dust such as the
Orion Nebula. Each year the Milky Way converts about two
solar masses of its gas and dust into new stars. Most are
much less massive than the Sun, so this figure equates to the
birth of about five new stars a year throughout our galaxy.
But the harbinger of the revolutionary revelation that the
universe still makes new stars was hardly a spectacle. Instead,
it was a dim star in Taurus named T Tauri, about 470 light-
years from Earth.
A century elapsed between this star’s discovery and the
recognition of its youthful nature. Nor have its surprises
stopped: In just the past year, astronomers have reported new
features about the star that suggest it may be even younger
than they had thought.
Introducing T Tauri
On October 11, 1852, English astronomer John Russell Hind
spotted a “very small” and “very faint” nebula north of the
Hyades star cluster. Near the nebula he also discovered a
10th-magnitude star. The star did not appear on star charts:
“Possibly it may be variable,” he wrote, inferring that the star
had earlier been too dim to see.
Incredibly, the nebula is also variable. It faded and in 1868
vanished. It later returned, but its position had changed.
When Hind made his find, the nebula lay south-southwest
of the star; now, it’s west of the star. The nebula came to be
called Hind’s Variable Nebula and the star T Tauri, the third
variable star found in Taurus.
Over the following century, astronomers discovered other
stars like T Tauri. In 1945, Mount Wilson astronomer Alfred
Joy grouped 11 stars together and named the class after the
alliterative member in Taurus, in part because T Tauri was
the best known and also one of the brightest. Seven of the
11 stars lay in Taurus or neighbouring Auriga. All the stars,
Joy said, flickered irregularly by about three magnitudes;
ranged in spectral type from F5 to G5; had luminosities
like the Sun’s; and lay near nebulae, as T Tauri itself does
— because, as we now know, they are shining on the same
clouds that gave them birth. But Joy’s lengthy paper makes
no mention of star formation. Ongoing star formation was
then considered anathema.
www.skyandtelescope.com.au 37
 BABY STAR
Instead, other astronomers soon interpreted T Tauri
stars as normal suns that by chance were passing through
interstellar clouds. When material either fell onto the stars
or obscured them, they brightened or faded, explaining their
variability.
A newborn star
In 1947, however, Soviet astronomer Viktor Ambartsumian
saw the truth — and soon after took a jab at astronomers
elsewhere. “Our experience shows that Western astronomers
often display an inconsistency when trying to give
cosmogonic interpretation of results of astrophysical
observations,” he wrote. “Doubtless, the progressive Soviet
science, inspired by the genius of great Stalin, will overcome
all difficulties on the way of cosmogonic investigations and
clarify the main laws of origin and evolution of stars.”
Ambartsumian’s praise of a brutal tyrant notwithstanding,
his astronomical reasoning was sound. He noted that T Tauri
stars occur in groups, which he called T-associations; he cited
the one in Taurus and Auriga as an example. The Milky Way’s
tidal forces should have torn these groups apart, he said —
unless they formed just a few million years ago. He made a
similar argument about O and B stars, which also reside in
associations. Thus, he reasoned, the Milky Way still mints
new stars today.
Unfortunately, because Ambartsumian’s works appeared in
Russian or his native Armenian, most astronomers in America
and Europe didn’t hear the news until the mid-1950s. By that
T Tauri North
b from us, they are 100 astronomical units (a.u.) apart, slightly
T Tauri South
a
0.5 ˝
N And then there were three
E T Tauri’s infrared companion is itself a double. Given all
S TRIPLE TAKE This infrared image shows that the prototype of stellar
infants actually consists of three separate youngsters: one visible star,
T Tauri North, and two infrared stars, T Tauri South a and T Tauri South b.
38 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE March | April 2021
time, other evidence was also suggesting that T Tauri stars
could hardly be normal stars passing through nebulae.
For starters, the stars were too luminous. Take T Tauri
itself. Although Joy had classified it as spectral type G5 —
similar to the Sun’s G2 spectral type — modern spectra put
it at type K0. A K main-sequence star emits less light than
the Sun, whereas T Tauri’s actual luminosity, according to
modern measures, is about six times greater than the Sun’s.
The reason: Stars start out big and bloated, then shrink as
gravity compresses them. Because T Tauri is larger than the
Sun, it radiates more light. Its large size and luminosity are
thus signs of its youth.
What turned out to be another youthful trait also
emerged during the 1950s, when astronomers made a major
discovery about T Tauri. The star harbours far more of the
rare element lithium (atomic number 3) than the Sun does.
So do meteorites, which reflect the high lithium level of the
newborn Sun. Young stars have more lithium, we now know,
because stars normally destroy the element over time. As a
result, T Tauri stars have lithium-to-hydrogen ratios more
than 100 times that of the Sun.
An infrared companion
Unexpected discoveries about T Tauri continued long after
astronomers accepted it as the prototype for young stars.
In October and November 1981, H. Melvin Dyck, Theodore
Simon (both then at University of Hawai‘i) and Benjamin
Zuckerman (now UCLA) observed T Tauri by using infrared
speckle interferometry, a technique that yields high-resolution
views. The astronomers hoped to study the structure of a
dusty disk around the star. If such a disk existed, starlight
would heat the dust and explain earlier work that had found
R AINER KÖHLER E T A L. / ASTR ONOMY & ASTR OPHYSICS 2016 (587:A35), REPRODUCED WITH PER MISSION © ESO
an excess of infrared radiation.
Instead, the astronomers saw that T Tauri was a double.
“Total surprise,” Zuckerman says. “We were looking for
dust, not for an infrared companion.” The find was the first
infrared star ever seen orbiting a T Tauri star.
The infrared star is 0.7 arcsecond south of the visible star
and so enshrouded in dust that even today no one has ever
seen its visible light. If the northern and southern stars,
named T Tauri North and T Tauri South, are equally distant
greater than three times Neptune’s distance from the Sun.
The two stars probably take hundreds or thousands of years to
orbit each other, which unfortunately is so long that we can’t
use their orbital motion to measure their masses.
Then, in 2000, Chris Koresko (then JPL) reported that
the astronomers who had studied T Tauri, “I was kind of
surprised that I happened to be the one who stumbled across
the third star in the system,” Koresko says.
This discovery was especially helpful because the two
infrared stars — T Tauri South a and T Tauri South b — are
Protostar vs pre-main-sequence star
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 their similar names, the
two stellar types — protostars and
pre-main-sequence stars — are
different stages of stellar evolution.
A protostar forms after a clump
in an interstellar cloud rapidly
collapses under the force of gravity.
Gravity causes material to crash
down toward the object’s surface,
heating it so much that it begins
to emit light. Thus gravity — and
not nuclear fusion — powers the
newborn star.
New material from the birth
cloud keeps raining down onto the
protostar, increasing its mass. In
fact, the protostar is so shrouded in
its dusty birthplace that no visible
light escapes into space (see
diagram, next page).
The protostar phase is brief.
How brief depends on the star’s
aspirations: Just as someone
who wants to earn a PhD has to
spend more time in uni acquiring
knowledge than someone who
has been only to high-school, so
a more massive star has to spend
more time as a protostar accreting
material than a less massive star.
The Sun’s protostar stage lasted
only a few hundred thousand years.
Less massive stars — the vast
majority — spend even less time as
protostars.
A powerful wind from the protostar
soon blows away most of its dusty
cocoon, letting the star’s visible light
emerge. This metamorphosis marks the helium. Unlike ordinary hydrogen,
transition from protostar to pre-main- deuterium fuses at a temperature
sequence star. of only 1 million kelvin, which even
Unlike a protostar, a pre-main- protostars attain. Deuterium-fusion
sequence star no longer acquires gives the star additional energy. But
much new material. Still, the star keeps deuterium is rare, so deuterium-
on shining, because gravity gently fusion doesn’t last much beyond the
squeezes and heats the star. Over time, protostar phase.
thanks to gravity, a pre-main-sequence As gravity further squeezes and
star shrinks, getting smaller and smaller. heats the pre-main-sequence star,
Most stars spend far more time its centre gets so hot that enough
as pre-main-sequence stars than hydrogen-1 fuses to provide
protostars. The Sun, for example, was significant additional energy.
a pre-main-sequence star for 36 million Eventually this new energy source
years. Less massive stars linger longer, halts the star’s contraction, at which
and the least massive red dwarfs remain point the star starts its tenure on the
pre-main-sequence stars for billions main sequence.
of years. Some of the M stars in the Notably, the rarest and most
Pleiades star cluster, which is 120 million massive stars, which exceed about
years old, still shine via gravity power, six solar masses, skip the pre-main-
not nuclear power. sequence stage altogether. While
Early in its career, however, an infant still protostars, they begin fusing
star does get hot enough to stoke hydrogen-1 and graduate directly
one simple nuclear reaction, which from the protostar phase to the
turns deuterium, or hydrogen-2, into main sequence.
Sun generated via each process
Percentage of energy the young
Gravity Nuclear
50%
Star is Star is
contracting fusing
hydrogen
0 3 6 9 12 15 18 21 24 27 30 33 36
Age of Sun (millions of years)
S THE SUN’S POWER SOURCE Early on, a pre-main-sequence star generates nearly all
its energy from gravity, which gently squeezes and heats the star. Eventually, however, this
gravitational contraction heats the star’s centre so much that another power source starts
to contribute: the nuclear fusion of hydrogen-1. For a star with the Sun’s mass, the star then
continues to contract for millions of years, until the switchover to nuclear is complete.
www.skyandtelescope.com.au 39
 BABY STAR
sufficiently close together that they orbit each other every
27 years. Since astronomers have now observed the pair
for nearly that long, the orbit reveals the stars’ masses.
According to work published in the July 2020 Astronomical
Journal by Gail Schaefer (CHARA Array) and her colleagues,
T Tauri South a has about 2.05 solar masses. If it acquires no
more material, it will end up an A-type main-sequence star
resembling brilliant Sirius A.
In contrast, T Tauri South b is a smaller star, on track to
become the most common stellar type in the galaxy: a humble
red dwarf. It’s only about 43% as massive as the Sun, so it will
someday look much like the nearby red star Lalande 21185.
On average, the two infrared stars are about 12 a.u. apart,
a bit farther than Saturn is from the Sun, but the small star
follows a rather elliptical orbit around its mate. In the May
2020 Research Notes of the AAS, Rainer Köhler (University
of Vienna, Austria) and Karolina Kubiak (University of
Lisbon, Portugal) noted an intriguing pattern. The little star
brightens and fades depending on where it is in its orbit. The
astronomers attribute this behaviour to a nearly edge-on dust
disk that is known to surround the two infrared stars. The
disk is more tenuous toward its edge, so when the little star
skirts farthest from its partner, less dust obscures it, and so it
brightens. The two stars will be closest together around 2023.
Unfortunately, no one has weighed T Tauri North, the one
star in the system whose visible light we see, and its exact
nature is uncertain. Even though it is the prototype for the
entire class, in many ways it is not a typical T Tauri star.
For one thing, the star outshines most of its peers. The high
luminosity suggests the star is more massive than most other
T Tauri stars, and in the past astronomers have estimated
a mass about twice that of the Sun. T Tauri North has a
disk, but it’s nearly face-on, which may be why we can see
the star’s visible light but not the light of its two southern
siblings, whose disk is more edge-on.
In the August 1, 2020, Astrophysical Journal, however,
Christian Flores, Bo Reipurth and Michael Connelley (all
University of Hawai‘i) offer a new interpretation of T Tauri
North. They used high-resolution infrared spectra to uncover
another peculiarity: The star’s surface gravity is low, a sign
the star has a large diameter. In fact, the star is so large and
luminous, they say, that it’s not a pre-main-sequence star at
all. Instead, it’s an even younger type of star: a protostar.
Protostars are stars so young they are still in the process
of being born (see previous page). Such stars are normally
invisible at optical wavelengths because they are encased
in the dust clouds that gave them birth, and from which
material still rains down upon them.
Why, then, can we see T Tauri North’s visible light? “T Tauri
North is an orphaned protostar,” Reipurth says. In his view,
all three stars in the system were born close together a few
hundred thousand years ago. But the other two stars kicked
T Tauri North out of the dust cloud just a few thousand
years ago, allowing us to see its light, even though it’s still a
protostar. This idea also explains why the star is larger and
40 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE March | April 2021
Not to scale
High-energy
radiation
Dust
photosphere
from shock
r envelope
Oute
t envelope
Dus
p
ust va orized
D
Protostar
Accretion
shock
Partially
ionized gas
Dust
Infrared destruction
radiation front
S PROTOSTAR A dense core of dusty gas collapses to form a protostar,
which draws material onto itself gravitationally. The material strikes the
protostar and produces an accretion shock, and the heated gas that’s
produced radiates — the source of the protostar’s luminosity. Eventually,
the cloud (here simplified as a sphere) will collapse into a protoplanetary
disk; the protostar will accrete most of its mass during the disk stage.
more luminous than most other T Tauri stars: because it hasn’t
yet contracted much toward the main sequence.
T Tauri North continues to orbit T Tauri South, Reipurth
says, and he thinks that within a few thousand years T Tauri
North will dive back into its birthplace for a family reunion
with its two siblings. He expects chaos, because three stars
close together normally fling one another around and often
eject the least massive one. That’s probably what happened
with the Alpha Centauri system, which has two Sun-like stars
and a distant red dwarf they likely kicked away. If T Tauri’s
three stars do something similar, then T Tauri North and
South a will link up to form a closer binary and cast the red
dwarf far away — perhaps out of the system altogether.
Thus, T Tauri has a storied past whose class played a pivotal
role in revealing that the universe is still an active star maker.
But the star’s future story promises to be rich as well — both
for itself, as its three members dance with one another, and
for astronomers, as they discern new clues about this famous
infant in the sky.
„ While earning his PhD, KEN CROSWELL observed three
T Tauri stars that had flared up in brightness. He is the author
of eight books, including The Alchemy of the Heavens and The
Lives of Stars, and he has also written for Knowable Magazine
and National Geographic.
 Image courtesy Dr. John Carver (50 megapixel MicroLine ML50100 camera)

Kepler CMOS: Paradigm Shift

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camera has a better signal-to-noise ratio than the PL16803 even with a single long exposure. The signal-to-noise ratio of the KL4040
is better than the PL16803 even when using short exposures that are stacked!

The benefit of taking multiple short exposures is the option to discard a bad exposure ruined by satellite trails, tracking errors, or bad
seeing (etc.). Incredible low-noise images are now possible with a single long exposure or many stacked short exposures. The
KL4040’s superior performance allows it to be used for a wide range of applications and requirements.

At Finger Lakes Instrumentation, we design and build unrivaled CMOS and

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© 2018 Finger Lakes Instrumentation LLC. All rights reserved.

 BINOCULAR HIGHLIGHT by Mathew Wedel

USING THE
STAR CHART
ORION

WHEN
MONOCEROS Early March 10 pm

g
Late March 9 pm

NE
10 Early April 8 pm
Late April 7 pm
2232 These are standard times
γ — add Daylight Savings if it
β applies to your location.

S
HOW Go outside within an
hour or so of a time listed
above. Hold the map above
your head with the bottom of
the page facing south. The chart
now matches the stars in your
sky, with the circular perimeter
representing the horizon and

ζ
Birthplace of worlds
the centre of the chart being
the point directly over your
head (known as the zenith).

Facing East
O
ne of my favourite objects in Monoceros, the Unicorn, is the FOR EXAMPLE Look at
open cluster NGC 2232 . You’ll find it 2° north of Beta (β) the chart, and you’ll see that
Monocerotis, which is itself a fabulous multiple star to revisit the bright star Achernar at 15
with a telescope. At magnitude 4.2 and almost a degree across, NGC the end of the constellation h

2232 is big, bright, and shows interesting detail even at binocular Eridanus (The River) is about
magnifications. In particular, look for the 5th-magnitude star 10 one-third of the way from the

α
southwestern horizon and the

LIB
Monocerotis near the centre, with lobes of stars extending to the

R
northwest and southeast. We can see this level of detail because NGC middle of the chart. So if you

A
2232 is fairly close as open clusters go, just a little more than 1,000 look to the southwest, you’ll
light-years away. It is also a young cluster, between 25 and 30 million find Achernar about one-third

σ
years old. That’s almost half of the time that separates us from T. rex, of the way up from the horizon.
but on an astronomical timescale, it’s just a tick of the clock.
After the Sun formed, it may have taken 100 million years for the
NOTE The map is plotted for
35° south latitude (for example,
Earth and other rocky planets to coalesce. We might expect that after
Sydney, Buenos Aires, Cape
only 30 million years, planets would still be in the process of forming
Town). If you’re much further
around the young stars of NGC 2232. And, in fact, that seems to be
north of there, stars in the
precisely the case. The Spitzer Space Telescope found evidence of debris northern part of the sky will be
disks around several stars in NGC 2232 that are thought to be related higher and stars in the south
to the formation of new planets. lower. If you’re further south,
Fa

As observers we tend to get excited about stellar nurseries, like the the reverse is true.
ci

Great Nebula in Orion (M42), where new stars are coming into being.
n

Viewing NGC 2232 allows us to contemplate another stage in the life –1

cycle of stellar systems: planetary nurseries. We can’t see them with our
0
binoculars, but new worlds are being born out there — something we ONLINE You can get a real-
1
clever primates just figured out this century. What will we learn next? time sky chart for your location at
2
skychart.skyandtelescope.com/
3 Star
■ After 13 years of stargazing, MATT WEDEL is staggered by the thought skychart.php
that objects as vast and complex as planets, stars and brains can form at all. 4 magnitudes

42 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE March | April 2021

 Facing North

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h

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α
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–60
Planetary nebula
Facing So uth

www.skyandtelescope.com.au 43
 EVENINGS WITH THE STARS by Fred Schaaf
In praise of Procyon
Alpha Canis Minoris is a serious underdog.
P
rocyon is the one bright star in
Canis Minor, the Little Dog. It’s
often called the Lesser Dog Star
because, at magnitude +0.4, it shines a
full two magnitudes fainter than the
night sky’s most brilliant star, Sirius,
the Dog Star in Canis Major, the Big
Dog.
Procyon suffers in almost
every category of comparison with
neighbouring Sirius. But the Lesser
Dog Star has many of its own merits,
including its fascinating position both
on star maps and in space.
Terrific tip of the tail. Procyon is
the eighth brightest night-time star. It
also utterly dominates its constellation,
though that’s not difficult considering
Canis Minor has only two additional
stars brighter than 5th magnitude
within its borders. The Little Dog is
usually pictured on star charts as a
single short line connecting Procyon to
Gomeisa (Beta Canis Minoris), which
glows modestly at magnitude 2.9. The
two-star line is more like a dog’s tail
44 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE March | April 2021
than a whole dog. And since Canis
Major and Canis Minor face west as
they follow Orion, Procyon can be
thought of as the brilliant tip of the
Little Dog’s tail.
Procyon’s part in sky patterns.
Procyon is accompanied by numerous
bright stars as it climbs high in the sky
in the evenings. Much of Procyon’s
beauty is due to its placement within
two large patterns of bright winter
stars.
Check our star map (pages 42–43)
to trace out the giant asterisms
known as the Winter Hexagon and
the Winter Triangle, both of which
include Procyon. (Note that the
‘Winter’ designation reflects these
names’ northern hemisphere origins.)
The Winter Hexagon is formed by
connecting Aldebaran, Capella, Pollux
(along with Castor sometimes),
Procyon, Sirius, Rigel and back to
Aldebaran, with orange-gold Betelgeuse
roughly in the middle of the Hexagon.
The Winter Triangle comprises Sirius,
t HUNTER AND DOGS Mighty Orion is trailed
by his faithful companions, Canis Major and
Canis Minor. The Milky Way flows between
brilliant Sirius (upper right) and Procyon
(lower right), and just north of golden-orange
Betelgeuse.
Betelgeuse and Procyon. This latter
asterism is an almost perfect equilateral
triangle. Procyon is 26° from Betelgeuse
and 26° from Sirius, while Sirius is 27°
from Betelgeuse. Remarkably, Procyon is
a similar distance from two more bright
stars — it’s 27° from Castor and 23°
from Pollux.
Most amazingly, Procyon is very
nearly due east of Betelgeuse and due
south of Pollux. Betelgeuse is 7.4° north
of the celestial equator, but Procyon
is 5.2° north of that key line — closer
than any other 1st-magnitude or
brighter star. Procyon is positioned due
south of Pollux and just a hair (0.1°)
farther west.
Procyon’s place in space. Both
Dog Stars are among the nearest stars
to Earth. Procyon’s distance is 11.5
light-years, while Sirius is 8.6 light-
years away. Another interesting aspect
of the previously noted Procyon-Pollux
connection is that Pollux is 33.8 light-
years away — almost exactly three times
farther than Procyon.
But what is especially interesting
about Procyon’s place in space
is illustrated by considering the
appearance of familiar stars as viewed
from Procyon. For example, our Sun
would be a 2.5-magnitude star in
southern Aquila in the Procyonic sky.
Nearby Sirius, situated 5.2 light-years
from Procyon, would gleam at about
magnitude –2.5, and Procyon’s white
dwarf companion would shine brighter
than the full Moon! Remarkably, a red
dwarf called Luyten’s Star is only 1.2
light-years from Procyon yet wouldn’t
be bright enough to see with the
naked eye. But, as seen from Luyten’s
Star, Procyon would dazzle at around
magnitude –7!
¢ FRED SCHAAF started writing his first
book, Wonders of the Sky: Observing
A K IR A FUJII
Rainbows, Comets, Eclipses, the Stars
and Other Phenomena, 40 years ago.
 VISTAS

COSMIC CRANIUM
The Skull Nebula (NGC 246 or Caldwell 56) is a planetary nebula
ESO/DSS2 /D. DE M A RTIN

approximately 5 light-years wide, located about 1,600 light-years away in

the southern constellation Cetus. The dot just visible in its centre is a 12th-
magnitude white dwarf, catalogue number HIP 3678. Astronomers have
determined that the white dwarf has two companion dwarf stars — one of
which and the white dwarf orbit each other, while the third star orbits that pair.

www.skyandtelescope.com.au 45
 SUN, MOON & PLANETS by Jonathan Nally
Lonesome Mars
The Red Planet will be alone in the evening sky for most of March and April.
F
or 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 seen in the eastern sky
before dawn, poking its head over the
horizon about an hour and a half before
sunrise at the beginning of March.
The planet will form a tidy grouping
with Jupiter and Saturn, with Mercury
and Jupiter having a very close (0.5°)
encounter on the 5th and 6th. The
latter date is also when Mercury reaches
its point of greatest western elongation
(ie. angle from the Sun), after which
it will begin to descend into the dawn
twilight and become lost in the Sun’s
glare by the middle of the second week
of April (reaching superior conjunction
on April 19). It will reappear in the
evening twilight in May.
p Mars says hello to the Pleiades.
46 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE March | April 2021
Venus (–3.9, 9.8″, Mar. 1) is lost in
the solar glare during March and April,
having vanished from our eastern
morning horizon. The planet will be in
superior conjunction (on the other side
of the Sun from us) on March 26 and
will remain out of view until the last
few days of April, when it will reappear
very, very low on the western horizon
after sunset. From then on, Venus will
rule the evening sky all the way though
until December.
Mars (1.1, 5.9″, Mar. 15) will be the
only bright planet visible in the evening
sky during March and April, having the
celestial dome to itself until Mercury,
Jupiter and Saturn rise in the hours
before dawn. The Red Planet is slowly
diminishing in size and brightness as
it recedes from us, its last opposition
now a distant memory. As March
opens, it will be near the Pleiades star
cluster (2.5° separation on March 4),
making for a great photo opportunity.
p Three planets perform before dawn.
This is the closest Mars has come to the
Pleiades since 2006; the next closest
approach will be in 2038.
As March progresses, Mars will
slowly edge past Aldebaran. And on
April 27 it will skirt the edge of another
star cluster, Messier 35 in Gemini —
another great photo opportunity.
Jupiter (–2.0, 33.7″, Mar. 15) is
a morning object, rising almost two
hours before sunrise at the beginning
of March and climbing higher as each
day passes. As mentioned above, the gas
giant will do a dance with its sibling
Saturn and tiny Mercury throughout
the month. The Moon will join them
on the 10th and 11th, forming a nice
triangle with Jupiter and Mercury on
the latter date. As Jupiter and Saturn
rise higher each day and Mercury
descends, the three planets will end
up equally spaced in a straight line on
March 16.
With Mercury out of the way in
p Mars on the outskirts of Messier 35.
 METEORS

April, Jupiter and Saturn will have the

morning sky to themselves, remaining at
more or less the same angular separation
throughout the month and climbing ever
higher in the pre-dawn sky.
Saturn (0.7, 15.6″, Mar. 15) is
heading for opposition in September (as
is Jupiter). The ringed planet is currently
slowly traversing Capricornus, in which
constellation it will remain until 2023.
Apart from the get-togethers with
Mercury and Jupiter mentioned above,

Time to get ‘active’

look also for the thin crescent Moon
nearby on March 10 and April 6–7.
Uranus (5.8, 3.4″, Mar. 15) can be
found above the western horizon in
early March, setting about two and a Two small showers to see
half hours after sunset at the beginning

of the month, but slowly descending
and lost to view by the latter part of
the month. Throughout April it will be
lost in the Sun’s glare as it heads for
conjunction on May 1.
Neptune is in conjunction on March
11 and is therefore is lost in the solar
glare. It will reappear in the eastern pre-
dawn sky in April.
Finally, Earth reaches equinox on
March 20, when the Sun is at zero degrees
declination and the hours of daylight and
darkness are near enough to equal.
T
here 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 — don’t expect to see too
much, as the International Meteor
Organisation is predicting a zenithal
hourly rate of just 6. Nonetheless, it’s
worth taking a look in the hours prior
to dawn on the 15th, especially as there
will no interference from moonlight.
The other shower is the Pi Puppids,
notable for being produced by the comet
26P/Grigg-Skjellerup. This shower is
active (in the same sense of the word)
from April 15 to 28, with a maximum on
the 23rd. Pi Puppid meteors tend to be
bright but slow moving, often with long-
lasting trains and the occasional fireball.
This shower is best observed between the
end of evening twilight and midnight.
Unfortunately, this year the Moon will
severely interfere with viewing.

SKY PHENOMENA LUNAR PHENOMENA

MARCH
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
11 Mercury 5° north-east of the Moon
19 Moon 8° north-west of Aldebaran
20 Equinox
23 Moon 3° south of Pollux
23 Mars 7° north of Aldebaran
26 Venus in superior conjunction
26 Moon 7° north-east of Regulus
30 Moon 7° north of Spica
APRIL
2 Moon 6° north of Antares
6 Saturn 9° north-east of the Moon
7 Jupiter 8° north-west of the Moon
16 Moon 7° north of Aldebaran
17 Mars 2° east of the Moon
19 Mercury in superior conjunction
19 Moon 5° west of Pollux
22 Moon 6° north of Regulus
26 Moon 7° north-east of Spica
27 Mars passes star cluster Messier 35
29 Moon 6° north-east of Antares
MARCH
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
APRIL
Last Quarter …… 4th, 10:02 UT
New Moon …… 12th, 02:31 UT
First Quarter …… 20th, 06:59 UT
Full Moon …… 27th, 03:32 UT
Apogee …… 14th, 18h UT, 406,119 km
Perigee …… 27th, 15h UT, 357,378 km

www.skyandtelescope.com.au 47
 COMETS by David Seargent
A ‘well matured’ comet
The prospects are pretty good for seeing C/2020 R4 (ATLAS)
this autumn.
E
arly autumn 2021 will see yet
another comet discovered using
the Asteroid Terrestrial-Impact
Alert System (ATLAS) come within
the visual range of small telescopes.
Discovered with the 0.5-m Schmidt
telescope at Mauna Loa on September
12 last year (at a very faint magnitude
19.7), 20th-magnitude pre-discovery
images of C/2020 R4 (ATLAS) were later
found in both PanSTARRS and Catalina
data from August and early September.
48 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE March | April 2021
Continuing observations of the very
dim C/2020 R4 enabled an elliptical
orbit to be calculated, indicating that it
would reach its perihelion passage on
March 1, 2021 at a distance of 1.03 a.u.
from the Sun. It was also found to have
a moderate orbital period of around 950
years.
Although the early brightness
estimates implied a very faint intrinsic
magnitude, the comet’s strongly
elliptical orbit indicated that it was
Comet C/2020S3 Erasmus displayed a fine tail in mid-November.
t Comet C/2020 R4 (ATLAS) was still very
faint when Michael Jager took this image on
December 14. It’s predicted to reach magnitude
8 by late April.
dynamically well evolved and therefore
probably physically ‘decayed’ (or, at
least, well matured!). That is to say,
much of the surface of the comet’s
nucleus had probably accumulated a
good cover of non-volatile material,
with a lot of the highly volatile ices in
the surface layers likely to have become
depleted (ie. ‘burned off’) during
previous passages past the Sun.
Early brightness estimates were
therefore likely to reflect a delayed
‘switching on’ rather than a small
physical size. It is also likely that initial
images did not record the full extent of
whatever coma did exist and that the
first estimates were essentially of the
central condensation.
In any event, it wasn’t too surprising
when several magnitude estimates
during December gave values up to
around 100 times brighter than those
predicted based upon the reported
discovery value, even though the comet
was by then becoming less favourably
placed in the evening sky.
Based upon the December estimates
and assuming the average rate of
brightening for comets of this orbital
class, C/2020 R4 will probably be
magnitude 10 to 11 by the beginning
of March, at which time it will be
located in Aquarius. Crossing the
corner of Capricornus, the comet will
Photo by Gerald Rhemann.
 by Alan Plummer VARIABLE STARS

A triplet of variables
Get to know R, W and Z Chamaeleontis.

hamaeleon is a little-known 14.5 over a period of 338 days. Although

C constellation in the far southern

S Comet C/2020M3 (ATLAS) said hello to
some nice nebulae in December; IC 410 (top)
and IC 405. Photos by Gerald Rhemann.
sky. It is, however, an old one. Its
origins date back to the first European
explorers of the southern seas, who
celebrated new-found exotic animals
by placing them in the sky. Well-
known astronomy author and starlore
expert, Ian Ridpath, notes that there
are no special myths associated with
Chamaeleon, and it does not have any
bright stars; indeed Alpha Cha is barely
visible at 4.1 mag.
Yet there is plenty of astronomical
interest here: Dark, obscuring
molecular clouds and associated star
forming regions span almost the entire
constellation, meaning that, of course,
not many background galaxies are
visible (NGC 3149 being an exception).
There are also some nice double
stars, one of which is in the same field
of view of this issue’s variable star
targets: R, W and Z Chamaeleontis.
R Cha is a bright Mira-type variable,
with a visual magnitude range of 7.5 to
historically well observed, visual
observations of this star have fallen
off in recent years. There is a century
of data so far, and only further visual
observations can continue that data set.
W Cha, another Mira variable, with a
maximum magnitude of 11.5, is not well
observed at all anymore. Z Cha, on the
other hand, is a well-observed bright dwarf
nova that reaches to 11th magnitude.
If you feel inclined to make scientific
observations of any of these stars, it
is important to know that negative
observations (ie. ‘fainter than’ a certain
magnitude) are useful too. For R Cha, if
you can see 9th magnitude you’ll be fine.
For the others, you really want to be able
to reach 13th magnitude at least.
As always, the website of the AAVSO
(aavso.org) has everything you need to
know.
■ ALAN PLUMMER observes from the
Blue Mountains west of Sydney. You can
reach him at alan123604@live.com.

T R Cha is located at 08h 21m 46.47s, –76° 21′ 18.2″; Z Cha at 08h 07m 27.74s, –76° 32′ 00.7″;
enter Aquila during the second week and W Cha at 08h 28m 21.91s, –76° 33′ 42.7″. This chart (courtesy of the AAVSO) is approximately
of March and is expected to steadily 2 wide degrees from west to east, and has visual magnitudes shown with decimal points omitted
brighten to possibly magnitude 9 by the — so ‘114’ denotes a magnitude 11.4 star. North is up, east is left.
months end.
Reaching Hercules in the middle
of April, R4 may by then be as bright
as magnitude 8.5. Closest approach to
Earth will come on April 23 (at 0.46
a.u.) at which time the comet will be
passing through Corona Borealis and
may be as bright as magnitude 8. It
will cross into neighbouring Bootes on
April 26 and reach Canes Venatici on
the final day of April, by which time
it will probably have faded to around
magnitude 8.5 to 9.

■ DAVID SEARGENT’S most recent

book, Weird Comets and Asteroids,
is available in paperback and ebook
editions.

www.skyandtelescope.com.au 49
 EXPLORING THE SOLAR SYSTEM by Charles Wood

Schrödinger Antoniadi Copernicus Aristarchus

325 km 127 km 96 km 40 km

Lunar main sequence delivering more energy for fracturing,

Understanding lunar crater formation based on appearances.
n astronomy, the main sequence
melting, excavation and ejecting lunar
crustal rocks.
Crater-wall morphology stems from
how the impacted target rocks deform
the distribution of stars on the H-R as the initially excavated hole — the

I is the continuous band of stars

spanning the Hertzsprung-Russell
diagram, which plots stellar colour
diagram. For example, one can consider
the main sequence of impact craters as
the systematic morphological difference
transient cavity — becomes deeper and
wider. For small transient cavities, the
impacted rocks are strong enough to
and intrinsic brightness. When a from small conical pits such as the withstand collapse into the resulting
large main-sequence star runs out of 13-km-diameter crater Chladni, to mid- depression, and a simple, conical crater
hydrogen fuel, it becomes cooler, redder sized craters with partial wall collapses forms. With medium-sized transient
and radically expands in size as it moves as seen in 24-km Lalande, and on to cavities, sections of the surrounding
off the main sequence. large craters with terraced walls and walls collapse, creating complex-slump
Unlike stars, impact craters do central peaks, like 96-km Copernicus. craters. And for large cavities, the
not dynamically evolve. But, based Crater diameters increase and entire surrounding wall slides into
on size and morphology (ie. shape or morphology changes as the size and/ the hole, creating complex-terraced
form), they often have parallels to or velocity of the impactors increase, craters. Rim collapses significantly
increase the crater’s overall diameter.
2,400
Central peak sizes also change across
S
Imbrium up
the main sequence. Simple craters don’t
er Multi-ring basins
Basin -g have central peaks at all because the
ia 1,000
Nectaris nt
s pressure of the impact didn’t compress
Basin

A LL PHOTOS: N ASA / GSFC / A RIZON A STATE UNIV ERSIT Y; G R A PH: LE A H TISCIONE / S&T
Gi 600 the subsurface rocks sufficiently to
Grimaldi an
Peak-ring basins cause a rebound. As the impact energy
Crater diameter (kilometers)

ts
Bailly
Clavius 230 increases, the compressed target rocks
Proto-basin rebound, transporting deeper rocks to
Antoniadi
Copernicus Complex-terraced craters 100 the surface to form a central peak.
M Inspired by the H-R diagram, I’ve
ai created a graph that tracks diameter and
n- Aristarchus 40
se morphology differences arising from
qu Lalande Complex-slump craters
en increasing impact energy. The horizontal
ce
cr Chladni 15 axis represents the kinetic energy
at 10 produced by the impacting body, and the
er
s Petit vertical axis plots the resulting crater
Simple craters diameter. I’ve also included approximate
transitional stages, from Simple to
Complex-slump craters at around 15-km
W The main sequence of lunar impact features
1E+24 1E+22 1E+20 1E+18 1E+16 1E+14 1E+12 showing the relationship between morphology
Impact energy (kilojoules) and the energy required to create each.

50 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE March | April 2021


Lalande Chladni
24 km 13 km
diameter, and on to Complex-terraced
craters at about 40-km diameter.
With a diameter of 231 km, Clavius
is the largest lunar crater, but the graph
also plots the much larger lunar basins.
These features are formed by projectiles
that are more massive or moving at
higher velocity than those that formed
craters. The additional impact energy
strongly transformed the resulting
formations, making them the largest
features on the Moon — 10 to 20 times
larger than complex craters.
Morphologically, basins are as
different from craters as giant and
supergiant stars are from their stellar
main-sequence counterparts. The
energy that formed lunar basins caused
more intense deformation of the target
rocks than that which occurred in the
creation of main-sequence craters. The
transient cavities of basins were deeper
and wider, and the surrounding terrain
slid down deeper and across a greater
distance, creating multiple mega-terrace
rims, like Rupes Altai and Montes
Apenninus. These large basins have
three or more rings and are called multi-
ring basins. Some of their outer rims
are low and hard to trace, and their
Orientale
 Multi-ring basins, 1,260 km
such as Orientale
(left), Nectaris
(centre) and Schiller-
Zucchius (right), are
analogous to the
supergiant stars on
the H-R diagram,
though explosive
events marked their
creation rather than
their demise.
t The morphology
of a crater is highly
dependent on the
mass and velocity
of the impacting
object, as seen in
this comparison
among several
progressively
smaller lunar
depressions.
inner rings appear as mostly concentric
mare ridges. All circular maria on the
lunar nearside reside within multi-ring
basins.
Smaller basins have only two rings
— typically a distinctive outer rim and a
smaller, inner ring. The relatively young,
326-km-wide farside depression
Schrödinger is the best example of
a two-ring or peak-ring basin. Of the
Moon’s 17 peak-ring basins, only three
are visible from Earth — Bailly, Schiller-
Zucchius, and Grimaldi — and all have
indistinct inner rings.
A few small depressions called proto-
basins are caught in a transitional state
with a crater-like central peak as well as
an inner ring of small hills, like those
found on larger peak-ring basins. The
farside features Antoniadi (127 km)
and Compton (162 km) are the Moon’s
only examples. They’re well within the
diameter range of complex-terraced
craters, but for unknown reasons have
features associated both with craters
and peak-ring basins. Compton’s floor is
flooded with dark lava, as is the circular
patch within Antoniadi’s peak ring.
Theoretical models and observations
suggest that the interior structure
Nectaris
860 km
differences seen in complex craters,
peak-ring basins, and multi-ring basins
are strongly influenced by the depth
and volume of the melt created below
the basin floor during an impact event.
Both melt size and depth increase as
the energy produced by the impact rises.
As the melt zone grows, it influences
the deformation of the target rocks,
preventing central peaks from forming.
Instead, the rebounding material
expands into an inner ring. Impacts of
even greater energy produce even deeper
basins with more expansive melt zones.
As the main rim collapses and slides
inward, it rips interior floor material
into multiple, low-angle ring faults. The
inward collapse of the rim wall releases
pressure on the surrounding crustal
rocks, which break into one or more
external, concentric faults, creating the
multi-rings we see in the largest basins.
This theory is complex, but it explains
many crater-to-basin transitional
features.
As you look at any lunar depression
you should be able to place it in one of
the five classifications I’ve described.
Note the morphology as you observe
complex craters of the main sequence
and then inspect two-ring basins (lunar
“giants”) and then the much broader
and shallower multi-ring basins (lunar
“supergiants”).
Unlike stars on the main sequence,
craters and basins work in reverse,
exploding into existence and then
weathering away over billions of years,
challenging the understanding of
observers and theorists alike.
¢ CHARLES WOOD has studied the
Moon for more than 50 years.
Schiller-Zucchius
455 km
www.skyandtelescope.com.au 51
 DEEP SKY by Ken Hewitt-White

Orion’s Club District

Going off the beaten track in Orion brings pleasant surprises.

O
rion, the giant hunter of
Greek mythology, rules our
northwestern skies even into
early autumn. Astride the celestial
equator for all to see, the showcase
constellation with the brilliant star
pattern is a delight to the eye and a
feast for the telescope.
Of course, Orion isn’t all gleam
and glitter. The stars depicting the
Hunter’s shield and club are much less
conspicuous. Likewise, the telescopic
objects atop his hourglass figure aren’t
exactly award winners. In 50 years of
dedicated deep sky sleuthing, I hadn’t
NGC 2175
C0607+206
J 1922
SCA 36
HD 42333
SCA 37
Sh2-252 E
HD 42088
observed any of them. Time to fix that! your scope, whatever it may be, and join
Last year, I decided to explore Orion’s me for a stroll through Orion’s little-
eastern arm, all the way to the top of his known Club District.
big, brandished club.
As I’d be observing under a light- Pale powders
polluted suburban sky, I didn’t expect Starting at zero-magnitude Betelgeuse,
much joy. At minimum, I’d try for the Alpha (α) Orionis, I planned to sweep
open clusters plotted on charts 76 and 3° northeastward to 4.1-magnitude
96 of the Uranometria 2000.0 Deep Sky Mu (μ) Orionis, then veer north-
Atlas (2nd edition, 2001). I employed northeastward to 9.4-magnitude NGC
my 25-cm f/6 Dobsonian reflector for 2141. Simple, right? Well, no, it wasn’t.
the bulk of the work but occasionally The cluster is just 10′ in diameter and
used smaller scopes — even binoculars. symbolised on Uranometria chart 96
In the end, my backyard instruments as a starless circle. I reminded myself
delivered more than I anticipated. Grab that the Uranometria plots stars down
to magnitude 9.7. The Millennium Star
Atlas goes to magnitude 11, yet no dots
appear inside its symbol for NGC 2141
(chart 204), either. Would I be able to
detect this weak wonder through my
25-cm Dobsonian?
After centring Mu Orionis with
a wide-angle eyepiece generating
51×, I shifted northward 1½° to a
9′-long isosceles triangle, orientated
NGC 2174 east-west, shaped by three 8th- and
9th-magnitude stars (a fourth star
sits inside). An imaginary line from
the triangle back down to Mu
grazes the cluster less than halfway
along. I saw nothing there. What
to do? I dropped ½° south of the
triangle to an 8.6-magnitude star
t COMPLEXITY AND CONFUSION
Uncertainty clouds the identification of the
emission nebula NGC 2175, about 6,500
light-years away, and its associated cluster,
Collinder 84. Some loosely scattered stars
provide scant evidence of the cluster, but an
asterism resembling the Big Dipper is visible
near the centre of the image. Two double stars
in this Dipper are named SCA 36 and SCA 37. The
star near 8th-magnitude HD 42088 is shrouded in a
knot of nebulosity known as Sh2-252 E. Another bright
knot is NGC 2174 — a label often mistakenly applied to
the entire nebula. Only the bright central portion of the nebula
close to HD 42088 was visible with the author’s 25-cm reflector.
Note the tiny cluster C0607+206 on the eastern edge of the nebula.
All images have north up.

52 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE March | April 2021

 (HD 250956) plus two 9.6-magnitude
flankers. According to the chart, the
barely bent line-of-three points to the
cluster ¼° southwest. I followed my
wonky signpost to the precise spot, then
increased cautiously to 64×. Still nothing.
Boldly, I upped the magnification
to 169×. What emerged with patient
staring was a pallid haze inside a five-
star pentagon, roughly 7′ × 5′ in extent,
formed by 10th- and 11th-magnitude
stars. (The pentagon’s northern tip
aims back to HD 250956.) At 218×, the
haze became mottled. Two dim stars
inhabited its northern half; a couple
of even fainter ones flickered in the
southern half. Although photos show
NGC 2141 filling the pentagon, my
hazy find occupied less than a third of
the five-sided area. I admit it was thin
gruel. Was I disappointed? No, because
capturing the ‘gruel’ was a challenge
successfully met.
Lowering the magnification, I
headed northeast 3¾° to 5.0-magnitude
74 Orionis, plus slightly dimmer 73
Orionis 1/3° to the northwest. From
73 Orionis it was a half-degree hop
to NGC 2194. Officially 10′ across,
8.5-magnitude NGC 2194 is another
inconspicuous cluster represented by a
starless symbol on the chart. Happily,
the 25-cm Dob delivered again.
Working at 64×, it revealed a 5′-wide
mist punctuated by a quadrilateral of
11th-magnitude stars on its southern
edge. Doubling the magnification
produced a somewhat grainy powder
suggestive of more detail. Increasing to
169× teased out several more specks of
starlight. More thin gruel.
In fairness, NGC 2194 gifted me
something completely unexpected.
Examining the image at 169×, I noticed
a meandering, 10′-long tail of 11th- to
13th-magnitude stars, perhaps a dozen
in all, extending southwestward out of
the main body of the cluster. The tail
terminated at a barb created by three
closely spaced stars. Subtly distinctive,
the starry appendage slowly became
unmistakable. So did the cluster. The
entire entity — body, tail and barb —
was a satisfying, high-power payoff.
Surprisingly, NGC 2194 was visible
through my 180-mm f/15 Maksutov-
Cassegrain reflector at 90×, provided
I eased the scope carefully from 73
Orionis to the cluster’s exact location.
At 113×, the Mak-Cass registered a teeny
pale powder dotted with a few faint
flecks. Ghostly, yes, but another hard-
won victory for this die-hard observer.
Numerals in space
To reach my third stop, I followed 74
and 73 Orionis northwestward to
4.5-magnitude Xi (ξ) Orionis and its
near twin, Nu (ν) Orionis, 1.2° farther
northwest. Conveniently, Xi and Nu
make an almost equilateral triangle
with the 6th-magnitude open cluster
NGC 2169, which lies within a degree
of both stars. The triangular threesome
is a quick catch through finderscopes;

GEM 6h 20m 6h 10m 6h 00m

6h 00m 5h 30m 5h 00m 4h 30m
µ Basel 11b 69
72
2175 χ2 χ1 +16°
ζ TAURUS +20°
64 57

Aldebaran HD 44033 ν AG 321

BL Ori
ξ ν Σ877 ζ HD 41676 +14°
2194 2169
2169
OSS 73
2141
λ +10°
µ 73 2194
HD 43873/ 74
Betelgeuse γ HD 43840 OSS 71 +12°

ORION
1 ORION
Star magnitudes

2 2141
3
ε δ 0° 75 +10°
4
µ
5 η
6 ζ µ

γ  ORION’S CLUB DISTRICT Northeastern Orion is the great celestial

β
Hunter’s outstretched arm area, but it’s rarely top-of-mind for backyard
ERI
M ASIL IM AGING TE A M

astronomers. Most of the deep sky objects here are relatively distant
MON
open clusters that look small and dim through backyard telescopes.
κ Rigel
–10° But exploring the Club District can be rewarding for those who enjoy
observational challenges.

www.skyandtelescope.com.au 53
 DEEP SKY

t FAR, FAR AWAY The open cluster NGC 2141 is packed with at least 300
NGC 2141 stars, but it’s more than 13,800 light-years from Earth and therefore
challenging to observe in a light-polluted sky. NGC 2141 appears
larger in this image than it does through backyard telescopes.
Thankfully, the pale cluster isn’t difficult to locate, as it’s
framed by an attractive pentagon-shaped asterism.

it a try — Σ848 is a challenge worth

attempting.
On one night of perfectly calm
seeing, I cranked up my 25-cm reflector
to 227× and stared hard at NGC 2169.
HD 250956 In addition to a finely resolved Σ848,
the high power picked up 10 very
faint suns around the 37 formation.
The bigger aperture helped confirm
that the population shines
blue-white, with three evident
exceptions. A 9.9-magnitude star
on the eastern periphery of the
southeast group was yellowish.
An 8.4-magnitude star atop the
northwest group seemed deeply
yellow. Beside it, a 9.1-magnitude star
(northernmost in the cluster) burned
orange. I suspect the orangey outlier
isn’t physically part of NGC 2169.

The low-power look

the cluster itself is a glittery smudge
through my 6×30 and 8×50 finders.
Indeed, NGC 2169 is the only specimen
in my Club Tour boasting stars bright
enough to plot on the Uranometria
charts. Better yet, it’s sufficiently
prominent to appreciate through small
telescopes. I began investigating it using
a 102-mm f/6.5 achromatic refractor.
NGC 2169 holds maybe 30 stars,
most of them arranged in two clumps
on a northwest-southeast slant, with
a narrow gap between them. Each
clump is about 2½′ wide; together they
span 6′ of sky, gap included. Half of
the cluster members shine at 7th- to
10th-magnitude; the others are much
fainter. Not a deluxe deal. The refractor
at 100× presented a grand total of six
stars in the northwest clump, eight in
Mu Orionis
the opposite clump. You might not be
impressed until you discover that in this
case 6 + 8 = 37. Strange but true: The
bare bones of this odd duck resemble
the numeral 37, as eyed in an inverted
field. Check it out for yourself.
My hefty Mak-Cass operating at
90× brightened up the ragged 37, yet
added very few extra stars to the barren
cluster. However, the long-focus scope
rewarded me with one delightful detail:
NGC 2169’s 7th-magnitude lucida,
in the southeastern clump (the 3 in
37), is a binary star. Σ 848 (Struve 848)
is a tight tandem: Its 7.3-magnitude
primary and 8.2-magnitude secondary
are separated by a scant 2.6″. When the
air was steady, the uneven duo resolved
cleanly at 113×. On turbulent nights,
though, Σ848 rarely obliged me. Give
An especially pleasing aspect of NGC
2169 is its picturesque setting, which
was fabulous through the wide-field
refractor. Reducing the 102-mm to 20×,
I nudged northwestward toward Nu
Orionis. Two-thirds of the way there, I
noticed the ruddy hue of 7.1-magnitude
HD 41676, a red giant star. West of
it, I spotted two doubles within 10′
of each other. AG 321 comprises 7.8-
and 8.8-magnitude stars 36″ apart,
while its nameless neighbour sports
9.4-magnitude twins 63″ apart. The
refractor captured all this near-to-Nu
stuff (and the cluster) in a single field
of view.
POSS-II / STSCI / CA LTECH / PA LO M A R OBSERVATORY
After taking in Nu and Co., I
shifted southeastward, past NGC 2169,
along a ragged star chain to a slender
parallelogram of 7th- to 9th-magnitude
stars, measuring 8′ by 2′, orientated
east-west. Something blurry at the
parallelogram’s western end caught my
eye. Briefly upping to 100× clarified it as
a dim double star of approximately 20″
separation. I’d have thought such an
obvious duet would warrant an entry in

54 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE March | April 2021

 the Washington Double Star Catalogue binoculars or a wide-field scope, all the concentration of stars within NGC
— but it doesn’t. Returning to 20×, I way from Nu Orionis to BL Orionis — 2175, though “clumps of stars loosely
hopped northward to Xi Orionis, then and don’t miss those colourful doubles scattered across most of the nebula”
veered northeastward through a shorter to the south. might be Collinder 84, an obscure
chain to a narrower parallelogram. cluster suggested by Swedish astronomer
Its brightest member is a legit binary Dim and mysterious Per Collinder in 1931.
— called Σ 877, it displays 7.6- and Engaging my 25-cm Dobsonian once My route to NGC 2175 followed
8.0-magnitude stars 5.7″ apart. The more, I advanced to the top of Orion’s a sequence of stellar steppingstones
petite pairing resolved cleanly at 100×. club. Way up there is NGC 2175, an of increasingly fainter magnitude,
No telescope? No problem. emission nebula associated with an starting at a quadrilateral-shaped
Binocular users will love the broader open cluster. Both objects are usually asterism, 2¼° by ½° in extent,
37 region. Starting at NGC 2169, I misidentified on charts — my trusty outlined by the 4th- to 6th-magnitude
casually scanned the abovementioned Uranometria included. stars Chi1 (χ), Chi 2, 57 and 64
ragged star chain hand-holding my The nebula is often incorrectly Orionis. After placing 4.6-magnitude
7×50s. I kept going, since the chain designated NGC 2174. AS&T former χ2 Orionis on the crosshairs of my
curved eastward in a gentle arc of contributing editor Sue French has finderscope, I star-hopped northward
6th- and 7th-magnitude stars. The reported that NGC 2174 is a prominent to 6.9-magnitude HD 40981, then
fourth star in this extended section, knot in the northwestern part of turned eastward to 7.1-magnitude
a variable identified as HD 44033, the sprawling nebula. Sue has stated HD 41657, and finally southeastward
exuded a strongly orange sheen. East there doesn’t appear to be an obvious to 7.6-magnitude HD 42088, which,
of it, the stronger variable BL Orionis
(magnitude range 5.9 to 6.6) glowed
rosy-red through the binocs. NGC 2194
Just south of that graceful
array of stars are three binocular
doubles. OSS 73 features 6.9- and
7.7-magnitude stars, 72″ apart, aiming
at 5th-magnitude 73 Orionis to the
southwest. A pair exhibiting 6.7- and
7.4-magnitude stars 189″ apart — HD
43873 and HD 43840, respectively —
points close to 74 Orionis. Finally,
southwest of 74 Orionis, OSS 71
consists of 7.2- and 7.6-magnitude
stars 90″ apart. The binoculars
framed all three generously
separated sets in one field of
view. Through the refractor, the
components shone various shades
of white, blue, and orange.
In sky lore, Nu and Xi Orionis
correspond more-or-less to where
the Hunter clutches his club. This
sector of the constellation is not in
POSS-II / STSCI / CA LTECH / PA LO M A R OBSERVATORY

the same league as the famous Sword

of Orion, but it offers lots of pretty
celestial scenery for low-power looking.
I suggest you scan slowly, using your

 CLUSTER CREATURE At a distance of almost

8,700 light-years, the open cluster NGC 2194 isn’t
a conspicuous object through backyard telescopes.
However, this fairly rich cluster displays subtle character
in the form of a body and tail. The string of faint stars forming
the tail is visible through mid-size scopes at medium to high
magnification.

www.skyandtelescope.com.au 55
 DEEP SKY

according to the Uranometria, sits
inside the nebula.
Observing at 64×, I detected no
nebulosity until I applied an Ultra-
High Contrast (UHC) narrowband
filter. Bingo! A tenuous, spherical haze,
perhaps ¼° in diameter, magically
materialised around HD 42088.
(Focusing on stars of similar magnitude
confirmed I was experiencing
nebulosity, not eyepiece fog.) A doubly
ionised oxygen (O III) filter provided
excellent contrast — the round haze
was unmistakable — but the O III
field at higher magnifications was a
bit dark. A broadband light-pollution
filter proved only marginally helpful
at any magnification. Of the various
combinations I tried, the winner was
the UHC used at low power.
NGC 2169
Struve 848
The above combo in place, I
noticed a 10′-long, seven-star asterism
(evidence of Collinder 84?) stretching
northeastward out of the spherical
haze. I dumped the filter and bumped
up the power. Ahah! To my eye, the
pattern resembled the Big Dipper. HD
42088, mentioned earlier, plays the
role of Alkaid (η Ursae Majoris) at the
end of the handle; a dimmer star plays
Mizar (ζ UMa). A nicely balanced,
10.6-magnitude double, 24.8″ wide,
called SCA 37, plays Alioth (ε UMa).
A star corresponding to Phad (γ UMa)
in the bowl is SCA 36, an unequal
binary whose 10.3- and 12.8-magnitude
components, 13.5″ apart, split
beautifully at 218×.
I was intrigued by a cluster, which
the Uranometria labels NGC 2175.1, on
the eastern edge of the nebula. In their
authoritative book Star Clusters, Brent
Archinal and Steven Hynes caution that
the identifier 2175.1 is not original to
the NGC catalogue; “where possible this
cluster should probably be referred to as
C0607+206”. Fine by me — I just wanted
to know if the plotted object would
appear through my scope.
Hardly 5′ across, C0607+206 lies 2′
northwest of the 9.2-magnitude star
HD 42333. I had no difficulty finding
HD 42333 because ‘the pointers’ in the
mini-Dipper aim right at it. Through
the Dob at 169×, the cluster yielded
a row of four stars northward, plus
a clumping southward. The clump
possesses one bright star. It’s a binary,
listed as J 1922 , featuring 10.5- and
10.9-magnitude pinpricks 6.6″ apart.
Cracking that nut at 218× was super
satisfying.
Join the Club
Finally, I pushed farthest north, to the
top of the Hunter’s club, where the
cluster Basel 11b resides near Orion’s
border with Gemini. My star-hop to the
8.9-magnitude target again involved
increasingly fainter steppingstones,
this time beginning at 4.2-magnitude 1
Geminorum. From there, I swept past
the 6.4-magnitude variable star HD
40724, to 6.9-magnitude HD 40443
in Orion. Immediately northwest of
HD 40443, an equilateral triangle
of 9th-magnitude stars led me
to 3′-wide Basel 11b further on.
Amazingly, it showed through my
Newtonian at 64×.
That said, Bas 11b at 64× was
a mush of 12th-magnitude stars
forming a southward-aiming
arrowhead. Powering up to 218×
POSS-II / STSCI / CA LTECH / PA LO M A R OBSERVATORY
resolved the mush into a short row
of three stars, plus a fourth farther

t THE NUMBER CLUSTER Roughly 3,000 light-

years distant, thinly populated, and distinctly odd-
looking, NGC 2169 has been dubbed the 37 Cluster due
to its appearance in telescope field (depending on whether
you have an upright or inverted view). The numerical name
was coined by amateur Alan Goldstein in 1981. Light-hearted
observers also picture NGC 2169 as the Shopping Cart Cluster. Can
you see a shopping trolley in these stars?

56 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE March | April 2021

 Basel 11b

 SMALLEST MEMBER OF THE CLUB Perched high

atop the Hunter’s brandished club is the obscure open
cluster Basel 11b. Situated about 4,900 light-years
from Earth, Basel 11b is hardly a marquee deep sky
object — the tiny cluster isn’t densely concentrated
and spans just a few arcminutes of sky. Yet the
little splash of starlight was easily visible through
the author’s 25-cm Dobsonian.

out and a fifth at a sharp angle to the

row-of-four. Woohoo! Somehow, the
arrowhead had morphed into a hockey
stick. Fleetingly visible at the threshold
of vision were several additional
cluster members. One of them, I’m
sure, was the hockey ball.
I always get a kick out of capturing
faint fare through my modest backyard
telescopes. Enjoying these Orion extras
with your own scope is easy — simply
join the club! HD 40443

¢ KEN HEWITT-WHITE has kept his

eye on Orion since he was a teenaged
stargazer in the mid-1960s.

Orion’s Club Members

Object Type Mag(v) Size/Sep RA Dec.
NGC 2141 Open cluster 9.4 10′ 06h 02.9m +10° 27′
NGC 2194 Open cluster 8.5 10′ 06h 13.8m +12° 48′
NGC 2169 Open cluster 5.9 6′ 06h 08.4m +13° 58′
Struve 848 Double star 7.3, 8.2 2.6″ 06h 08.5m +13° 58′
HD 41676 Red giant 7.1 — 06h 07.1m +14° 27′
AG 321 Double star 7.8, 8.8 35.8″ 06h 05.4m +14° 35′
Struve 877 Double star 7.6, 8.0 5.7″ 06h 14.7m +14° 35′
HD 44033 Variable star 5.7 – 5.8 — 06h 20.1m +14° 39′
BL Orionis Variable star 5.9 – 6.6 — 06h 25.5m +14° 43′
OSS 73 Double 6.9, 7.7 72″ 06h 19.4m +13° 27 ′
HD 43873 / 43840 Double 6.7, 7.4 189″ 06h 19.0m +12° 43′
OSS 71 Double 7.2, 7.6 90″ 06h 14.5m +11° 48 ′
POSS-II / STSCI / CA LTECH / PA LO M A R OBSERVATORY

NGC 2175 Emission nebula/open cluster — 40″ × 30″ 06h 09.7m +20° 30′
Collinder 84 Open cluster 6.8 22′ 06h 09.6m +20° 29′
SCA 37 Double star 10.6, 10.6 24.8″ 06h 09.9m +20° 32′
SCA 36 Double star 10.3, 12.8 13.5″ 06h 09.8m +20° 37′
NGC 2175.1 Open cluster — 5′ 06h 10.9m +20° 37′
J 1922 Double star 10.5, 10.9 6.6″ 06h 10.9m +20° 37′
Basel 11b Open cluster 8.9 3′ 05h 58.2m +21° 58′
Angular sizes and separations are from recent catalogues. Visually, an object’s size is often smaller than the catalogued value and varies according to the
aperture and magnification of the viewing instrument. Right ascension and declination are for equinox 2000.0.

www.skyandtelescope.com.au 57
 GOING DEEP by Dave Tosteson

Orion’s newborn nursery

Up for a challenge? Point your telescope toward M42 to spot newly born planetary systems.

W
hen we look up into the night was visible in daylight for weeks after
sky each star has its own story, the event. Conversely, observing stars 5h 40m 5h 20m
each is at a different stage in at the beginning of their lives takes

Star magnitudes
M78 2
its life. If we are very fortunate, as with great effort, as they’re born shrouded 0° δ
ε 3
Supernova 1987A, we may find ourselves by gas and dust that obscure our view. 4
in the right time and place to witness Powerful winds from massive nearby ζ σ η 5
6
a massive star announce the end of stars can blow away some of the
its life with great fanfare. The last nebulosity surrounding newborn stars,
–5° M43
supernova visible to the unaided eye in allowing us to peer at this otherwise
ι M42
β
our own galaxy was in AD 1604. These hidden process. These newborn stars
τ
events, albeit rare, require little effort might be sculpting and illuminating
Rigel
on the part of the observer. Indeed, nascent planetary systems. The heart
β
some are hard to miss, such as the AD of the Orion Nebula (M42) harbours κ ORION λ
1054 supernova that resulted in the such a site of celestial fecundity in –10°
Crab Nebula — that stellar explosion the form of proplyds (from ionised
p NURSERY IN ORION M42 is easy to locate
in the Sword of the mighty Hunter, Orion.
However, you’ll need a big telescope to spot
the embedded newly born planetary systems
known as proplyds.

“protoplanetary disks”). At a distance

of around 1,300 light-years, the Orion
Nebula is the closest large stellar
birthplace in the night sky. And some of
these proplyds are within the reach of
amateur telescopes.

What are proplyds?

In 1979, French astronomers Pierre
Laque and Jean-Louis Vidal discovered
emission line objects they described
as “compact photoionised knots” near
the centre of the Orion Nebula. Several
years later, radio emissions were detected
coming from these objects, prompting
speculation that they might be stars in
the process of being born. Hubble Space
Telescope (HST) observations in 1993
confirmed this scenario, and these knots
were recognised as a distinct, new class
of object.
Specifically, the term proplyd refers
to highly irradiated protoplanetary disks
ESO / M. MCCAUG HRE A N

surrounding newly born stars. They exist

PLANETARY SYSTEMS IN THE MAKING The famous Trapezium stars at the heart of the
Orion Nebula are at the centre of this colour-composite image obtained with the Very within (or near) an H II region and are
Large Telescope at the European Southern Observatory’s Paranal site. Various studies ionised courtesy of nearby hot stars.
have revealed numerous objects that will likely evolve into planetary systems. Seen edge-on against the background
of an H II region, their dark silhouettes

58 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE March | April 2021

 suggest planets forming around a
nascent star — particularly those disks
with a star peeking over the top or
face-on with the star in the middle.
Hubble images of the heart of the
Orion Nebula (such as the one at
right) show objects several hundred
astronomical units across — disks
containing about five times the mass
of Jupiter. Many appear to have ‘tails’
pointed away from the central object,
like a swarm of comets converging
on the star. They’re distinct from
the classic star-forming Herbig-Haro
objects, as they lack bipolar jets.
The largest and brightest star in
the Trapezium is Theta1 (θ) Orionis C,
a binary comprising O and B main
sequence stars, and a third fainter and
smaller companion. At magnitude 5.1
it’s one of the most energetic stars
visible to the naked eye, producing
200,000 times the energy of our Sun.
Theta1 Orionis C and its Trapezium
companions light up the nebula’s
nearside. Proplyds close to this massive
star have tails pointing away from it.
The star’s powerful wind ablates and
sweeps away the proplyds’ outer layers,
a process that likely dissipates some of
their available planet-forming material.
Protoplanetary disks farther away aren’t
ionised (and hence aren’t classified as
proplyds) and appear as dark objects
against the bright background of the
surrounding H II region. In total,
the HST detected nearly 180 proplyds
among the 3,000 or so stars of M42.
The high-resolution imaging of
proplyds by the HST was one of the
motivating factors for constructing
the Atacama Large Millimeter/
submillimeter Array (ALMA). ALMA, as
PROPLY DS: C. R. O’DELL; HL TAU: A LM A / ESO / N AOJ / NR AO
its name suggests, is an array of movable
telescopes located in the northern
Chilean desert at an altitude of 5,000
metres. The telescopes’ detectors are
sensitive to submillimetre wavelengths
 PLANETARY GENESIS ALMA’s telescopes
pointed toward HL Tauri, a Sun-like star some
450 light-years from Earth, and acquired
this image. It was the first ever to show a
protoplanetary disk in such exquisite detail. The
bright rings and gaps in the disk are most likely
the signatures of planets in the making.
IDENTIFYING PROPLYDS
The term ‘proplyd’ is specifically
used to describe the highly 177-341
irradiated protoplanetary disks
that have cometlike tails, such
as those found in the Orion
Nebula. In one of his discovery
papers, C. R. O’Dell termed
them “flattened circumstellar
clouds of dust and gas
surrounding stars collapsing
toward the main sequence”.
The author referred to this
image taken in Hα to cross-
correlate with a visible-light
image, similar to the one at
right, in order to locate proplyds
through his telescope.
with a resolution 10 times better than
HST (around 5 milliarcseconds). This
sensitivity provides the ALMA telescopes
with a clearer view through the gas
and dust that enshroud these objects.
In 2014, a team using the ALMA array
detected 21 of the 22 proplyds that
the HST had previously identified at
visible wavelengths. Of those 21 objects,
concentric ‘rings’ — disks that are likely
precursors to planetary formation, as in
the case of HL Tauri — were identified in
eight of them for the first time.
The scarcity of proplyds
Proplyds are rare to find and difficult
to see, and there are several reasons
for this. To become an observable
163-317
167-317
168-326
170-337
158-323
158-327
Θ1 Ori C
155-338
159-350
proplyd, newly formed stars and their
circumstellar disks must survive the
strong winds and powerful ultraviolet
radiation from the nearby massive,
energetic stars. These processes,
responsible for blowing away the
enshrouding clouds and dust, are
extremely destructive. A program in
2006 to search for proplyds in other
emission nebulae identified some in
M17, M8, M16, M20 and NGC 2467.
But these nebulae generally contained
only one or at most a few proplyds.
Distance from the ionising star is
crucial for planet survivability. Studies
show that the strong stellar wind
of Theta1 Orionis C inhibits planet
formation in systems closer than about
one-tenth of a light-year. Systems
farther out are largely unaffected
and retained greater amounts of gas
and dust within their disks (up to 80
Jupiter masses) — and hence are more
conducive to planetary formation.
Take the challenge
The Orion proplyds are small and
difficult targets for the amateur
observer, but some of them can be
seen. Though brightened by ionisation,
they appear stellar and compete with
the glow of the H II cloud in the
background. Astronomer C. R. O’Dell
www.skyandtelescope.com.au 59
 GOING DEEP

B challenging to spot due to its proximity

(a mere 4.5″ away; the diagram above  SILHOUETTE
E
8.8˝ shows relative positions) to C. Three A proplyd in the
14.9 ˝ 4.6˝ other faint stars are associated with this Orion Nebula
presents an
system: G at magnitude 13.7, H at 15.8
G A edge-on disk
D I and I at 16.3. with the central
12.7˝ In O’Dell’s figure the proplyd star peeking
13.4 ˝
168-326 is 1.5″ east-southeast of a over the edge.
N
‘regular’ star, that is, one with no signs
E W H
C of an ionisation source and no tail. star Theta2 Orionis. These objects all
S F 4.5 ˝

of Rice University published HST Hα
At first glance the proplyd appears in
the position of the Trapezium star F.
However, careful inspection shows this
isn’t the case: Star F is actually the one
of the pair closer to C. Though fainter
in Hα, star F is much brighter in visible
light — but there’s no sign of that
proplyd in the visible-light image.
Considering these confounding
factors, I correlated the two images
(in Hα and visible light) and devised
an observing plan. In 2016 I observed
the area with my 80-cm reflector.
In the early hours of the morning of
S&T; M16: N ASA / ESA / HUBBLE / HUBBLE HERITAG E TE A M; ORION PROPLY D: J. BA LLY (UNIV ERSIT Y OF COLOUR A DO) / H. THROOP (SWRI)
appeared stellar, with no asymmetric
flaring or tails. Since then, I’ve detected
G and H from my home in fair to poor
conditions with the same setup.
In comparing the visibility of other
proplyds in the Trapezium area I expect
several would be within the reach of
large-aperture amateur scopes under
excellent conditions, particularly
158-327, 155-338, 170-337, 177-341
and 159-350. If you’re looking for a
challenge in the heart of the Orion, give
this emerging class of objects a try.

TR A PE ZIU M: ESO / M. MCCAUG HRE A N; DIAG R A M: G REGG DINDER M A N /

data of the Orion Nebula (image,
previous page) in the January 1998
issue of the Astronomical Journal. For my
search I compared O’Dell’s data with
an image in visible light, such as the
VLT image above. The four main stars of
the Trapezium (A, B, C and D) are the
brightest, ranging from magnitude 5.1
to 8.0, and are readily visible through
a small telescope. They are followed
by two much fainter companions.
Star E is a distinctly reddish-brown,
magnitude-11.1 speck. Even though F
is a full magnitude brighter than E, it’s
September 26, using a 5-mm eyepiece
yielding magnification 650×, in poor
seeing of only 3 (on the Pickering scale)
I detected star H and suspected G.
Three mornings later, in much better
conditions (the seeing was 9/10) with
the same equipment and setup, I clearly
saw the G, H and I components of
the Trapezium. The respective proplyd
designations are 167-317, 158-323
and 163-317. A year later I observed
the proplyd 106-417 located about
2.2′ southeast of the Trapezium. It’s
34″ northeast of the 6.4-magnitude
¢ DAVE TOSTESON says the best part of
his job as a family doctor was delivering
more than 2,000 babies; seeing
newborns in the sky is almost as fun.
FURTHER READING: If you’re interested
in learning more about early Hubble Space
Telescope observations of proplyds in
the Orion Nebula, see journal papers by
C.R. O’Dell. The first was published in
1994 in The Astrophysical Journal and
was co-authored with Zheng Wen (volume
436). The second is in volume 115 of The
Astronomical Journal published in 1998.

Other Observations
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 beautiful and iconic image, the ‘Pillars of Star Formation’ host stars at
the end of thin stalks, protostars whose birthplace has been whittled away. In
1999 I used my 63.5-cm reflector to observe two of these Evaporating Gaseous
Globules, or EGGs.
The Rosette Nebula is an example of a region of ionised hydrogen that has been
carved out by strong stellar winds, similar to the environs of Theta1 C Orionis.
In the Rosette Nebula, the star’s circumstellar disk was dissipated in only 1,000
years by the powerful radiation of two nearby O-type stars. With a 38-cm reflector,
I easily detected the ‘naked’ protostar Rosette HH1, with its jet and central, 14th-
magnitude star, from my backyard in January 2007.

60 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE March | April 2021

 by Bob King ORBITAL OUTPOST

Aussie imager Dylan O’Donnell produced this remarkable such as ISS Spotter (iPhone) and ISS
photo of the International Space Station transiting the Moon Detector (Android).
on June 28, 2017. He used a C9.25 SCT and composited seven Much less frequently, the ISS transits
frames made with a Canon 70D DSLR camera set to ISO 1800 across the face of the Moon or Sun.
and a shutter speed of 1/1600 second.
Such events are quite rare because the
disks of the Moon and Sun are only 0.5°
across. As a result, the track of visibility
is a narrow one that requires the
observer to be in precisely the right spot
at the right time. Thanks to the website
ISS Transit Finder (transit-finder.com),
you can easily get a 30-day forecast of
lunar and solar ISS transits visible from
your area in just seconds.
Go to the website and set your precise
latitude and longitude manually, or by
clicking either ‘Auto-detect’ or ‘Select
from map’. Next, set your preferred
time interval using the calendar feature,
choose how far you’re willing to travel to
get to the transit centre line then press
‘Calculate’. A list of upcoming events
pops up along with details including
the station’s path (with near misses
included), transit time and distance to
the centre line, and where the ISS will
appear to cross directly across the centre
of the Moon or Sun.
If you don’t see a transit listed for
your location during the specified time
frame, click the ‘Show on Map’ button.
The red pin gives your location, and the
green pin indicates the closest site the
centre line crosses. Sometimes a transit
is just a half-hour drive away.
During a typical transit, the
silhouette of the ISS spans about one
arcminute and takes around one second
to cross the disk of the Sun or Moon. (Be
sure to use a suitable solar filter when
attempting to observe a solar transit.)
Binoculars show the space station as a
dark speck while a telescope magnifying

Catch an
50× will clearly show its shape. If
you’re lucky, the ISS will pass in front

T
he International Space Station is of the crescent Moon, and you’ll see it

ISS transit
often one of the brightest objects
in the night sky. Many of us
enjoy its regular appearances during
morning and evening twilight when it
Being in the right place at passes silently across the sky, ferrying
(exactly) the right time pays its human cargo at more than 27,600
kilometres per hour. For current pass
exciting dividends.
XXXX
dramatically illuminated against the
dim, earth-lit portion of the lunar disk.
To photograph an ISS transit, attach
your camera to a telescope or long
telephoto lens. Because these events are
so brief, the trick is to shoot multiple
images centred on the predicted transit

times tailored to your location, go to time. You can either use your camera’s
heavens-above.com or grab a free app burst mode, or record a video sequence.

www.skyandtelescope.com.au 61
 ASTROPHOTOGRAPHY by Adam Block
Picturing
Galaxies
Here are some tips to get the most out of your galaxy images.
BEYOND THE MILKY WAY, there are a seemingly limitless
number of galaxies that stretch to the edge of the observable
universe. Except for all but the nearest dozen or so, their
great distances from us make them appear maddeningly
small and faint. Additionally, the combined glow of their
stars results in objects that appear with low contrast, colour
and detail, making galaxies a challenge to render in our
images.
Most galaxies are significantly brighter in their centres
compared to their outer extremes. Spiral galaxies that are
undergoing a period of vigorous star formation tend to have
bluish arms, with yellowish or colourless halos consisting of
older stellar populations, pinkish H II regions and reddened
62 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE March | April 2021
 NEARBY SHOWPIECE Producing aesthetically pleasing images of
galaxies requires exercising restraint. Although we have the tools to
increase contrast, colour saturation, and sharpness, resisting the urge to
go overboard with any of these tools allows the true nature of the subject
to shine through. This fine example of M31 in Andromeda preserves the
galaxy’s bright nucleus while enhancing its bluish outer arms.
A LL IM AG ES COURTESY OF AU THOR
areas where dust attenuates starlight. Elliptical galaxies
are dominated by older, red stars imparting a golden hue.
This palette is fairly ubiquitous in the universe, and these
simple truths shape the techniques I use to depict them in
deep astrophotos. Here are some ways I approach the many
different types of galaxies to produce colourful, detailed
portraits that retain a pleasing appearance.
Squeezing the dynamic range
Let’s start by contrasting two relatively nearby spiral galaxies
— M51, the Whirlpool Galaxy in Canes Venatici, and M31 in
Andromeda. Even though M51 is more than 10 times farther
than M31, as a starburst galaxy the Whirlpool presents a rich,
varying colour palette with a bright disk. It and its companion
galaxy, NGC 5195, appear as a tapestry filled with high-
contrast features, including dark dust lanes and colourful
H II regions. On the other hand, M31 is a very challenging
target despite its closer proximity. Its bright nucleus appears
virtually featureless in raw, unprocessed images, while its
outer disk lacks the bright H II regions and strong colour
differentiation that’s seen in M51. Nevertheless, M31 does
 DISTANT BUT DETAILED The Whirlpool Galaxy, M51, together with
its interacting companion NGC 5195 in Canes Venatici, is much farther
from us than M31 but displays many high-contrast features through larger
instruments, including complex dust lanes, colourful regions of vigorous
star formation and a bright core. In many ways, each galaxy is unique
and requires a different approach to achieve a faithful representation.
contain subtle detail within its nucleus, and its outer disk
displays muted colour variations that require particular
attention to tease into visibility. While applying processing
techniques that modify these fundamental elements of M31,
the question becomes: How far from the truth should a
rendering stray to better present features of colour and detail
that are normally difficult to see?
www.skyandtelescope.com.au 63
 ASTROPHOTOGRAPHY

The dusty details hidden within M31’s central bulge are

hard to see due to the sheer luminosity of the stars found
there. Compressing this brightness range with non-linear
stretching can help reveal them, but this completely removes
a significant feature of M31 by making the nucleus appear
to be nearly the same brightness as the galaxy’s outer disk.
A galaxy processed in this way starts to take on a different
identity that strays far from the subject’s actual appearance.
Indeed, an audience unfamiliar with M31 might easily walk
away believing this is how the galaxy normally appears. But
with few exceptions, galaxies tend to have brighter nuclei
than disks or outer halos. By exercising restraint when
applying the process, I retain more of M31’s essence and
produce what I consider a more natural appearance. Of
course, it isn’t natural at all. Aesthetic astro-image processing
is a blend of what is and what we want things to be, with a
careful balance between the two.
In the wide-field image of M31 on page 62, the galaxy’s
outer arms are not strongly saturated in bluish light in a way
they might appear with other spiral galaxies such as M51.
However, by increasing the contrast in the B channel of the
image while operating in Lab colour space in my preferred
image-processing software, I can enhance the bluish star
formation in the outer disk, but only to the degree that is still
strongly correlated with the original data. M51’s blue disk
and M31’s blue features are very different. These kinds of
considerations are specific to processing galaxies based on the
fundamental characteristics of these objects.
Care with dust lanes
Inclined spiral galaxies such as NGC 4698 in Virgo offer a
different kind of challenge. Galaxies like it require colossal
processing restraint with regard to its dust lanes. Another fact
about galaxies is that any intervening foreground dust both
attenuates and reddens the stellar light that shines through it.
 COLOURLESS CORE Allowing non-linear processes to equally
affect the bright and faint regions in a galaxy can often lead to greyish,
colourless nuclear regions, as in this example of NGC 7217 in Pegasus.
You can avoid this problem by keeping the brightest areas in the galaxy
from becoming saturated early in your workflow.
We all have an evolutionary preference for high-contrast
imagery, which leads to a nearly irresistible urge to increase
the contrast in our images, especially with intrinsically low-
contrast objects such as spiral galaxies. But the casualties of
increasing contrast are the colour variations and fluctuations
in brightness within their dust lanes. Common processing
techniques such as raising the black level, unsharp masking
and high-pass filters all increase the contrast and detail of
a galaxy’s dust lanes. But too much contrast reduces the
dust lanes to an opaque, colourless, black etching across the
subject. This increases the visibility of details within the dust
lanes, but at the cost of the object’s natural appearance. My
approach would be to again exercise extreme restraint while
applying these powerful tools to retain the truths of NGC
4698’s appearance while enhancing prominent features.
Galaxies don’t really have inky-black dust lanes.

 FLATTENED In the two examples of M31 above, the image at left suppresses the brightness of the galaxy’s core in order to better display its inner
dust lanes, removing a key aspect of the galaxy. The image at right preserves this important detail, while still permitting the dust to be seen.

64 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE March | April 2021

Retaining colour
One of the biggest challenges when processing galaxy
imagery is retaining colour in the central regions. Increasing
the brightness and colour in a galaxy while maintaining a
smooth look in the fainter regions of the field often produces
a near-colourless nucleus. The key to maintaining colour in
the core of a galaxy is to preserve it early in the processing
workflow. Colour can appear diluted when the brightness of
an image exceeds 80% of the maximum value. This is due
to how our eyes and brain perceive brightness and colour.
While there often is a colourless core in many galaxies, this
should generally be the size of a typical star in the image.
Not long ago, the digital development process (DDP) was
the go-to tool used to manage this difficult area in most
galaxies. Today, there are far more facile and powerful tools,
such as HDRMultiTransform in PixInsight, that compress the
dynamic range in an image while allowing for small-scale
enhancements in the bright regions.

Star treatment
Without exception, galaxies appear to float behind a
foreground of stars residing in our own Milky Way. Quite
often the stars are uniformly distributed across the field and
play a lesser role in the final composition. The galaxy (or
galaxies) is the focal point of the image, and, to the degree
that processing choices affect the stars, I may permit them
to be modified by the same processes, or in some cases, I may
create masks to shield them from these effects targeting the
main subjects of my picture.
Sometimes it’s easy to become overly concerned with
retaining star colours in the final composition even when
those decisions negatively affect the appearance of the
galaxy. Examples in which this can happen include galaxies
seen through prominent arms of the Milky Way, such as
NGC 6946, NGC 6674 and IC 342. In such cases, it’s often
a better approach to de-emphasise the stars in these fields so
that the galaxy isn’t competing with them for the viewer’s
attention. The exception is when a star (or group of stars) is
very bright, you can use it as a balancing weight within the
framed composition. This is usually done by placing your
galaxy at one side of the image frame with the star (or stars)
at the opposite end. Using these stars as a compositional
element, it then becomes important to retain as many
attractive qualities of the stars as possible.

Noise reduction
Due to their faintness, galaxies present challenges in
managing the amount of noise reduction applied to an image.
Many nebulae have smooth brightness and colour transitions
across large areas. The faintest portions of these nebulous
regions may look like the background sky itself and, often
 OVER CONTRAST Top: Increasing the contrast of dust lanes in a
in the interest of contrast, are made to appear very dark
galaxy may be appealing but can lead to loss of colour and other details
without taking away from the overall impact of the image. By in the image. Bottom: This picture of NGC 4698 avoids this tempting
comparison, all but the nearest galaxies are smooth objects step, enabling other interesting details in the galaxy such as the golden
with small highlights of colour and detail. Even modest noise- tone of reddened starlight in its dust lanes to shine through.

www.skyandtelescope.com.au 65
 ASTROPHOTOGRAPHY
reduction techniques can adversely
impact these elements. But the faintest
outer extents of galaxies are often
exciting features that we would like
to highlight in our images and that
require significant noise reduction.
Some examples include arc-like shells
or stellar streams that hint at ancient
acts of galactic cannibalism. The
difficulty is creating the selections or
masks that apply a smooth transition
from the high-signal areas where little
or no noise reduction is required.
One of the easiest and most
powerful techniques I employ is to simply magnify and
process images at 200% or greater while working with
noise-reduction tools. At this scale, I can see if I’ve made a
reasonable choice with any given process, or if I’ve gone too
far. A galaxy with a silky smooth outer halo and sharp, small-
scale features in the brighter portions (including H II regions
and foreground stars) can make a jarring transition for the
eye to follow and forces the viewer to concentrate on the
imager’s processing choices, rather than the galaxy itself.
An edge-on spiral galaxy that illustrates this point well is
NGC 5866. Without applying strong non-linear compression
and selective noise reduction, it would be impossible to see
COMPOSITIONAL BALANCE Usually stars play a minor role
in a galaxy image and don’t require special treatment. The
exception is when some bright stars, such as the ones north
of NGC 5792, play a supporting role in the composition. In
such cases, it’s often beneficial to retain their colour and not
have them appear as over-exposed dots.
66 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE March | April 2021
 JARRING TRANSITIONS Another minor
detail to be aware of is the transition between
areas that require noise reduction and the
regions surrounding stars. In this close-up,
the pixelated noise surrounding each star will
draw viewers’ attention, forcing them to focus
on this minor oversight in the final image.
its narrow dust lane, yellowish core
and bluish arms simultaneously with
its complex outer halo. With these
considerations the otherwise featureless
Spindle Galaxy is transformed into an
edge-on galaxy with a visible history of
galactic interaction with large tidal tails.
A good plan
One final approach is to take inventory of all the interesting
attributes and details in my subject early on. In most cases,
significant details and features within a galaxy should be
visible in the calibrated but unprocessed data in its linear
form. If, later in processing, details and colours emerge that
were not initially evident in the raw data, then there’s a
good chance these details are simply artifacts introduced by
the processing. Additionally, by noting real features early in
your plan, you can make processing choices better suited to
reaching a final result that renders all of them well.
 BEST OF BOTH Edge-on spiral galaxy NGC 5866 is surrounded by faint star streams that suggest a complex history of galactic cannibalism.
Although known as the Spindle Galaxy due to its appearance (left), a simple non-linear stretch (middle) brings out these star streams, but at the
expense of its inner spindle-like dust lane. Careful use of PixInsight’s HDRMT tool with special attention to the transition between the outer areas and
the inner details helps to tell the entire story of this fascinating galaxy (right).

One question I often receive when delivering an presented here, the attention you give to them will certainly
image-processing workshop after discussing image help raise awareness of what is in your hard-won data and
calibration is, “How do you know what to do next?” The take your own imaging to a higher level.
answer is somewhat akin to Ansel Adams’s technique of
previsualisation. While Adams stressed the importance of ¢ ADAM BLOCK is a world-renowned astrophotographer
imagining what he wanted the final print to reveal about and founder of the University of Arizona’s Mount Lemmon
a subject before entering the darkroom, I approach galaxy SkyCenter.
processing based on my initial inventory of interesting
features. Each subsequent processing decision both enhances
some aspect of an image’s attributes while protecting others
so that they do not suffer in their appearance or visibility.
Galaxies are particularly well suited to this way of Reddened arm
thinking. For example, I note a wealth of information
while examining my unprocessed images of the lenticular "X" feature
H II regions,
galaxy NGC 128 and its neighbours in Pisces. A short list of dust lanes
interesting features to highlight includes:
1: Faint outer tidal tails (and stellar streams around
nearby NGC 125).
2: The X-shaped nucleus of NGC 128.
3: Dust clouds extending from NGC 127 crossing in front Tidal tails
and loops
of the northern extent of NGC 128.
4: The same dust from NGC 127 makes NGC 128 redder
on this portion of the galaxy.
5: Small-scale details in both the nucleus regions of
NGC 127 and NGC 125.
Carefully monitoring these details during each processing
step informs the final picture. As experienced processors
know, it’s all too easy to introduce artifacts along the way. In
a sense, the galaxies themselves tell me what to do next.
Galaxies are by far the most numerous deep sky objects Inner structure
to observe in astrophotography. Each has its own features
and characteristics. Even if you don’t adopt all of the ideas

 PLAN OF ATTACK A great method when approaching any image is

to make note of important details before beginning the work. This galaxy
group in Pisces, including NGC 128 (top left), NGC 127 to its right and
NGC 125 (bottom), boasts a number of interesting features I set out to
highlight before beginning any digital-darkroom enhancements.

www.skyandtelescope.com.au 67
 AS&T TEST REPORT by Dennis di Cicco

The Sky-Watcher Evostar 150 APO Refractor is a 150-mm f/8 with a two-element objective, including
one element made with ED (extra-low dispersion) glass. Fitted with typical accessories for observing,
the tube assembly weighs about 9.3 kg. Its rugged carrying/storage case weighs 16 kg and holds the
tube assembly with mounting rings and dovetail bar attached and has extra room for accessories.

Sky-Watcher’s Evostar 150 APO Refractor

ED glass and advanced optical coatings push this two-element objective design to its full potential.

Evostar 150 APO IT’S UNUSUAL TO JUDGE the quality
of a telescope after only a few nights
Refractor under the stars, so it’s really rather
US price: $2,350 extraordinary to form a strong opinion
skywatcherusa.com after just an hour or so. But that’s all it
took for me to realise that the 150‑mm
What we like
(5.9‑inch) f/8 Sky‑Watcher Evostar
Excellent optics
150 APO Refractor is an exceptional
Smooth, dual-speed
telescope for visual observing. And it’s
2-inch focuser
an opinion that grew stronger in the
Rugged carrying/ weeks of testing that followed.
storage case
If anyone needs proof that amateur
Eyepieces, star diagonal astronomy’s love affair with refractors
and finder not included has not abated in recent years, they can
(but see below)
simply tally up the number of refractors
on the market today with apertures
What we don’t like
between 60 and 150 mm. It has to be
Tube slips in its
mounting rings hundreds. Among them is Sky‑Watcher’s
Evostar line, featuring two‑element
Eyepieces, star diagonal,
objectives with one element made of ED
and finder not included
(but see above) (extra‑low dispersion) glass. As such,
these objectives produce images with
far better colour correction for a given
focal ratio than typical two‑element
achromats made of traditional crown‑
and‑flint glasses. There are currently six
models in the Evostar line ranging from
72‑ to 150‑mm aperture. There’s also a
50‑mm version (Evoguide) that’s mainly
intended as a finder‑ or guidescope.
The Evostars are a step down from
Sky‑Watcher’s premier Esprit ED Triplet
APO Refractors, which have three‑
element objectives and are aimed at
observers who are also interested in
high‑end astrophotography. But that’s
not to say that the Evostar scopes aren’t
suited for astrophotography, especially
in the case of the 150‑mm model,
which is available in two flavours.
Hardware
For this review we asked to borrow the
Evostar 150 APO, which is the basic
version of the two 150‑mm models.
It’s equipped with a dual‑speed 2‑inch
focuser, lightweight tube rings and a
Vixen‑style dovetail mounting bar. The
other model is the Evostar 150DX APO
Refractor. It has the same objective
and tube assembly but comes with the
heavy‑duty, dual‑speed focuser found
on the Esprit 150‑mm scope, and it’s
supplied with heavier tube rings and
a Losmandy‑style dovetail bar. These
upgrades cost an additional US$850
over the price of the basic 150‑mm
scope. The more‑robust focuser on
the DX model brings the advantage of
accepting the new f/6.2 focal reducer

68 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE March | April 2021

  These 30-second exposures of the Pleiades star cluster on a hazy, moonlit evening were made with the Evostar and 2-inch focuser working at f/8 (left)
and with the 3.4-inch focuser and f/6.2 focal reducer (right). Insets show analysis of the images with CCD Inspector, revealing that the focal reducer also
flattens the scope’s focal plane compared to the curved field inherent to the f/8 objective, and that it would be good for an APS-format detector.

designed specifically for the Evostar
150-mm scope. Because swapping the
focusers on the main Evostar 150 tube
assembly takes only minutes, Sky-
Watcher sent along the upgraded items
available with the DX model so that I
could try them out. Let’s start with the
basic model.
The Evostar 150 APO is a handsome
scope with its dark, metal-flake painted
tube, white dew cap and focuser and
Sky-Watcher’s signature green trim.
With the focuser retracted its overall
length is 128 cm, and it weighs 9.3 kg.
It comes with a very solid, metal lens
 For those with an interest in deep sky
imaging, there’s an upgraded version called the
A LL PHOTOS BY AU THOR UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED; SCOPE IN CASE: SE A N WA LK ER / S&T
cap. The supplied carrying case is
also particularly noteworthy for its
solid, high-quality construction. It
alone weighs 16 kg and is made for
transporting as well as storing the
scope. The scope is sold without a
finder, star diagonal or eyepieces. This
might be a negative for a first-time
scope buyer, but for observers who
already own these items it helps keep
the cost of the instrument down, which
I found a plus. There’s a dovetail base
for mounting a finder on the focuser
body. While not universal, this format
is relatively common, and I used it to
 The author found the 2-inch Crayford-style
focuser to be excellent for visual observing
attach a finder that I commandeered
from another scope.
From the standpoint of visual
observing, I was very happy with the
2-inch Crayford-style focuser. It has
slightly more than 133 mm of travel,
and easily accommodated every eyepiece
I tried with and without a 2-inch star
diagonal. I was especially impressed
with the light touch required to operate
the fine-focus knob — something that I
really appreciated when focusing at high
magnifications where a heavier touch
would be prone to jiggling the telescope.
The 2-inch focuser is also very good
 The optional f/6.2 focal reducer also
significantly flattens the Evostar’s focal plane

Evostar 150DX APO Refractor, which replaces
the tube rings, dovetail bar and focuser on the
standard model with the items shown here. At
right is the optional f/6.2 focal reducer made
specifically for the Evostar 150, which only
attaches to the heavy-duty, 3.4-inch focuser.
and even astrophotography with cameras as
heavy as a DSLR. The robust focuser on the
DX model is the same one used on Sky-
Watcher’s premium 150-mm Esprit refractors
and is capable of handling much heavier
imaging setups.
for deep sky astrophotography. Fitted with
a 48-mm (large aperture) T-ring, the setup
provides even illumination across a full-frame
camera sensor with only a little vignetting in the
very corners of the image. The focal reducer
can be rotated to aid with framing images.

www.skyandtelescope.com.au 69
 AS&T TEST REPORT
for imaging the Moon and planets
with the small planetary cameras
designed to fit into 1¼-inch eyepiece
holders. And while I wasn’t planning
to do photography with large cameras,
I was pleased to find that the 2-inch
focuser did not slip when my heavy
DSLR camera was attached, even when
the scope was pointed at the zenith. In
my opinion this focuser serves well for
visual observing and astrophotography
with cameras up to and including
DSLRs.
The only hardware issue I had with
the Evostar 150 APO involves the tube
rings. With their clamping knobs fully
tightened, the tube sometimes slipped
when the scope was pointed at high
elevations. My solution was to add a
couple of small cork strips around a
portion of the inside of each felt-lined
tube ring to add a little friction.
As mentioned above, the DX model’s
hardware upgrades include the heavy-
duty 3.4-inch focuser. There’s no
question that this focuser is very nice,
 The author mounted the Evostar together
with his homemade 150‑mm f/10 refractor
assembled with a conventional achromatic
objective made by A. Jaegers in the early
1970s. While both scopes were evenly
matched in critical resolution tests, the Evostar
consistently delivered images that were
brighter and more contrasty than the 150‑mm.
70 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE March | April 2021
and it really is a must-have upgrade if
you intend is to use the Evostar 150 with
a heavy imaging setup, but I didn’t find it
a significant advantage for strictly visual
observing. The rack-and-pinion-driven
drawtube has 89 mm of travel, with its
midpoint being where many eyepieces
come to focus when using a 2-inch
star diagonal. For straight-through
viewing some eyepieces may need a short
extension tube. The fine-focus knob has
a firmer feel than the 2-inch focuser,
and there’s a small lever that adds
friction on the rack-and-pinion drive,
which virtually guarantees it will not
slip regardless of the load on the focuser.
This focuser has the same style dovetail
mounting base for a finder that’s
included on the 2-inch focuser.
The biggest optical advantage of
the DX focuser is that it accepts the
new Evostar f/6.2 focal reducer and
makes the scope more attractive to
people interested in deep sky imaging.
While it’s called a focal reducer, this
accessory also flattens the field quite
a bit. At f/6.2, the Evostar 150 has an
effective focal length of 930 mm and a
field of view covering about 2¼° × 1½°
on a full-frame (36 × 24-mm) sensor.
With a 48-mm T-ring on my full-
frame DSLR, there was only minimal
vignetting in the corners of the frame.
And though it’s a somewhat subjective
call, I found star images to be very good
over more than 80% of the sensor’s
long dimension. The bottom line with
the focal reducer is an imaging circle
with good star images approaching 30
mm in diameter (covering a 1.8° field)
and almost no vignetting. It may not
be in the same class as today’s elite
astrographs, but it’s still an impressive
setup for deep sky astrophotography.
Optical performance
There’s a bit of a backstory as to why
I passed judgement so quickly on the
Evostar 150 APO’s optical quality, and it
involves another telescope. Earlier this
year I began an observing project with
a 152-mm (6-inch) f/10 refractor that
I cobbled together using an A. Jaegers’
objective that had sat on my workshop
shelf for more than 40 years. The
 While the Evostar 150 models are sold
without a finder, there’s a common‑style
dovetail shoe on the focusers for attaching one.
project was a departure from my typical
just-for-fun observing, which usually
involves deep sky objects and reflectors
with apertures of 30 cm and up.
I gained a lot more appreciation for
observers who rave about refractors
and how they excel for viewing the
Moon, planets and double stars (the
latter being a big part of my observing
project). It also helped that my local
astronomical seeing accommodates
a 152-mm scope far more often than
it does a large reflector. The A. Jaegers
lens proved to be very sharp and clearly
capable of resolving double stars around
the aperture’s 0.75-arcsecond Dawes
limit when the seeing permitted. Its
main weakness is colour fringing,
which is to be expected for an f/10
crown-and-flint achromat.
Given this 152-mm scope’s
aperture and performance, it was an
excellent benchmark for comparing
to the Evostar 150 APO, and as such I
mounted both scopes side by side on the
same Sky-Watcher EQ8-R Pro German
equatorial mount. And to help level the
playing field, I selected sets of eyepieces
that gave similar magnifications when
paired with the respective scopes, often
using the same brand and design,
including eyepieces from the Burgess/
TMB Planetary Series and Tele Vue’s
Radian family.
My first look through the Evostar
150 APO was an eye-opener. Despite its
slightly smaller aperture (150 vs. 152
mm), it gave a view of the brilliant star
Arcturus in deepening twilight that was

 Although the telescope’s 25-cm-long dew
shield does not retract, it can be unscrewed
from the lens cell to make it easier to blow or
gently brush off any dust and tree pollen from
the objective. The metal lens cap fits on the
dew shield and offers significant protection.
clearly brighter and more contrasty than
the one produced by the 152-mm. The
modern multi-coatings on the Evostar
objective likely account for much of the
difference, but the scope’s three internal
light baffles offered better suppression
of scattered light than did the baffling I
used for the 152-mm. As the night wore
on, same-magnification views through
both scopes always seemed brighter and
more contrasty in the Evostar, and it
wasn’t just a subtle difference.
Indeed, the only aspect of the
two scopes that was evenly matched
involved resolution. During weeks
of observing under varying seeing
conditions and moonlight, there
was never a time when one scope
outperformed the other for resolving
tight binary stars or lunar and planetary
details.
The Evostar always came to a crisp
focus even with magnifications between
500× and 600×. Only the slightest
touch on the fine-focus knob was
enough to show the difference between
an image being in and out of focus. For
a two-element objective, the Evostar’s
colour correction is noteworthy. There
is only a slight hint of colour fringing
around out-of-focus star images. In
focus there were no noticeable colour
halos around bright stars. Spherical
aberration was also well-corrected. Stars
showed similar diffraction patterns on
both sides of focus. The only exception
occurred during evenings when the
temperature was rapidly falling and
I could sometimes detect a hint of
spherical aberration in the out-of-
focus images, which is not unusual
for a refractor objective acclimating to
temperature changes. Even so, it was
never enough to degrade in-focus views.
The Moon was a particularly good
target for the Evostar, especially
when the seeing permitted using high
magnifications. The scope produced
excellent, high-contrast views along
the lunar terminator without a hint
of scattered light washing over the
deep shadows. And while timing of the
observation was as important as the
telescope, on the evening of October 24
I had one of my most memorable views
of the famed Straight Wall and the top
of the adjacent crater Birt catching the
first rays of lunar sunrise.
Last year, Jupiter and Saturn barely
made it above the treetops as seen from
my observatory, but there were times
when I had decent views of both and
several instances when Jupiter’s moon
Ganymede clearly appeared as a tiny
disk rather than just a point of light.
The highlight of the season was, of
course, Mars, and here the Evostar did
not disappoint. I was able to identify
dozens of dark albedo features and the
shrinking south polar cap as I followed
the Red Planet on nights when the
seeing was decent.
Overall, I was extremely pleased
with the Evostar’s optical performance.
 Even with the tube rings fully tightened, the
telescope tended to slip when pointed to high
elevations. The author solved the problem by
adding several thin cork strips between the
ring’s felt lining and the telescope tube.
I can’t speak for everyone, but it’s
difficult for me to imagine anyone
nitpicking the views this scope is
capable of producing. It is a very fine
instrument for serious visual observers
and delivers everything I expect from a
150-mm-aperture telescope.
A word about mountings
Because of their length, refractors put
more demands on a telescope mounting
than instruments with compact tube
assemblies. As such, it’s desirable to use a
mount rated for a greater weight capacity
than the telescope. My observing setup
with the two refractors mounted
together totaled about 27 kg, or slightly
more than half of the rated capacity of
the Sky-Watcher EQ8-R Pro. That might
seem like overkill, but it really was a
pleasure using such a solid platform
with responsive slow-motion controls.
A mount with twice the weight capacity
of the Evostar 150 would certainly be a
good choice for the scope.
If owning a high-quality, large-
aperture refractor is on your bucket
list, I can highly recommend
the Evostar 150 APO. Its optical
performance for visual observing is on
par with some of the finest refractors
I’ve ever used, including ones costing
three and four times the price of the
Evostar. The light touch needed to
operate the 2-inch focuser’s fine-focus
knob is a real plus for observing at
high magnifications. The focuser was
also more than adequate for all kinds
of astrophotography with cameras
even as heavy as today’s typical DSLRs.
The biggest advantage that the heavy-
duty focuser on the Evostar 150DX
APO brings to astrophotography is its
potential for using the optional f/6.2
focal reducer. While that setup is a
notch below the capability of Sky-
Watcher’s 150-mm Esprit astrograph,
it’s more than enough for a lot of
serious deep sky photography. Needless
to say, I’m impressed with the 150-mm
Evostar refractor.
¢ DENNIS DI CICCO spends a lot of
clear nights testing equipment from his
backyard observatory.
www.skyandtelescope.com.au 71
 ASTRONOMER’S WORKBENCH by Jerry Oltion
The trekking pole
travel scope
Never leave home without it!
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 8×42 binoculars.
He did take his carbon-fibre trekking
poles, though, and while hiking began to
wonder if he could design a travel scope
that would use the poles for struts. The
goal was to build a portable scope that he
would never be tempted to leave behind.
So he settled on a 114-mm f/4 mirror,
which would just fit into a Pelican 1120
Protector Case. The case is lightweight
yet rugged, and the plastic is easy to drill
and shape with a Dremel tool, plus it
holds screws well.
Mounting the trekking poles was
straightforward. Rob carved two
channels out of the lip of the case just
inside the handle. That gave 66 mm of
spacing between the poles and enabled
the use of the handle supports for
additional stability. He secured the
poles in place with hose clamps.
The mirror cell uses the Pelican case
for its rear element and three drilled and
countersunk wooden squares for the
mirror’s support points. Pan-head bolts
are glued to the wood, and the squares are
glued to the mirror.
Bolts run out the
back of the case for
collimation. Springs
around the screws
keep the mirror
firmly in place.
 The travel scope sets
up easily and provides
an excellent observing
experience.
 Everything but the
trekking poles and tripod
fits inside the Pelican
case.
72 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE March | April 2021
He wanted everything but the
poles stored in the case, which meant
going with a minimalist focuser.
Some rummaging around turned up
a Celestron 1.25″ visual back, which
he mounted upside-down on a 6-mm
plywood square. The visual back threads
were cut off to lower the focuser’s profile.
That holds the eyepiece securely, and
focus is achieved by loosening the set
screw and moving the eyepiece in and
out. If the focal point is outside the travel
range, the truss lengths can be adjusted
where they attach to the Pelican case. The
secondary mirror is on a single stalk that
bolts to the wooden focuser platform.
Rather than clamp the trekking
poles on the upper end, Rob added
two 15-cm lengths of carbon fibre rod
that slip snugly inside the ends of the
trekking poles, so the assembly can be
slid into place using trekking pole splice
joints. With the secondary removed,
the focuser/secondary assembly also fits
into the lid of the Pelican case, with the
secondary mirror tucked in beside it.
Rob mounted a finder bracket to
the side of the case for a low-profile
red-dot finder. There’s just enough
room for a 25-mm eyepiece against the
focuser board, along with a collimation
Robert Capon
carries his ultra-compact,
ultra-lightweight travel scope.
eyepiece, Moon filter, screwdriver, hex
key, and even a mini planisphere.
The scope has two mounting options:
a short Vixen-style dovetail rail (Sky-
Watcher S20550) mounted to the side,
and a tripod quick-release plate on the
bottom. Because the telescope is so light
(1.4 kg), you can mount it on any tripod
sturdy enough for a DSLR camera.
The result is an excellent optical
instrument. When packed, the case is
just 21 × 17 × 10 cm.
For more information, contact Rob at
rscapon@gmail.com.
■ JERRY OLTION also hopes to take a
trip with a travel scope soon.
ROBERT CA PON (3)
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 NIGHT LIFE

A
ussies who have a passion for
astronomy and who share that
passion by communicating
astronomical discoveries and research
with the public, are eligible to put their
names forward for the prestigious David
Allen Prize.
Named after the late Dr David Allen
(read his obituary at http://adsabs.
harvard.edu/full/1994Obs...114..250M),
who worked at the then Anglo-
Australian Observatory, the prize is
awarded roughly every three years by
the Astronomical Society of Australia
(ASA) for “the best contribution, or
series of contributions which portrays
an astronomical theme in an exciting
and educative way”. That contribution
must have been undertaken in Australia
within the past three years, and only
Australians are eligible to apply.
According to the ASA, “The scope of
the activity can be quite broad such as
public presentations, popular writing,
sustained media and outreach events,
on-line activities and/or any innovative
and creative activity that achieves
astronomy outreach”.
Full details of how to apply can
be found at https://asa.astronomy.
org.au/prizes_and-grants/prizes-
awards/david-allen-prize/.
Entries are now open also for
the Royal Observatory Greenwich’s
Astronomy Photographer of the
Year competition. Now in its 13th year,
the competition is open to anyone from
anywhere in the world and comes with

Recognising
an amazing grand prize of £10,000.
Submissions can be made in nine
main categories, such as skyscapes, the

excellence
Sun, the Moon, stars and nebulae, and
planets, comets and asteroids. There
are also two special prizes: the Annie
Maunder Prize for Image Innovation
Science communication and astrophotography for the best photo processed using open
awards up for grabs. source data; and the Sir Patrick Moore
Prize for Best Newcomer for those who
have ventured into astrophotography
only within the last 12 months and who
haven’t entered the competition before.
Full details are available at www.
WENH A N HONG

One of the winning images from last year’s

rmg.co.uk/astrocomp. Entries close
Royal Observatory Greenwich’s Astronomy
Photographer of the Year competition.
on Friday, March 5, 2021, so get out
there and get snapping!

74 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE March | April 2021


Mark
Blackford
Mark Blackford joined the Astronomical
Society of NSW in 1980 and has
enjoyed visual observing for more than
40 years. Recently he has been actively
involved in developing and promoting
DSLR photometry. He is director of the
Variable Stars South group (formerly
the Variable Star Section of the Royal
Astronomical Society of NZ).
What got you into astronomy?
My interest was first sparked when, as
an eight-year-old, I watched the grainy
B&W live TV broadcast of the first lunar
landing. Less than a year later I was
woken by my parents at some ungodly
hour of the morning and ushered
outside, reluctantly on my part. The
reward was a spectacular view of a bright
comet (C/1969 Y1 Bennett, I believe).
From that moment I was hooked.
What was your first telescope set-up?
For my 10th birthday I received a
50-mm Tasco refractor. My first views
(upside down and wobbly) were of the
Sydney-to-Hobart yachts moored in
Rushcutters Bay, Sydney. Back home
in the pristine skies of Macksville I
enjoyed views of the Moon, but that was
about all I could find.
A few years later I was given a 15-cm
f/12 Newtonian in exchange for washing
the owner’s house. Planets and clusters
were stunning through that scope.
What sort of gear do you use now?
A 35.6-cm (14-inch) Ritchey-Chrétien
and an 80-mm ED refractor are
dedicated to CCD photometry. With
them I record and analyse light curves
of variable stars, mainly eclipsing
binaries, and currently collaborate
with professional astronomers in New
Zealand, Brazil, the Middle East and
Europe. For visual use I have a 20-cm
SCT and 25-cm Dobsonian. I enjoy
showing visitors to our AirBnB granny
flat some of the more spectacular deep
sky and Solar System objects.
What has been your favourite moment
when stargazing?
The arcing, multiple tails of Comet
McNaught, emerging from evening
twilight, ranks very highly,
as does the extremely long
tail of Comet Hyakutake
viewed from the cockpit of
a Qantas flight somewhere
over the Pacific. However,
my most memorable
experience was the 2002
Leonids meteor shower from
sand dunes near Uluru.
People came from all around
the world and were treated
X One of Mark’s images of the
eclipsing binary star UY Sculptor,
with galaxy NGC 55 in the
background.
IN PROFILE
W MARK BLACKFORD in his backyard
observatory. The scope is a 35.6-cm (14-inch)
Ritchey-Chrétien.
to hundreds of bright meteors, some
casting shadows or leaving trails that
persisted for many minutes.
What activities are you involved in?
One of our Variable Stars South
(variablestarssouth.org) projects
monitors brightness variations of
the star Eta Carina for a Brazilian
professional astronomer; it has become
too bright for his instruments. Another
is refining the orbital period of neglected
southern eclipsing binary stars. For
interesting cases we publish light curve
and period change analyses. We also
provide photometry of targets studied
by a New Zealand professional, with a
number of journal papers resulting.
What’s on your astronomy ‘to do’ list?
On a practical level I’d like to fully
automate my two photometry telescopes
to maximise efficiency, and minimise
disruption to my sleep. A distant dream
would be to own a remotely operated
observatory at a site with more clear
nights than I currently enjoy on
the NSW mid-north coast. Finally,
through Variable Stars South, I’d like to
promote amateur variable star research
and collaborations with professional
astronomers. Southern variables are
relatively understudied and amateurs
are making scientifically valuable
contributions.
NGC 55
UY Sci
www.skyandtelescope.com.au 75
 GALLERY

Astrophotos from our readers

HORSE IN A FIELD
Davide Mancini
The Horsehead, that famous dark
nebula, is silhouetted against the
glow of emission nebula IC 434
(first spotted by William Herschel
in 1876). Davide used a SharpStar
150 f/2.8 scope, ZWO ASI2600MC
camera and filters for a total
integration time of 11 hours.

76 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE March | April 2021

JUPITER AND SATURN
Peter Anderson
Those lucky enough to have good weather
were treated to the ‘conjunction of the century’
in December. Peter used a Canon EOS 70D
camera for this picturesque shot.

t SOLAR SPECTACLE
Gustavo Gonzalez
The December 14 solar eclipse
was witnessed from parts of South
America, including by Gustavo
from the city of Ramos Mexia in
Argentina’s Rio Negro province. He
used a Canon EOS 7D II camera,
Canon EF 500mm f/4 lens and
HOYA UV&IR Cut filter.

HOW TO SUBMIT YOUR

IMAGES Images should
be sent electronically and in
high-resolution (up to 10MB
per email) to contributions@
skyandtelescope.com.au. Please
provide full details for each image,
eg. date and time taken; telescope
and/or lens; mount; imaging
equipment type and model; filter
(if used); exposure or integration
time; and any software processing
employed. If your image is
published in this Gallery, you'll
receive a 3-issue subscription or
renewal to the magazine.

www.skyandtelescope.com.au 77
 GALLERY

78 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE March | April 2021

p THE GALAXY NEXT DOOR
Nev Blyth
Nev captured the Large Magellanic Cloud
in all its glory from under the skies of
Canberra. He used a Samyang 135-mm
f/2.0 lens and Canon EOS 60D camera (with
Astronomik CLS filter) mounted on a Sky-
Watcher Star Adventurer mount, for a total
of twenty, 180-second sub-frames.

u SOLAR SPOTS
David Hough
David captured this sunspot group on
November 10 last year using a William
Optics FLT 132 scope, Baader solar
wedge, ZWO ASI174MM camera and
Prostar Barlow lens.

t MOON VIEW
Julie Straayer
Believe it or not, this image was made with
a smartphone. Julie used a Sky-Watcher
102 Maksutov scope, Celestron Ultima Edge
18-mm eyepiece, a smartphone adapter
and a Samsung Galaxy S9 in Pro mode. The
exposure was 1/250th of a second.

www.skyandtelescope.com.au 79
 GALLERY

p SCULPTOR GALAXY
Fernando de Menezes
NGC 253, the Sculptor Galaxy (also
known as the Silver Coin or Silver Dollar
galaxy) is one of the finest spirals out
there. John Herschel called it “a superb
object”. Fernando used a Sky-Watcher
150mm Esprit 150ED Triplet APO
refractor, ZWO ASI6200MC camera and
seventy, 300-second frames.

 THE TRIFID
Ian Stephenson
One of your editor’s favourite deep
sky objects, the Trifid Nebula is a huge
HII gas region in Sagittarius. Charles
Messier spotted it on June 5, 1764 and
made it number 20 in his famous list. For
this shot Ian used a Celestron EdgeHD
9.25 SCT and ZWO ASI294MC-Pro
camera, and stacked twelve, 240-minute
exposures. No filters were used.

80 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE March | April 2021

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www.skyandtelescope.com.au 81
 FOCAL POINT by Joel Marks

The next big one

The coronavirus pandemic reminds us that preparedness is critical when
catastrophes come out of the blue, including from space.

W
hen 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 before to teach.
I immediately dashed off an email
asking him how he was doing. I was
semi-relieved to hear back that he was
okay but self-isolating in his flat, and
that things were starting to look pretty
hairy in the city. Never did it occur to
me that ‘it can happen here’.
Of course, it can, and did, and
more swiftly than anyone would have
believed (save epidemiologists and sci-fi
and disaster-film enthusiasts). But the
coronavirus pandemic is not the only
sort of catastrophe that might pounce
on us anytime, and it has something to
tell us about how to think about certain
other kinds.
One summer night in 1994 my wife
and I took a small telescope into the
country to observe one of the most
spectacular astronomical events in our
Solar System ever witnessed by human
eyes. The broken-up Comet Shoemaker-
Levy 9 was pummelling Jupiter — hit
after hit after hit. The points of impact
were just beyond Jupiter’s horizon, but
as the planet rotated, its big ‘black eyes’
came into view one after the other.
Some of these strike zones approached
Earth in size (see photo at right).
Some laypeople had worried that this
event could endanger our planet, and I’d
written to the local newspaper saying it
certainly posed no risk to us. But could
a similar comet crisis happen here?
In the years since, I’ve learned a great
deal about the threat posed to our own
planet by comets (and asteroids) whose
orbits cross Earth’s. In particular, I’ve
come to appreciate that a comet can
not only delight us with a spectacle,  The comet’s ‘G’ fragment gave Jupiter this
‘black eye’ when it struck on July 18, 1994.
but can also put us at mortal peril, as
The big crescent is about 12,000 km across, or
the average size of a comet nucleus is about 94% of Earth’s diameter.
large enough to possibly destroy human
civilisation were one to hit us. to respond rapidly can make all the
difference. If tomorrow we discovered
a comet with our name on it at the
A comet can not only delight orbit of Jupiter, we might have only
nine months before impact. As the
us with a spectacle, but can late comet expert Michael A’Hearn
also put us at mortal peril. testified to the US Congress in 2013,
“you would have to have something
ready to launch” to have any chance of
Some people try to reassure us preventing the impact. Currently we do
that a collision is highly unlikely. Yet not have that preparedness, nor do we
after Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 came have a plan in place to attain it.
Comet Siding Spring, which narrowly My colleague in Wuhan was
missed hitting Mars in 2014. And last eventually evacuated and spent two
July 1 was the 250th anniversary of weeks under quarantine before returning
humanity’s closest known brush with to his home. But as others around the
potential extinction by a comet, when world have discovered in relation to HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE CO ME T TE A M / N ASA (2)

giant Lexell’s Comet shot past our
planet less than six times the distance
between Earth and the Moon.
What the world has learned from
the COVID-19 pandemic is that a lack
of adequate preparedness and a failure
 Planet-size ‘bruises’ that Comet Shoemaker-
Levy 9’s fragments left in Jupiter’s atmosphere
in 1994 are a sobering reminder of what could
happen on Earth if our luck ran out.
this virus, if action is not taken quickly
enough, there is nowhere to hide.
¢ JOEL MARKS is a professor emeritus
of philosophy and a self-described
philosophical astronomer. He recently
served on a NASA Small Bodies
Assessment Group team charged
with updating planetary defence
considerations.

82 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE March | April 2021