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skywatcheraustralia.com.au
November | December 2020 ISSUE 128, VOL. 16 NO. 7
Contents
Incredible images from
p.14
REGULARS the David Malin Awards
5 Spectrum
8 News notes
11 AS&T bookshop
13 Discoveries
25 New products
63 Cosmic relief
FEATURES
14 The David Malin Awards
2020
We present the amazing award-
winning images from Australia’s
major astrophotography
competition.
18 To touch the Sun

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe is on a
record-breaking journey to study
OBSERVING & EXPLORING
our nearest star.
By Monica Young 42 Binocular highlight
Grab your binos and find Uranus.
26 The radio sky
By Mathew Wedel
Astronomers have invented a
variety of novel approaches to 44 Under the stars
observe the longest wavelengths of Best sights for November nights.
the electromagnetic spectrum. By Fred Schaaf
By Diana Hannikainen Easy ideas for better
46 Sun, Moon and planets p.56
planetary viewing
36 Star clocks Jupiter and Saturn shine together.
Measurements of stellar rotation By Jonathan Nally
give astronomers insight into stars’
47 Meteors 50 Celestial calendar
ages. But they’ve also unearthed a
It’s Leonids meteor season again. The gegenschein, an eclipse and Uranus.
mystery.
By Jonathan Nally By Bob King
By Jennifer van Saders
48 Comets 52 Exploring the Solar System
56 The lost discoveries of
Is a magnitude 9 comet on the way? The changing face of Mars.
E.E. Barnard
By David Seargent By William Sheehan
The famed American astronomer’s
unreported discoveries are finally 49 Variable stars 56 Observing
coming to light. T Tauri is the star of the show. Become a planetary pro using these tips.
By Steve Gottlieb By Alan Plummer By Thomas A. Dobbins
4 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE November | December 2020

by Jonathan Nally SPECTRUM
Astronomy – not
a nerdy pursuit
I FIND IT HARD TO UNDERSTAND those people who think astronomy
is a waste of time, or some kind of pursuit that only nerds enjoy. They
don’t seem to realise that relishing the night sky is just as valid as going
on a bushwalk or a visit to the beach, or diving on the Great Barrier Reef.
It’s all part of exploring the natural world, and the cosmos is the natural
p.72 world on the grandest scale.
Who can look at a photo of a nebula or a galaxy and not be awestruck
An f/3.3 by the majesty of space? Witness the winning images from this year’s
Newtonian that David Malin Awards (see page 14) — simply amazing. As the judge
simply folds away
and namesake of the awards, David Malin, has remarked, the kinds of
images we’re seeing from amateurs these days used to be the preserve of
THE ASTRONOMY SCENE a handful of professional astronomers who were lucky enough to have
access to huge telescopes in mountaintop observatories. In fact, many
62 Astrophotography amateurs have surpassed anything the professionals could ever have done.
Image stacking is all about improving
For that, we have advances in imaging and computing power to
signal and reducing noise, and
thank, as well as the efforts of many people who have developed special
knowing when you need to use it.
By Sean Walker techniques — such as image stacking (see page 62). It is evidence, I
think, of the golden age of amateur astronomy in which we’re living. Just
68 Test report
imagine what the state of the art will be in 10 or 20 years’ time — our
Sharpstar’s 15-cm hyperbolic
efforts will no doubt seem quaint and rustic in comparison.
astrograph promises sharp images
across a wide field. Jonathan Nally, Editor
By Alan Dyer editor@skyandtelescope.com.au
72 Astronomer’s workbench
A unique telescope that is a
functional f/3.3 masterpiece.
By Jerry Oltion THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO ASTRONOMY
74 Night life and Astro calendar Check out the Australian Sky & Telescope website for the latest astronomy
news from Australia and around the cosmos: skyandtelescope.com.au
Events, activities and what’s
happening in the astronomy world.
Printed by IVE
75 In profile EDITORIAL
EDITOR Jonathan Nally Australia distribution by Network
ART DIRECTOR Lee McLachlan Services. New Zealand distribution
76 Gallery CONTRIBUTING EDITORS by Ovato Retail Distribution Australia.
John Drummond, David Ellyard, SKY & TELESCOPE © 2020 AAS Sky Publishing, LLC
The latest images from our readers Alan Plummer, David Seargent, INTERNATIONAL and Paragon Media. No part of this
EMAIL info@skyandtelescope.com.au publication may be reproduced,
EDITOR IN CHIEF Peter Tyson
80 Marketplace translated, or converted into a
machine-readable form or language
ADVERTISING SENIOR EDITORS
without the written consent of the
81 Index to advertisers ADVERTISING MANAGER Jonathan Nally
EMAIL jonathan@skyandtelescope.com.au
J. Kelly Beatty, Alan M. MacRobert
publisher. Australian Sky & Telescope
SCIENCE EDITOR Camille M. Carlisle is published by Paragon Media under
82 Focal point SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES
NEWS EDITOR Monica Young
ASSOCIATE EDITORS
licence from AAS Sky Publishing,
TEL 02 9439 1955 LLC as the Australian edition of Sky &
Transits are highly infectious. EMAIL subscribe@paragonmedia.com.au Susan N. Johnson-Roehr, Sean Walker Telescope. Australian Sky & Telescope
OBSERVING EDITOR is a registered trademark of AAS Sky
By Derek Wallentinsen Publishing, LLC USA. Articles express
PARAGON MEDIA PTY LIMITED Diana Hannikainen
ABN 49 097 087 860 the opinions of the authors and are
ART DIRECTOR Terri Dubé
ON THE COVER TEL 02 9439 1955 FAX 02 9439 1977 ILLUSTRATION DIRECTOR
not necessarily those of the Editor or
Paragon Media. ISSN 1832-0457
Suite 14, Level 2/174 Willoughby Rd, Gregg Dinderman
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NEWS NOTES
No signs of life in Vela…

NO RADIO SIGNALS HAVE BEEN was more than 100 times ‘broader and  An artist’s impression of an Earth-like world
detected during a deep search for low- deeper’ than any previous SETI study. orbiting the Sun-like star HD 85512 in Vela.
frequency transmissions emanating Professor Tingay said he wasn’t
from a region in the direction of surprised by the result, noting that Western Australia and half in southern
the southern constellation Vela. The while “this was a really big study, the Africa — astronomers will have an
volume of space covered by the survey amount of space we looked at was the even more powerful tool with which to
— conducted with the Murchison equivalent of trying to find something continue the search.
Widefield Array (MWA) in Western in the Earth’s oceans but only searching “Due to the increased sensitivity, the
Australia — is known to contain at least a volume of water equivalent to a large SKA low-frequency telescope to be built
10 million stars. backyard swimming pool”. in Western Australia will be capable of
The study was run by CSIRO “Since we can’t really assume how detecting Earth-like radio signals from
astronomer Dr Chenoa Tremblay possible alien civilisations might utilise relatively nearby planetary systems,”
and Professor Steven Tingay, Deputy technology, we need to search in many said Professor Tingay. “With the SKA,
Executive Director of the International different ways. Using radio telescopes, we’ll be able to survey billions of star
E XOPL A NE T: ESO/ M. KOR NMESSER / NICK RISING ER (SK YSURV E Y.ORG); MWA: DR AGONFLY MEDIA
Centre for Radio Astronomy Research we can explore an eight-dimensional systems, seeking technosignatures in an
(ICRAR) and leader the Curtin search space,” he added. astronomical ocean of other worlds.”
University node of ICRAR. Once the much larger Square “Although there is a long way to
The MWA was employed to listen Kilometre Array (SKA) is built — half in go in the search for extraterrestrial
for radio signals at wavelengths similar intelligence, telescopes such as the
to those used by FM radio stations. MWA will continue to push the limits
Any such signals would be suggestive — we have to keep looking,” he said.
of a non-natural source, or what The MWA is situated at the
astronomers call ‘technosignatures’. Murchison Radio-astronomy
“The MWA is a unique telescope, with Observatory in a remote part of
an extraordinarily wide field-of-view that Western Australia’s desert region. The
allows us to observe millions of stars ‘radio quiet’ observatory was established
simultaneously,” Dr Tremblay said. and is maintained by the CSIRO.
“With this dataset we found The MWA itself was financed by a
no technosignatures — no sign of consortium of institutions from seven
intelligent life.” countries (Australia, USA, India, New
The MWA concentrated on a part  The Murchison Widefield Array radio Zealand, Canada, Japan and China), led
of the sky in the direction of Vela for telescope comprises thousands of individual by Curtin University.
a total of 17 hours, in a search that antennae, connected electronically. ■ JONATHAN NALLY

t An artist’s illustration of the Venusian surface
and atmosphere. Phosphine molecules float in
the clouds at altitudes of 55 to 80 km.
in the 1990s. His research led to the

discovery of phosphine-producing
microbes. In 2013, scientists of the
All Small Molecules project, led by
Sara Seager (MIT), decided to include
phosphine in their search for potential
indicators of life on other worlds.
Quantum chemist Clara Sousa-Silva
joined the effort in 2015, researching
its potential as a biosignature gas on
rocky exoplanets. It was this work that
eventually caught Greaves attention;
the MIT theorists and Greaves’ group
of observers finally joined forces in
December 2018.
The team is confident in the
analysis but agrees that independent
.. but signs of life on Venus? observations are needed to detect other

phosphine absorption lines in order to
verify the detection. As for whether the
phosphine on Venus is a biosignature,
A TEAM OF RESEARCHERS LED by Jane If the detection pans out, it might be they’re agnostic.
Greaves (Cardiff University, UK) has a sign of life on our sister planet. “My gut tells me an unknown
announced the detection of phosphine “Back in 2016 I was going through photochemical process is going on,” says
in the cool cloud decks of Venus. old Solar System literature and I came team member William Bains (MIT). “I
Phosphine is a trace gas in Earth’s across the detection of phosphine think the chances of there being life on
atmosphere associated with anaerobic on the gas giants,” Greaves says. “I Venus are very small.”
life. Astronomers have previously thought, ‘Whatever is this molecule?’” Co-author Sousa-Silva is similarly
observed it on Jupiter and Saturn, but On Earth, phosphine is mostly cautious. “My science tells me the
its production there is understood to be produced industrially, but microbes detection is true, but it’s pretty wild,”
A RTIST’S IMPRESSION: ESO/ M. KOR NMESSER /L. CA LÇA DA; V ENUS: N ASA HISTORY OFFICE /ROSCOSM OS
driven by the gas giants’ high pressure, can make it too. Greaves was aware of she says. “I hope that everyone will get
hydrogen-rich environments and the theory of aerial life on Venus, and their models running and try and find
intensely hot depths. On Venus, it could she realised that she might actually be alternatives that explain this. I have
be a sign of something else entirely. able to detect it using ground-based reached the limits of my knowledge
Greaves and her colleagues observed telescopes. and welcome the rest of the scientific
Venus first with the James Clark “No one had thought to look community to join in the fun.”
Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) in 2017, for phosphine there before,” she ■ ARWEN RIMMER
then again with the Atacama Large says. “When we discovered it, I was
Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) shocked!”
in 2019. They observed the planet at In its pure form, phosphine is a
millimetre wavelengths and found the colourless, odourless gas made up
chemical fingerprint of phosphine — a of one phosphorus atom and three
molecule that many think could be a hydrogen atoms. It is flammable at
biosignature, or sign of life. room temperature and highly toxic,
The team investigated numerous which is why it is produced mainly as
possible abiotic sources for the molecule a fumigant and occasionally used as a
in Venus’ atmosphere, including chemical weapon.
geological activity, meteorite impacts But it was also shown to be a
and lightning. None of these scenarios naturally occurring part of Earth’s p The Soviet probe Venera 13 sent back this
could account for the phosphine they anaerobic biosphere by Dietmar view of Venus in 1982 before succumbing to
detected. Glindemann (University of Leipzig) the planet’s harsh environment.
NEWS NOTES
 Ganymede and Europa are two of Jupiter’s

four largest moons. New detections suggest
there are hundreds of much smaller moons in
farther-out orbits.
paper, we also mentioned detections

that we could not confirm as moons,
because we didn’t observe them for the
months and years required to reliably
determine their orbits.”
Likewise, the Canadian team cannot
yet claim new discoveries for their
45 new detections, let alone for the
extrapolated 600. “It takes a lot of large
telescope time to get reliable orbits for
these very small and numerous moons,”
says Sheppard, “so one has to decide if
Jupiter might have 600 moons that is scientifically valuable.”
According to Ashton, there are
JUPITER COULD HAVE around 600 moon might move across the sky. currently no plans for follow-up
moons measuring at least 800 metres This method revealed 52 observations of the new moons. “It
in diameter, according to a team of objects down to magnitude 25.7, would be nice to confirm them,” he
Canadian astronomers. Most of the corresponding to diameters of some says, “but there is no way to track
moons are in wide, irregular and 800 metres. Seven of the brighter them without starting from scratch.”
retrograde orbits. finds turned out to be known irregular However, the tiny moons will certainly
Over the past 20 years, astronomers satellites of Jupiter; the others are be found again by future instruments
have found dozens of small Jovian almost certainly retrograde Jovian like the Vera C. Rubin Observatory.
moons thanks to technological moons, which orbit the planet in the “They will then be linked back, so
advances with large digital cameras. direction opposite to its rotation. our observations will eventually be
Back in 2003, Scott Sheppard (Carnegie If this sensitive one-square-degree incorporated.”
Institution of Science) had already ‘pencil-beam’ search already yields The new detections raise the
estimated that the number of irregular 45 formerly unknown moons, the question of how small an object can be
moons larger than a kilometre would researchers estimate that the total and still be called a moon. “Eventually
probably be around 100. number of satellites within this size one descends to ring particles, and
Now, Edward Ashton, Matthew range must be around 600. The current some kind of cut-off will be useful,”
Beaudoin and Brett Gladman official number of Jovian moons is 79. says Ashton. But Sheppard doesn’t
(University of British Columbia, Sheppard (whose team found 20 believe we need “any more definition
Vancouver) have detected about four new satellites of Saturn last year) is not of what is a moon”. Anyway, he says,
dozen possible new Jovian moons that surprised by the new result. “We used the International Astronomical Union
are even smaller. Extrapolating from the a similar shift and stack technique for will not name planetary moons smaller
sky area they have searched (about one our Jupiter moon discoveries that were than one kilometre in size.
JUPITER: DA MIA N PE ACH; CA NDIDATE MOON: EDWA RD ASH TON (UBC)

square degree), they conclude that there announced in 2018,” he says. “In our ■ GOVERT SCHILLING
could be some 600 of these tiny objects
orbiting the giant planet.  This discovery
The team studied 60 archival image shows
one of the
140-second exposures of a field close
brightest new
to Jupiter, all of them taken within a candidate moons
3-hour period on September 8, 2010, (preliminary
with the 340-megapixel MegaPrime designation:
camera at the Canada-France- j22r94a24).
Hawai’i Telescope on Mauna Kea. The
astronomers digitally combined the
images in 126 different ways, one for
every possible combination of speed and
direction at which a potential Jovian

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NEWS NOTES
A warm, dusty slightly off-kilter, hinting that whatever

‘blob’ (inset) compact object had formed in the blast
offset from
had received a kick away from the
the centre of
Supernova explosion’s core.
1987A is the Last year, observations from
likely location the Atacama Large Millimeter/
of the remnant submillimeter Array (ALMA) hinted
neutron star.
that the search might be at an end.
Phil Cigan (Cardiff University, UK)
and colleagues reported that they had
zeroed in on a blob of dust heated to
33 kelvin.
Now, in a separate study that
appeared in the August 1 issue of
SUPER NOVA 1987A: A LM A / ESO / N AOJ / NR AO / P. CIG A N / R. INDEBE TOU W / NR AO / AUI / NSF / B. SA X TON / N ASA / ESA; MILK Y WAY BULG E: ESO / N ASA / JPL- CA LTECH / M. KOR NMESSER / R. HURT
the Astrophysical Journal, Dany Page
Astronomers find SN 1987A’s neutron star (National Autonomous University of
Mexico) and colleagues demonstrate
SUPERNOVA 1987A WAS one of has plagued astronomers. Neutrinos that — out of a smorgasbord of possible
the most-observed supernovae in received at Earth right after the alternatives — the most plausible
history after it exploded in the Large supernova indicated that the collapsed scenario is one in which an enshrouded
Magellanic Cloud just 168,000 light- object ought to be a neutron star. But neutron star warms the dust. What’s
years away. Telescopes around the globe astronomers couldn’t find it. Dust more, they showed that the dust blob
and in space captured the blast wave, obscures the centre of the blast, and overlaps the predicted location of the
which illuminated three overlapping some even wondered if the core had kicked-out stellar core.
rings of material that had likely blown collapsed further into a black hole. If all pans out, NS 1987A will be the
off in the star’s final years. Closer study showed the gaseous youngest neutron star ever observed.
But in the 33 years since, a puzzle remains of the star’s outer layers to be ■ MONICA YOUNG
Close encounters in the Milky Way’s bulge “Some bulge stars move on elliptical
orbits, but some of them also move on
NEW RESEARCH SHOWS that stellar units (a.u.) of another star. Half box- or X-shaped orbits,” McTier says.
flybys are common in our galaxy’s of bulge stars would have such an “Many of them move on rosette orbits
crowded centre. Visits from interlopers encounter not just once but more than that look like what you might draw with
could affect how young worlds grow in 35 times over the course of a billion a spirograph.”
the Milky Way’s bulge. years. About a third of bulge stars could While McTier’s work didn’t directly
Moiya McTier (Columbia University) have company swing by within 100 a.u., measure how strongly stellar visitors
and colleagues conducted simulations and less than 1 in 5,000 stars entertain affect growing planets, the research
of interactions between bulge stars over a visitor within 10 a.u. provides a base for future studies. Close
time. They found that over a billion- The new study takes into account encounters could destabilise planetary
year period, roughly 80% of bulge stars both the crowded environs at the orbits, strip planets from their host
would experience close encounters, galactic centre and the unusual paths stars, or even interrupt formation
passing within 1,000 astronomical some stars there take. before it can begin. But according to
Maxwell Cai (Leiden University, The
Netherlands), who was not involved
in the study, intruder stars could also
help growing planets. A stellar visitor’s
gravitational forces could cause small
changes in the disk of dust and gas
circling a newborn star, helping material
clump together to make planets.
■ NOLA TAYLOR REDD
An artist’s impression of the Milky Way’s disk and crowded central bulge. Read more at https://is.gd/
MilkyWayEncounters.

by David Ellyard DISCOVERIES
t Transits of Mercury could be predicted once

the heliocentric model of the Solar System had
been adopted.
of the Sun. When Mercury reached the

edge of the Sun’s disc, he stamped on the
floor to alert the timekeeper.
A month later, Gassendi tried to be
the first to see a transit of Venus, but
it ended up occurring at night-time
in Paris. The first transit of Venus
successfully observed came eight years
later, when English amateur astronomer
and clergyman Jeremiah Horrocks saw
Astronomy in transit
it on November 24, 1639 (by the Julian
calendar). So the first transits seen of
Mercury and Venus can both be claimed
as November events.
The Sun-centred Solar System led to accurate planetary predictions. Studying transits was more than an
idle curiosity. Kepler, later supported by
N
ovember is a month to celebrate transit of Mercury. He was, in fact, not Halley, argued that noting the path of a
those relatively rare celestial the only one to make such a move, but transiting planet as well as the duration
events known as ‘transits,’ the he alone wrote an account of the event. of the transit could assist in calculating
passage of Mercury or Venus across the Gassendi’s set-up in Paris was the distance from the Earth to the Sun,
face of the Sun as viewed from Earth. primitive, just a darkened room into and thus the size and scale of the Solar
During a transit, the planet in question which sunlight could enter through a System. In the following century, major
looks like a tiny black dot, slowly small, round hole, projecting a bright international expeditions were staged to
crawling across the solar disk. image of the Sun onto the opposite wall. observe transits of Venus as accurately
Transits were conceivable under Gassendi knew that timing the start as possible, such as the 1769 event that
the old ‘geocentric’ model of the Solar and finish of the transit was important, preceded Cook’s exploration of the
System, which had the Sun, the planets but sufficiently reliable clocks did not eastern coastline of Australia.
and the rest of the universe circling a exist. So he used the Sun as a clock, As for Gassendi himself, he is worthy
stationary Earth. But that model did not since its position in the sky varied with of greater fame, as he was interested in
allow for transits to be predicted. By the the time of day. When far more than transits.
early 17th century, the geocentric model he stamped on the He measured the speed
had been replaced in the minds of most floor of his observing of sound and found
astronomers by the heliocentric, or room, an assistant it did not depend on
Sun-centred, model, championed by in the garden was to frequency. He found
Copernicus and Galileo and refined by measure the altitude that a stone dropped
Kepler. Using this model, astronomers of the Sun above the from the mast of a
could now anticipate the movement horizon with a quadrant moving ship landed
of the planets with high accuracy. (the forerunner of the right at the base of
With this new understanding, Kepler sextant). the mast (opponents
produced the best tables of planetary Gassendi suspected of the idea that the
TR A NSIT: N ASA GSFC/SDO/G. DUBERSTEIN; G ASSENDI: M M A .
positions so far, called the Rudolphine that Kepler’s tables, as Earth rotated claimed
Tables after the King of Bohemia, his good as they were, might p Pierre Gassendi observed a transit it would hit the deck
then employer in Prague. still contain errors (and of Mercury in 1631, but lucked out on further back). And he
In 1627, Kepler used the tables to they did), so to make Venus in the same year. explained the bright
predict that Mercury would transit sure he didn’t miss the glows sometimes seen
the Sun on November 7, 1631, and event he started observing two days on either side of the Sun (known as
that Venus would do the same on before the predicted date. That did him parhelia, or ‘Sun dogs’) as being the
December 6 of the same year. The little good, as rain, cloud and mist hid result of light refracted by floating ice
predictions came to the attention of the Sun until the morning of November crystals.
French priest and astronomer Pierre 7. When the sky finally cleared, he found
Gassendi, and he prepared to observe the transit was already in progress; a tiny ■ DAVID ELLYARD is the author of Who
what no-one had previously seen — a black dot was crawling across the face Discovered What When.
ASTROPHOTOGRAHY
The David Malin Awards 2020

Winning images from Australia’s major astrophoto competition.
The winners of the 2020 Central West renowned professional astrophotographer, and well done to the runners’ up and all
Astronomical Society’s David Malin David Malin. In addition, this year News those who entered. You can see more
Awards were announced at a ceremony Corp picture editor Jeff Darmanin images and several videos at https://www.
at Parkes, NSW, in July. The awards are selected a ‘photo editor’s’ choice winner. parkes.atnf.csiro.au/news_events/astrofest/
named for, and the entries were judged by, Congratulations to the category winners awards/2020_AstroFest_DMA.html

DEEP SKY
Jon Ground, ‘The Dragon Strikes’
“Tenuous gas and dust dispersed in
space give this image a mysterious feel.”
— David Malin
JUNIOR
Blake Iscaro, ‘Canopus Spectra’
“Bands of light and dark that reveal
the chemical composition of the star
and its atmosphere.” — David Malin
0VERALL WINNER
Mark Polsen,
‘Tranquillity Base’
“Mark Polsen’s Tranquillity
Base has it all; perfect setting,
under a beautiful sky with
the Moon and Venus peeping
through the trees.”
— David Malin
ASTROPHOTOGRAHY
PHOTO EDITOR’S CHOICE WIDE-FIELD

Kelvin Hennessy, ‘Q1 Moonrise’ Troy Casswell,
“A wonderful balance of manmade ‘The Gum Nebula’
structure and nature at its best.” “The Gum Nebula is…
— Jeff Darmanin extremely difficult to
photograph, and Troy
Casswell’s image is the
best I have ever seen.”
— David Malin

SMARTPHONE
Alex Cherney, ‘Smartphone Galactic’
“…pin-sharp stars and delicate colours that would have
demanded a professional-grade camera and expensive
lenses less a decade ago.” — David Malin
SOLAR SYSTEM Peter Ward, ‘Hadley Rille’

“…a wealth of subtle detail, including buried craters
and the Apollo 15 lunar landing site.” — David Malin
SOLAR CLOSE-UP by Monica Young
To touch the
NASA’s Parker Solar Probe is on a record-
SUN
breaking journey to study our nearest star.
THE LAUNCH OF THE DELTA IV HEAVY sounded of fire By the time you read this, Parker will already have
and thunder. The rocket’s vibrations rumbled over the swung around the Sun six times, with another 18 passes
team of scientists and engineers standing kilometres planned, gradually getting closer to the Sun. During its
away in the early hours of August 12, 2018, as they final three orbits — starting December 24, 2024 — the
watched the rocket carrying NASA’s Parker Solar Probe spacecraft will pass within 6.2 million kilometres (or
climb into the sky. about 9 solar radii) of the seething gases in the star’s
Team member Kelly Korreck (Center for photosphere. At its closest, Parker will be travelling
Astrophysics, Harvard & Smithsonian) was tense. As at 690,000 kilometres per hour, fast enough to travel
the head of science operations for one of the mission’s from Sydney to New York in about a minute — and
instrument suites, she knew what to listen for from faster than any other mission before it.
pre-launch vibrational testing — when one particular Designed, built and operated by the Johns Hopkins
instrument mock-up had begun to rock violently. Applied Physics Lab, the spacecraft carries four
“In testing, we heard the Solar Probe Cup rattle, just independently developed instruments to this unexplored
‘djr-djr-djr’ at one point in time when it hit a certain territory. Mostly shielded behind 11.4 centimetres
frequency,” Korreck says. “As I was listening to the of carbon composite, the detectors measure electric
frequency of the rocket taking off, I was listening like, and magnetic fields, plasma properties and particle
‘Oh here she is, oh my goodness, she’s rattling right energies, as well as image the corona and solar wind.
now, she’s rattling!’” “The spacecraft itself is just crammed tight,” says
Relief came soon enough. Within 45 minutes, the Russell Howard (Naval Research Laboratory), principal
spacecraft sent a signal indicating it had reached its investigator of the WISPR camera.
expected trajectory; over the following weeks, its After decades of studying the Sun from afar, Parker’s
instruments switched on one by one. “That thing is various detectors are finally giving scientists a close-up
actually going to go into the atmosphere of a star,” look at our star — a chance to ‘touch’ the Sun and pierce
Korreck recalls thinking. “It’s an amazing feeling.” its mysteries.

Parker will swim
PA R K E R A R TIST’S CO N CE P T: N ASA / JO H N S H O PK IN S A PL / STE V E G R IB B E N; L AU N C H: B ILL ING A LL S / N ASA
u LAUNCH
The United
Launch
Alliance Delta
IV Heavy
rocket lifts into
the air, carrying
the Parker
Solar Probe
N OT TO S CA LE sunward.
SOLAR CLOSE-UP
Inside the Sun’s atmosphere

The notion that a spacecraft can touch a star is poetic — but
it’s scientifically defined, too.
The churning ball of plasma that is our Sun has no solid
surface, but observers of total solar eclipses have long seen an
edge of sorts. When the Moon blocks the glare of the burning
Sun, it reveals the softer glow of the solar corona. The
transition from searing ball to glowing halo represents the Sun
O r b it o
Sun’s visible surface, or photosphere. Nevertheless, the Sun’s
dominance extends well beyond the photosphere and into the
fM
er
diffuse outer atmosphere. cu
ry
It was observation of the corona during the 1869 total
O
bi
r
to Parker
solar eclipse that recorded light emitted by 13-times ionised fV
enu Solar Probe
iron atoms (though it took 73 years to identify them as such). s
O
rb
Atoms missing that many electrons can only exist in a plasma it o
fE
heated to millions of degrees, and in 1958 Eugene Parker a rth
wrote down the full implications. Such a hot plasma wouldn’t
stay bound to the Sun, he realised — the charged particles
would escape, flowing outward in a supersonic solar wind. S APPROACH Parker approaches the Sun over 24 orbits, illustrated
here. The first perihelion took the spacecraft within 36 times the Sun’s
PA RK ER ORBITS: G REGG DINDER M A N / S&T; SOURCE: N ASA / JOHNS HOPK INS A PL; IM A X SE T UP: LE VI HU T M ACHER / MICHIG A N ENGINEERING, CO M M UNICATIONS & M A RK E TING
At the time, Parker’s idea was so contrary to prevailing radius from the visible surface. The last three perihelia will take Parker
ideas that it almost didn’t get published. Astrophysical Journal within 9 solar radii. Parker’s past trajectory and current position are
editor Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar didn’t like the idea, shown in purple; green shows its future path.
but he couldn’t find anything wrong with Parker’s maths, so
he overruled the scientific reviewers and published the paper. around in the corona, suggests Solar Probe Cup instrument
It turned out to be good timing: Just four years later, the scientist Anthony Case (Center for Astrophysics, Harvard &
Mariner 2 probe confirmed the existence of Parker’s theorised Smithsonian). As the Sun rotates, the prominence rotates
solar wind. We now know that it causes the Sun to lose mass with it — it has to, because the plasma in the prominence
at the rate of about 1.5 million tonnes every second. follows the magnetic fields that are rooted in the Sun. In a
However, while the existence of the multi-million-degree sense, the prominence still ‘belongs’ to the Sun. But at Earth,
corona and the speedy solar wind are now well established, the magnetised plasma of the solar wind is no longer part
their sources have been hotly debated for more than six of the Sun; it’s flowing directly away from it. At some point
decades. To understand their origins, astronomers realised, in between, Case says, there’s a transition, at a distance
we have to get a lot closer to our star — close enough that the scientists call the Alfvén radius.
Sun is clearly controlling the physics of what we measure. The Alfvén radius isn’t any more solid than the Sun is.
Think of a big prominence rising off the Sun and looping Magnetic fields, the density of the solar wind and other
conditions near the Sun are constantly changing. So the
boundary between the Sun and its outflowing atmosphere is
T INGENUITY & IMAX The team combined the light from four IMAX-like
dynamic and bumpy, too. “It’s not just plus or minus a mile,”
projectors to simulate the light and heat that would be coming from the
Sun. Special lenses of fused silica concentrated and directed the light Korreck explains. “It’s plus or minus a solar radius.”
into a vacuum chamber (the glowing hole seen at left), illuminating the A primary goal for the Parker Solar Probe is to slip inside
Solar Probe Cup on one side. Particles from an ion gun (wrapped in foil this boundary, something no spacecraft has ever done.
and pointed down at the chamber) simulated the solar wind. Within the Alfvén radius, Parker will swim in the hot corona
as it’s being heated and taste the nascent solar wind as its
particles are being accelerated.
Taking the heat

Before Parker can do any of that, though, it must first survive
its close approaches to the stellar furnace. The good news is
that the environment doesn’t feel as hot as one might think.
While the temperature of the corona is more than a million
degrees, that number describes the motions of the plasma’s
particles, and they’re too sparse to transfer heat to Parker.
The heat the probe does feel comes from the sunlight itself.
The difference is like sticking your hand in a hot oven rather
than in a glass of hot water.

SWEAP FIELDS
Solar Probe Cup Electric field antennae (4)
Solar array
cooling system IS IS
ALL ABOARD These views
Low- and high-energy
Thermal High gain antenna show the instruments aboard particle sensors
protection the Parker Solar Probe. The
system SWEAP view at right shows the side
SPAN-B of the spacecraft that faces
the direction of motion.
FIELDS
WISPR Magnetometers (3)
Coronal white-
light imager
Solar array SWEAP
wings (2)
SPAN-A+
Still, radiational heat at closest approach is 500 times the Sun took trial and error, sometimes behind a welding
what we receive at Earth. Unshielded, Parker would reach curtain. During material tests, the lab smelled like a frying
temperatures approaching 1,400°C — hotter than any lava pan left on the stove too long. The ‘mistakes’ still hang on
PA RK ER INSTRU MEN TS: N ASA / JOHNS HOPK INS A PL (2); HE AT SHIELD: N ASA / JOHNS HOPK INS A PL / ED WHIT M A N; PA RK ER IN ROCK E T FAIRING: N ASA / JOHNS HOPK INS A PL / ED WHIT M A N
on Earth. Most of the instruments therefore take their the wall: deformed plates of stainless steel and unalloyed
measurements from behind the shelter of a heat shield, a titanium. At testing temperatures of some 1,600°C, “all
masterpiece of thermal engineering that took more than a steels melt, all aluminum is long gone,” says structural
decade to develop. Two thin layers of a graphite-like carbon engineer Henry Bergner (Center for Astrophysics, Harvard
material sandwich a thick slice of carbon foam that’s so & Smithsonian). The only options remaining are refractory
lightweight it’s 97% empty. An ultra-white aluminium
oxide coating on the shield’s sunward-facing side reflects
most of the light and heat; a fine layer of tungsten keeps the
aluminium oxide from interacting with the carbon foam and
turning grey.
The shield keeps most instruments at roughly room
temperature, except for two that extend beyond it. The Solar
Probe Cup (SPC) — one of the Solar Wind Electrons, Alphas,
and Protons (SWEAP) instruments — hangs outside the
heat shield to point its particle-collecting receptacle directly
toward the Sun. And four whip antennae that help measure
the electric field — part of the FIELDS electromagnetic
instrument suite — also extend beyond the heat shield.
Developing instruments that could function so close to
T PARKER’S SUNSCREEN The heat shield consists of two main

components: a light carbon foam that’s mostly space and a bright white
coating of aluminum oxide. A thin tungsten layer separates the two so
that they don’t interact.
STANDING TALL The Parker Solar Probe looked small inside one
half of the 19.1-metre-tall fairing. Although the probe was small
compared to what a Delta IV Heavy usually carries, the rocket
provided the necessary lift to bring Parker close to the Sun.
SOLAR CLOSE-UP
metals, like those used in nuclear reactors or rocket nozzles.

In the end, the team decided on molybdenum alloyed with
titanium and zirconium for the bulk of the cup. The team
also used lab-made sapphire to insulate the electronics, after
figuring out how to grow the crystals in a way that keeps
them from cracking at extreme temperatures.
Testing the instrument required some ingenuity. To
simulate the light and the heat that the SPC would experience
near the Sun, the team concentrated the light of four IMAX-
like projectors into a vacuum chamber using special lenses
of fused silica. Sometimes the building’s air conditioning
couldn’t keep up.
VENUS FLYBY Seven gravity assists from Venus boost the
For the FIELDS instruments, the whip antennae that
Parker Solar Probe on its journey toward the Sun.
extend beyond the shield easily withstand the heat. But
these long, hollow tubes of reactor-grade niobium, which
TO THE SUN, VIA VENUS help measure the electric field, still have to connect to a
Approaching the Sun takes more energy than leaving the room-temperature spacecraft. Fortunately, the tubes’ walls
Solar System altogether, as any spacecraft leaving Earth are so thin that they fix their own problem: They barely
inherits its orbital speed of 30 km/s (107,000 kph). Slowing conduct heat. “Once you put that tube behind any little bit
that momentum counterintuitively takes more energy, says of shadow, it just chokes the heat flow down,” explains Stuart
mission designer Yanping Guo (Johns Hopkins University Bale (University of California, Berkeley), FIELDS principal
Applied Physics Laboratory). “The launch energy required to investigator.
reach the Sun is more than 50 times that required to reach The other instruments of SWEAP and FIELDS hide in the
Mars and twice that to reach Pluto.” shadow behind the spacecraft. Their protection from the heat
When mission planning began, the best option for losing is so effective, they actually need heaters to keep them warm
so much speed — a swing around Jupiter — was out of at closest approach.
the question. A Jupiter flyby usually requires nuclear power, The solar panels are also behind the heat shield but are,
and NASA’s limited supply of plutonium-238 was already for obvious reasons, partially exposed to the Sun’s light.
spoken for by other missions. They keep cool with about a gallon of deionised water, which
For Parker to even begin development, it would need flows through small channels embedded in the panels and
another way to the Sun. Guo realised that seven swings by then into four radiators. Like our vascular system, the water
Venus rather than one by Jupiter could do the trick. It works absorbs heat, then radiates it back into space — keeping the
only because the braking maneuvers around Venus are panels efficiently generating energy.
tightly ‘coupled,’ so that one flyby sets the spacecraft up for “The spacecraft is like a warm-blooded animal, it regulates
the next one. its own temperature,” says SWEAP principal investigator
The flybys serve as more than a trajectory assist. Justin Kasper (University of Michigan).
Inhospitable Venus has been relatively neglected by Indeed, Parker is one of the most autonomous spacecraft
spacecraft in the last three decades. Parker gives planetary ever launched. Communicating with Earth takes power that’s
scientists an opportunity to explore its alien atmosphere as required for instrumentation, so during its searingly close
well as the fields induced by the charged plasma that flows passes by the Sun, the spacecraft flies on its own. “It’s quite
a bit of the mission that we’re not communicating with this
PA RK ER’S V ENUS FLY BY: N ASA / JOHNS HOPK INS A PL / STE V E G RIBBEN
around this magnetically dead world.
Shannon Curry (University of California, Berkeley) says thing at all,” Bergner says.
the initial results from the first two Venus encounters are A variety of sensors and controls aids Parker in its
promising. “We’re finding things that have never been decision-making. In response to rising heat, the spacecraft
explored outside Earth, not even at Mars,” Curry says. can fold back its solar panels, and star trackers and light
“Microscale physics that explain a lot of how things like sensors help the spacecraft keep all its instruments in the
bow shocks form, how the magnetotail structure works, heat shield’s shadow. “She’s an adult,” Korreck says. “She’s
how magnetic reconnection works.” taking care of herself now.”
Previous missions had quantified how much of Venus’
atmosphere typically manages to escape, Curry adds, and First encounters
Parker’s data are now revealing how and why. Scientists Data from Parker’s first three perihelia have already shown
can then extrapolate back in time to understand how Venus scientists the unique environment that exists around our star.
was able to maintain its thick shroud without a magnetic To study the solar wind, the SWEAP and FIELDS
field to protect it — a question relevant to other worlds such instrument suites combine forces. SWEAP uses three
as Titan and even exoplanets. instruments, including the Solar Probe Cup, to measure

particles’ density, speed, direction and temperature.
Meanwhile, FIELDS uses its three magnetometers and five
voltage sensors to feel out the magnetic and electric fields
entrained in the particles sweeping past.
Together, these measurements provide the data necessary
to watch the sea of charged particles flowing by — and they
have been crucial to identifying thousands of so-called rogue
waves crashing over the spacecraft.
These sudden bursts of speedy particles come with 180°
flips in the magnetic field. “There’s some dynamics down
below Parker that’s creating these impulsive things that
are being carried out by the wind,” Bale explains. In other
words, deep down in the corona, still beyond Parker’s reach,
S GOING TO THE SOURCE An artist’s concept shows Parker flying into
something happens. the solar wind. By sampling the charged particles closer to where they
By the time it reaches Parker, the event appears as a huge are first accelerated, the mission hopes to understand their origin.
S-shape twist in the magnetic field extending outward from
the Sun that’s about 50 times longer than it is across. The the plasma inside the switchbacks and the plasma outside
particles within this magnetic switchback are flowing about the switchbacks are basically the same.” Reconnection, on
twice as fast as the particles outside. the other hand, would be heating particles in addition to
Scientists had seen signatures of these switchbacks accelerating them.
in data collected by the Helios and Ulysses missions. But Instead, Bale suggests, the switchbacks could be heralds
Parker has revealed that the events are both more transient of Alfvén waves deep in the corona. Alfvén waves are a simple
and more prevalent than previously thought — basically, feature of just about any magnetised plasma. As charged
whatever’s producing these events nearer the solar surface, particles move around, so do the magnetic fields tied to them,
it’s happening everywhere, all the time. “The sheer number of wiggling like so many plucked guitar strings. “We’re just
them and the size of them is surprising,” says Case. seeing Alfvén waves that have grown to be so big that they’re
Some have suggested that the rogue waves come from flipping over on themselves,” Bale speculates. But it’s not
magnetic reconnection at or near the solar surface. When the the only idea out there, he adds: “Reasonable people would
PA RK ER FLYING THROUG H SOL A R WIND: N ASA; SWITCHBACKS ILLUSTR ATION: N ASA GODDA RD / CIL / A DRIA N A M A NRIQ UE GU TIERRE Z
magnetic field reorganises — an open field line jumping from disagree with me.”
here to there — the process lets loose a burst of particles that Whatever switchbacks are, they’re giving us information
then, much later, zooms past Parker. about what heats the solar corona, whether that mechanism
“But my own feeling is that they are not direct evidence involves magnetic reconnection, plain ol’ Alfvén waves, or
of reconnection,” Bale says, “because it looks to us like something else entirely. Thinking over the possible scenarios is
half the fun. “The whole point of getting closer is that we’ll see
the [switchbacks] in more of their original state,” Case says.
Harbingers of storms
Not all of what comes from the Sun is solar wind. Some
tiny fraction of charged particles in the corona somehow
accelerate to near-light speed, following different paths than
their brethren. While the solar wind typically streams at 400
km/s (almost 1.5 million kph), solar energetic particles can
carry anywhere from 10 to 100,000 times that energy.
When the Sun is active, these particles can serve as the
alarm bells of solar storms. But even during quiet times,
as now, these particles — though few in number — are
constantly flying out from the Sun.
Rather than blowing outward in bulk, the way most of
the solar wind does, these charged particles are more like
individuals, spiralling around the magnetic field lines that
S SWITCHBACK This still from an animation shows what a single coil outward from the Sun. Because of their different paths,
switchback might look like, depicting both the S-shape curve to the
“they’re actually sampling quite different regions than the
magnetic field line and the accompanying burst of solar wind particles
that Parker observes as it flies through the structure. While a known [solar wind] plasma that you’re measuring at the same time,”
phenomenon, switchbacks surprised astronomers in their abundance explains David McComas (Princeton), principal investigator
during Parker’s initial flybys. of the Integrated Science Investigation of the Sun (IS‫ݪ‬IS)
SOLAR CLOSE-UP
only imager, a roughly shoebox-size telescope that peeks over

the edge of the spacecraft to capture sunlight scattering off
electrons and dust. The heat shield acts like a coronagraph,
blocking the light from the Sun itself, which is 13 to 15
orders of magnitude brighter than the corona. The images
provide context for Parker’s other measurements, revealing
structures — such as large-scale solar storms or even small-
scale twists of the magnetic field — before the spacecraft flies
into them and samples them directly.
Already, WISPR’s principle investigator Howard and
colleagues have seen that the emission from dust-scattered
sunlight drops off in a way that suggests a dust-free region
extends out to at least 10 solar radii from the Sun’s surface.
S SEEING SOLAR WIND Parker’s views of the streaming solar wind are The drop-off is so smooth, Howard says, that he doesn’t
oblique — its WISPR imager cannot stare straight at the Sun, so it looks think the heat is sublimating dust grains, species by species,
off to the side in the direction that Parker is travelling. Nevertheless, directly into gaseous form. Instead, he thinks the particles are
the images are critical to seeing ahead of time what space environment eroding, broken up by the pervading solar wind, and gradually
Parker will encounter. being pushed back out.
instruments. So connecting the particles to the processes that Parker’s other instruments can detect dust indirectly,
created them can be tricky. too. FIELDS, for example, measures the momentary voltage
IS‫ݪ‬IS has two instruments that together detect energetic generated when a dust grain slams into the spacecraft
particles across a wide range of energies, from thousands and vaporises into plasma. IS‫ݪ‬IS can likewise detect dust
to millions of electron volts. To maximise the number of impacts. Jamey Szalay (Princeton) and colleagues have used
particles it can capture, IS‫ݪ‬IS sits right at the edge of the heat these data to conclude that the Sun is ejecting dust from
shield. “It’s completely out of the view of the Sun, but just by the solar system at a rate of at least half a tonne per second.
a degree or two,” McComas says. Ultimately, such results could help astronomers understand
From this vantage point, IS‫ݪ‬IS has access to details planetary formation in systems around other stars.
impossible to tease apart near Earth. So McComas can finally
start answering one of the many questions he has had since Every orbit closer
the beginning of his career: “Why is it that some particular The Parker Solar Probe launched during solar minimum,
proton ends up being the million-electron-volt particle and giving scientists the opportunity to study the extraordinarily
almost none of the rest of them do?” quiet Sun and its relatively undisturbed (but still churning)
The answer, he says, has to do with the very first processes, fields and particles.
the ones that accelerate particles a little bit, so that they can But even as scientists continue to pore over the data from
then efficiently reach much higher energies later on. For the the initial orbits, the Sun’s activity should begin to ramp up,
first time, IS‫ݪ‬IS can detect these tiny accelerating events, and solar eruptions will dump more and more energy into the
and it’s showing that they may be much more common than corona. The maximum in solar activity will come between
previously thought. 2023 and 2026 — around when Parker is at its closest to the
Researchers are only starting to untangle the data, and Sun, swinging within 9 solar radii of the visible surface.
WISPR IM AG E: N ASA / N AVA L RESE A RCH L A BOR ATORY / PA RK ER SOL A R PROBE

there are much more to come. “One of the most exciting Other telescopes will soon be joining in on the fun. The
things so far — and we haven’t even gotten that close yet — is Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope in Hawai‘i, which is still
that we’re seeing smaller and smaller and smaller events as in the process of coming online, took its first light images
we get in closer,” McComas says. in January, and the European Space Agency’s Solar Orbiter
reached its first perihelion in June.
Where the dust never settles Crucially, well before solar maximum, Parker will pass
There’s one other thing that Parker encounters that doesn’t within the Alfvén radius. “We almost did it with encounter
actually come from the Sun: dust. The spacecraft is flying four,” Bale says. “In the next couple of orbits for sure,
through the densest region of the solar system’s zodiacal cloud. probably.” Once inside, the spacecraft will finally ‘touch’ the
Comets and asteroids coming too close to the Sun break up Sun. Will scientists find answers there? Certainly. But as
and their fragments collide, grinding down until nothing but McComas points out, “The point is to get more questions.
micron-scale electrically charged particles remain. Due to Answer the questions you’ve had for a while, and uncover the
their interactions with sunlight, these particles slowly spiral next, more difficult round.”
in toward the Sun, though when the particles become small
enough sunlight may instead push them away. MONICA YOUNG is glad to see that the Parker Solar Probe
The Wide-field Imager for Solar Probe (WISPR) is Parker’s has put on sunscreen before catching some rays.

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to achieve stable operating temperatures down to 40°C
below ambient, dramatically reducing thermal noise. The
unit is capable of recording 22 full-resolution, 12-bit frames
per second through its USB 3.0 interface. The StarShoot
G16 also includes a 2-port USB 2.0 hub to connect a filter
wheel and guide camera and Windows-compatible control
software. Each purchase includes an AC adapter, 2-inch
nosepiece and a hard storage case.
telescope.com
u LENS MOTORS
Rigel Systems now offers two focusing motors for its camera lens
focusing system. The Belt Drive Stepper Kit (US$119.95) remotely adjusts
the focus on most camera lenses and helical telescope focusers using
a stepper motor and belt. The motor can be adjusted along a crossbar
to accommodate several lens diameters. Alternatively, Rigel’s Split Gear
Stepper Kit (US$179.95) includes a plastic gear and ADM R100 mounting
ring, which make it better suited for larger designs. Both models can bear
lenses weighing up to 3.5 kg, and each uses the same stepper motor
that moves in 0.1° increments. The Stepper Kits are compatible with
most astronomical focus control
systems that accept an RJ12 6-pin
connector, including controllers
from Starlight Instruments Feather
Touch, Technical Innovations
RoboFocus and MoonLite
Telescope Accessories, as well as
Rigel’s own usb-nSTEP controllers.
rigelsys.com
New Product Showcase is a reader service featuring innovative equipment and software of interest to amateur astronomers. The
descriptions are based largely on information supplied by the manufacturers or distributors. Australian Sky & Telescope assumes no
responsibility for the accuracy of vendors’ statements. For further information contact the manufacturer or distributor.
THE LONG VIEW by Diana Hannikainen
CABLE UPON CABLE UPON TANGLED CABLE … Never had

I seen such a convoluted jumble of wires, screws, pliers and
other whatnots in such a small space. It was like a hardware
store had imploded. In imploding, the mayhem had become
strangely alive. I could feel the thrumming of the correlators
in the pit of my stomach. A fan oscillated in the corner,
whooshing breaths of air over the back panels of monoliths
that looked like they belonged in the opening scene of 2001:
A Space Odyssey.
But that’s not where I was. I was in a radio telescope’s
control room, an operations central reminiscent of the
deck of the starship Enterprise. And mind you, this was
a single-dish radio telescope, nowhere near the elaborate,
multiple-dish setups of instruments such as the Very Large
Array. However, this telescope — the 14-metre radio dish of
Metsähovi Radio Observatory in Finland — was one element
in a global network that unites radio dishes across the planet
into one behemoth of a receiver, poised to capture signals
from the farthest reaches of the cosmos.
Today, we’re familiar with discoveries based on radio
observations, from the silhouette of a distant galaxy’s
black hole to hints of aurorae on failed stars called brown
dwarfs. But radio astronomy is a relatively new science. A
century ago, the only electromagnetic window wide open to
astronomers was the visual band. Early forays had been made
into infrared astronomy, but challenges posed by Earth’s
atmosphere limited observations. The sounding rockets that
would give us our first glimpses of the gamma-ray, X-ray and
ultraviolet universe were still more than two decades away.
And the longest wavelengths we know of, radio waves, were
about to become a surprising and mesmerising window onto
the cosmos — one that has gone from revealing our Sun’s
magnetic nature to tracing super-fast streams of matter
gushing out of distant galaxies and the buzz that echoes back
to us from the Big Bang.
T JANSKY’S MERRY-GO-ROUND This replica of Karl Jansky’s original

antenna uses the same materials as the original, down to the Model T
car tyres on the rotation axis. The turntable design enabled Jansky to
determine the direction of any signal he detected at 20.5 MHz.
LISTENING TO THE UNIVERSE

Our galaxy’s plane arcs over antennae
Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter
Array in Chile. The telescopes is an
‘interferometer,’ whereby signals are
combined from each individual dish.

Astronomers have invented
a variety of novel approaches
to observe the longest
wavelengths of the
electromagnetic spectrum.
JA NSK Y’S A N TENN A: NR AO / AUI / NSF
A LM A: ESO/ Y. BELE TSK Y; REPLICA OF
THE LONG VIEW
The first signals

It all began thanks to the work of a young physicist and
engineer by the name of Karl Jansky. Employed by Bell
Telephone Laboratories in the US in the late 1920s and early
1930s to work in the nascent field of radio communications,
Jansky’s job was to investigate sporadic static that could
interfere with transmissions. In his quest to discover the
origin of this nuisance, he built a telescope — basically a
glorified antenna of brass piping and timber, some 30 metres
across and 6 metres high. He mounted this contraption on
REBER WITH HIS SCOPE: NR AO / AUI / NSF; CON TOURS: G. REBER / S&T 1949; M ODER N VIE W OF G A L ACTIC CEN TRE: SA R AO / MEERK AT
the wheels of a Model T Ford, which enabled it to rotate in
any direction and inevitably earned it the nickname “Jansky’s
merry-go-round”.
Jansky distinguished three kinds of interference, readily
dismissing two that originated in thunderstorms. But
the third kind was a steady hiss that periodically reached
maximum intensity every 23 hours and 56 minutes (you
might recognise this as Earth’s sidereal period). Jansky
initially attributed this hiss to the Sun, but when its intensity
failed to decrease during the solar eclipse of August 31,
1932, he had to rustle up another explanation. He found S REBER’S BACKYARD SCULPTURE Grote Reber stands at Green
that the signal was strongest in the direction of the galactic Bank in the 1960s after reassembling his radio telescope there. Reber
plane, specifically at a right ascension of 18h, somewhere originally built the instrument in 1937.
in Sagittarius. This location, Jansky noted with cautious
excitement in a 1933 paper, coincided with the centre of Reber, an electrical engineer by training, was an amateur
the Milky Way. We now know the radio signals that Jansky radio operator. When he heard of Jansky’s discovery, he
captured originate from a 4-million-solar-mass black hole designed and built an instrument in his own backyard
called Sagittarius A* (pronounced ‘Sagittarius A star’). But — a parabolic dish some 9 metres in diameter — in order
since astronomers at the time didn’t know black holes existed to investigate this new phenomenon. Reber ultimately
— or, for that matter, that celestial objects emit radio waves — mapped the radio emission from broad sections of the Milky
they did not grasp the full significance of Jansky’s finding. Way, including the galactic centre as well as Cygnus and
Enter Grote Reber, American pioneer of radio astronomy. Cassiopeia. It was the spark that lit radio astronomy’s engine.
T EMISSION FROM THE MILKY WAY Left: Reber gathered these radio maps’ data in 1943, observing the sky at 160 MHz. The Milky Way’s disk lies
along a line intersecting 0 on the y-axis, and the galactic centre is in the contour marked 11.2 on the far right. (The maps are plotted in an older version
of galactic coordinates, so you may notice the x-axis doesn’t quite match today’s coordinates.) Right: This 2018 image, made with the MeerKAT radio
telescope in South Africa, is one of our clearest images of the galactic centre. The image equates to only a small segment of Reber’s map.

But sources much closer to home than the galactic centre
also emit radio waves. In 1942 James Hey, English physicist and
later radio astronomer, was the first to find that radio signals
come from the Sun. He detected radio emission from electrons
gyrating around the concentrated magnetic fields associated
with sunspots. Solar flares also emit bursts of radio waves.
After World War II, accelerated by advances in radar
technology, radio astronomy as a discipline took off.
Observers discovered a host of sources in subsequent decades,
including objects that astronomers had never known existed.
Jocelyn Bell (later Bell Burnell), a graduate student at the
University of Cambridge (UK), caused quite a stir when, in p COSMIC HISS Using a horn antenna, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson
detected a hiss at 4 GHz that proved to be the afterglow of the universe’s
1967, she discovered evenly timed radio signals emanating
Big Bang phase. Several instruments have now mapped that cosmic
from one spot in the sky that astronomers later realised come microwave background.
from a rapidly rotating and highly magnetised neutron star,
or pulsar. At that time, neutron stars were largely theoretical
concepts. She famously filed the signal under the label LGM — this matter out in narrow but powerful jets from their
shorthand for ‘Little Green Men’. But the 1974 Nobel Prize in poles. Quasars’ extensive and variegated jets are the source
Physics for this discovery omitted Bell Burnell. Instead, it went of the synchrotron radiation, which arises from electrons
PENZIAS A ND WILSON: AIP EMILIO SEG RÈ VISUA L A RCHIV ES, PH YSICS TODAY COLLECTION
to her supervisor, Antony Hewish, as well as to Sir Martin spiraling along magnetic field lines within the jets. The exact
Ryle, a trailblazer in radio observing techniques and founding mechanism for accelerating these particles is still unclear, but
director of the Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory. it’s likely associated with the sudden release of magnetic field
The discovery of quasars was another paradigm-shifting lines normally anchored in the accretion disk.
milestone in the history of radio astronomy. In 1956, Geoffrey More recently, astronomers have discovered miniature
Burbidge demonstrated that synchrotron radio radiation — counterparts to these extragalactic colossi. Instead of a
photons from charged particles whirling at relativistic speeds supermassive black hole gobbling up vast amounts of gas,
along magnetic field lines — could account for the emission we have a stellar-mass black hole accreting matter from a
from the jet of M87, confirming earlier predictions and companion star. In lieu of jets extending for up to hundreds
reports of synchrotron emission detected in the optical. But it of thousands of light-years, the outflows in microquasars, as
wasn’t until 1963, when the combined efforts of Cyril Hazard, these objects are known, are mere light-years in length. In
Maarten Schmidt and Bev Oke (and their collaborators) microquasars we witness changes in the accretion disk and jet
demonstrated that a starlike pinpoint of light, 3C 273, was on human-friendly terms, ie. minutes to days instead of the
in fact more than a billion light-years away, that astronomers years to centuries required for quasars.
realised something fantastic was afoot.
These quasi-stellar radio sources, or quasars for short, All shapes and sizes
are supermassive black holes gathering matter from large Radio wavelengths range in length from about a millimetre
disks of hot gas around them and then spewing much of to 100 kilometres. Earth’s atmosphere absorbs wavelengths
LONG WAVES AND LONGER WAVES

Observers on Earth receive radio waves from cosmic
sources in two ways. The first is by recording the source’s
flux density, which is the power received per unit area at a
specific frequency. The unit of flux density is the Jansky,
in honor of Karl. One Jansky = 10-26 watt per square metre
per hertz. In some sources, such as quasars, the emitted
radiation can vary with time. Astronomers can combine
flux densities from multiple frequencies to better model the
emission mechanisms, which in turn reveal the physical
processes that contribute to the observed radiation.
The second way astronomers study radio sources is by
generating a map of the spatial distribution of the emitted
radio frequencies. Flux densities are used in conjunction with
point sources, while maps are useful for extended sources.
THE LONG VIEW
W MICROQUASAR Wobbling jets emanate

from the black hole SS 433, the remnant
of a star that exploded and created the
Manatee Nebula (W50), visible only at radio
wavelengths. Gas stolen from a companion
star fuels the black hole’s jets.
AT M OSPHERIC OPACIT Y: G REGG DINDER M A N / S&T; CHIME: A NDRE REN A RD / DUNL A P INSTIT U TE FOR ASTRONO M Y & ASTROPH YSICS
have a solid surface in order to catch radio waves. Usually a
wire mesh akin to chicken wire does the job.
To detect fine detail in the objects we observe, we obviously
want the dish to be big — really big. But physics (read
shorter than a few centimetres, while the ionosphere bounces ‘gravity’) and weather (‘high winds’) limit dish sizes. Clever
wavelengths longer than 30 metres back into space. So engineers have sidestepped these problems by constructing
the radio ‘window’ that ground astronomers have access dishes in natural depressions in the earth. The most iconic
to consists of cosmic waves typically a few centimetres to is the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, where a dish
about 30 metres long. Radio astronomers like to think in 305 metres wide nestles in a natural cavity formed by a
frequencies, not wavelengths, so this range corresponds to sinkhole. Arecibo was the largest sinkhole telescope until
several tens of gigahertz (GHz) to 10 megahertz (MHz). China completed FAST in 2016, which, as its name — the
Since the radio window is so wide — spanning several Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope — suggests,
orders of magnitude — radio telescopes have to come in is 500 metres across.
all sizes and shapes. Parabolic dish antennae are the most Even as they dazzle with their size, however, these dishes
efficient and versatile. The parabolic shape of the dish are immobile. Their gaze is fixed, and they can only observe
bounces incoming radio waves toward a detector or a transiting celestial objects at zenith as Earth rotates. Moving
subreflector situated at the focal point, just as the primary the feed antenna suspended at the focal point provides some
mirror in optical telescopes redirects incoming light to the maneuverability; FAST’s dish also comprises deformable
secondary mirror. Often, astronomers can tune the detectors panels, moved by more than 2,000 actuators to alter the
to receive different frequencies simultaneously. But unlike shape of the reflecting surface and place off-zenith targets
mirrors in optical telescopes (which reflect wavelengths a within reach. But even so, targets near the horizon are out
millionth as long as radio telescopes do), these dishes needn’t of range.
THEY COME IN MANY FORMS Left: This behemoth in Green Bank, West Virginia, is the largest fully steerable radio telescope in the world. As
with other radio observatories, a radio quiet zone exists around the Green Bank site — visitors navigate using bicycles and diesel cars. Right: The
Molonglo Observatory Synthesis Telescope covers 18,000 square metres not far from Canberra. Astronomers originally built it as a giant cross in the
1960s, but they shut down the north-south arm in 1978.
GOSS E T A L.; SS 433: B. SA X TON (NR AO / AUI / NSF ), R. M. HJELLMING

MICROQ UASA R: M A N ATEE NEBUL A: B. SA X TON (NR AO / AUI / NSF ), M.
A ND K . J. JOHNSTON; G REEN BA NK: NR AO / AUI / NSF; M OST: DIA N A

H A N NIK AINEN

If one is willing to compromise in size, then fully steerable 0%
radio dishes are feasible. The largest of these is the Robert
C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia, with its
Transmission
100-by-110-metre dish. The 100-metre Effelsberg Radio 50%
Telescope near Bonn, Germany, is a smidgen smaller since it’s
not elliptical. The CSIRO’s Parkes dish is 64 metres diameter.
Not all radio telescopes are dishes, though. Take the
Molonglo Observatory Synthesis Telescope, for example. 100%
X-rays UV Visible Infrared Microwaves Radio
MOST, situated not far from Canberra, consists of two
0.1 nm 10 nm 1 µm 100 µm 1 cm 1m 100 m 10,000
cylindrical paraboloids, each 778 metres in length and Wavelength metres
12 metres wide. The paraboloids are aligned east-west and
can swivel about their long axes, allowing for up to 12 p ATMOSPHERIC WINDOWS Earth’s atmosphere blocks many
wavelengths, but visible light and parts of the ultraviolet, infrared,
hours of continuous observation as Earth rotates. CHIME
microwave and radio bands make it through (white areas).
(the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment),
another non-dish antenna array, consists of four side-by-side
cylindrical reflectors, each 20 by 100 metres. They look like complexly rippled wave, known as an interference pattern.
enormous unwieldy fishnets, poised to receive their daily It’s the job of a digital device called a correlator to combine
cosmic catch. the signals and work backwards to figure out the incoming
angle of the radio waves. As Earth turns and the telescopes
A telescope as big as Earth continue observing, the correlator has to keep up with the
Resolution improves with increasing telescope size. But constantly changing angles, and in so doing reconstructs
if there are structural limitations to dish size, what can ever-more-detailed images.
astronomers do to improve the resolution of radio telescopes? Australian radio scientists Ruby Payne-Scott and Joe
An ingenious, albeit rather tricky, technique is that of linking Pawsey, with their colleague Lindsay McCready, pioneered the
individual radio telescopes together: interferometry. interferometric technique alongside Ryle in the UK (and later
The simplest type of interferometer consists of two radio groups in the Netherlands). Shortly after the end of World War
telescopes set a certain distance apart, observing at the same II, they used converted wartime radar dishes near Sydney to
frequency. Radio waves from a celestial source will arrive observe the rising Sun. Each radar station sat atop a cliff and
at the two telescopes at slightly different times, depending captured both the direct radio signal from the Sun as well as
on the source’s location in the sky. The difference in arrival that reflected off the surface of the sea. This ingenious method
times translates to a time delay in the phase of the wave: The yielded a baseline at each station of roughly 100 metres,
peaks and troughs of the waves each antenna receives will not enabling the trio to determine the position and angular size of
overlap perfectly but will instead combine to create a more bursts of radio emission as the Sun moved across the sky.
CHIME The CHIME radio array in British

Columbia combines four cylindrical
reflectors to look for brief, mysterious
flashes called fast radio bursts.
THE LONG VIEW
36 km dish configuration 11 km
3 km 1 km
INTERFEROMETRY IN ACTION The dishes of the Very Large Array

(above) can be moved to different stations along its Y-shaped arms,
depending on the resolution astronomers want. Each configuration
provides information about different scales of a target, as shown
Hercules A, composite here for the radio galaxy Hercules A. The combined image contains
information from multiple scales.
The researchers localised the origin of a series of submillimeter Array (ALMA), perched high in the northern
giant bursts in February 1946 to a group of sunspots, Chilean desert. ALMA uses 66 movable antennae to peer
demonstrating that the burst originated from an area much deep into stars’ birth clouds and other normally inaccessible
A RR AY CONFIGUR ATIO NS: GREGG DINDERM A N / S&T; HERCULES A IM AG ES: NR AO / AUI / NSF
smaller than the solar disk. They published their results in a locations. Among its successes, the array is helping transform
1947 paper in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. what we know about planet formation.
Since those early, heady days of the sea-cliff experiment, Yielding an even larger distance between elements is the
interferometers have grown to multiple-element arrays. Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA), its ten 25-metre radio
The principle is the same: Link telescopes together, and you dishes spanning the U.S. from the Virgin Islands in the
effectively get a baseline as long as the distance between the Caribbean to Hawai‘i in the Pacific. Astronomers record
two farthest elements. One caveat is that the telescopes have data with these elements and ship them to Socorro, where
to operate at the same frequency for this very long baseline a correlator combines them into what one humongous
interferometry (VLBI) to work. telescope would have seen. European scientists have forged
The most iconic interferometer is the Karl G. Jansky Very another large array, the European VLBI Network (EVN), with
Large Array (VLA), near Socorro, New Mexico, operated by 22 antennae spread across Europe to places beyond, including
the US National Radio Astronomy Observatory. It was built Puerto Rico, South Africa and South Korea. And finally, the
in the 1970s and began operations in 1980. Twenty-seven VLBA and EVN can operate together — and voilà we have a
dishes, each 25 metres in diameter, are set on rail tracks radio telescope with a diameter almost as big as Earth’s.
in a Y-shape and can be maneuvered into four principal But why confine oneself to Earth? Wouldn’t lobbing an
configurations, depending on the scientific goal. The widest antenna into orbit provide that much longer a baseline? In
configuration yields a baseline of some 36 km. fact, there have already been several ambitious experiments
However, these days the heavy hitter in interferometer- using space-based antennae, dating back to 1979 when the
enabled science is the Atacama Large Millimeter/ Soviets shuttled a 10-metre telescope to Salyut 6. The first

THE LONG VIEW
OUTBACK ARRAY A test cluster of SKA-Low antennae point to

the sky. The Australian half of the Square Kilometre Array will
comprise 130,000 individual antennae spread over thousands
of square kilometres at CSIRO’s Murchison Radioastronomy
Observatory, 800 kilometres north of Perth.
standalone orbiting radio telescope was Japan’s 8-metre When completed it will include thousands of antennae.
antenna of the VLBI Space Observatory Program (VSOP), Astronomers also have plans to upgrade the VLA. The
which operated from 1997 to 2003. The latest in this line Next-Generation VLA (ngVLA) will consist of 244 dishes each
was Russia’s 10-metre Spektr-R, which operated from 2011 to 18 metres in diameter, spread across a baseline more than
2019 and provided a baseline of around 350,000 km. 200 times longer than the current setup. The new network
Building on these early space-based forays, radio will combine a tight spiral of dishes in the US southwest with
astronomers hope to extend their reach even farther. remote stations across that country.
The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) team, for example, is We may well ask what radio telescopes in the making and
contemplating launching an antenna into Earth orbit or new technologies hold in store for us. What will we learn
placing one on the Moon. Those with big dreams are targeting about the formation of the first stars and galaxies right
the second Lagrangian point, a location some 1.5 million km after the Big Bang? Or how planetary systems arise? Will we
‘behind’ Earth as viewed from the Sun where spacecraft can gain insight into black holes… and ultimately understand
hover with minimal effort. It boggles the mind to think of gravity better? From the magnetism that bathes the universe
what a virtual radio receiver of that size could reveal about to the growing number of distant cosmic flashes called fast
supermassive black holes residing in distant galaxies. radio bursts, the heavens are awash in mysteries that radio
MICH A EL GOH A ND ICR A R /CURTIN
telescopes will help us solve. Stay tuned.

Dial in to the future
The EHT and ALMA technically work at frequencies beyond ¢ After umpteen years of pointing X-ray and radio telescopes
the upper edge of what astronomers consider radio. Monster at the universe, DIANA HANNIKAINEN has switched to
arrays at lower frequencies are also in development. The Square commanding backyard light buckets. She dedicates this article
Kilometre Array, for example, will straddle two continents, to the memory of Australian astronomer, Richard Hunstead
with antennae located in South Africa and Western Australia. (1943–2020), her beloved mentor in radio astronomy.

GALACTIC TIMEPIECES by Jennifer van Saders
L AU R IT TA / S H UT TER STO CK

Measurements of stellar rotation give We find ourselves in somewhat the same situation when
trying to age-date stars: Unless they are very old or very
astronomers insight into stars’ ages. young, we generally struggle to find some property we can
easily measure that quickly and accurately tells us the age.
But they’ve also unearthed a mystery. The vast majority of a star’s life is spent on what we call
the main sequence. Main-sequence stars stably burn hydrogen
HOW DO WE TELL TIME in the Milky Way? To understand in their cores. The vast majority of stars in the Milky Way,
the history of our galaxy, its star systems, and even its including the Sun, are on the main sequence. A star like
elements and molecules, we need a way to put a timeline the Sun will shine by fusing its core hydrogen into helium
to events — a timeline that spans billions of years. The for about 10 billion years, meaning our Sun is only halfway
Milky Way didn’t form in one sudden burst of star through the main sequence. However, the main-sequence
formation, nor has it always been forming stars at the lifetime depends very strongly on the mass of the star: More
same rate. It didn’t start rich in the heavier elements that massive stars burn bright and die young, while less massive
make up most of the physical material we interact with stars can burn hydrogen for many times the current age of
on a day-to-day basis, either. These elements (carbon, the universe.
oxygen, silicon, iron etc.) are all the products of the A star undergoes some mild changes on the main
lives and deaths of stars, built up over time and multiple sequence. The Sun was about 30% less luminous when it
generations. To understand the history of star formation first settled into stable hydrogen burning than it is today.
and enrichment, we need a means of telling time. It will continue to brighten and its surface temperature
Likewise, we’ve now discovered thousands of planets will get slightly hotter as it swells with age. By the time the
orbiting other stars. A whole cohort of scientists is Sun exhausts the hydrogen in its core, it will be about 70%
devoting their lives to the search for Earth-like planets, brighter than it is today, although at its hottest it will be only
ultimately trying to answer the question, “How unusual about 40 degrees hotter.
is Earth?” The answer requires more than just a tally of It’s tempting to use this fact to estimate a star’s age,
how many Earth-size planets there are in Earth-like orbits and historically this is the approach we’ve taken. We used
around Sun-like stars (we think the answer is ‘a lot’),
but also where in their evolution those planets are. Earth q MOTTLED SURFACE Seen here in hydrogen alpha (wavelength
is 4.6 billion years old; we’ve only had an oxygen-rich 656.3 nm) on July 29, 2012, the Sun sports a few spots as well as bright
regions called faculae. Faculae are places where the solar magnetic field
atmosphere for about 2.4 billion years. Complex animal
is concentrated, but in much smaller bundles than in sunspots.
life has only existed for 600 million years or so. If we’re
judging based on what our world looks like today, then a
very young Earth would not have been Earth-like at all.
Without a sense of time, it’s hard to put our own Solar
System in context.
Stars are our galactic clocks. They are bright and
therefore easy to see across vast distances, but they are
also long-lived. Stars born throughout the history of the
Milky Way are still burning today, keeping some record of
the conditions of our galaxy’s past. Because stars are born
along with their planetary systems, the age of the host star
is also the age of its planets. So if we can find an effective
means of estimating stellar ages, we can reconstruct
billions of years of galactic and planetary history.
Measuring stars’ ages, however, is the hard part.
Aging gracefully
You may have heard the adage, “Don’t look a gift horse in
the mouth,” warning us not to find fault with otherwise
positive happenings in our lives. The phrase is rooted in
actual horse husbandry: Unless the horse is very old or
very young, it’s challenging to tell whether that horse is
a teenager or creeping toward retirement. However, the
A L A N FRIEDM A N
wear and alignment of horses’ teeth change as they age,

meaning that the best way to tell a horse’s age is in fact to
look it in the mouth.
GALACTIC TIMEPIECES
q A STAR’S LIFE The most massive stars live only a few million
years, whereas the smallest will fuse hydrogen for hundreds of
We’ve found that when we look
billions of years or longer. Shown here are a range of masses, at young stars they are rotating
rapidly, generally in one to 10
which span the spectral types. Stars are not to scale.
Temperature
(kelvin)
Mass and
Spectral type
Lifespan
(years) days. The older a star becomes,
the slower it rotates.
a stellar model to tell us the relation between a star’s
age and its temperature and luminosity, and then used
measurements of the latter two quantities to infer the
25 solar masses age: We call this an isochrone age. This works well for stars
35,000 7 million
O more massive than the Sun, where we can estimate ages
to better than half a billion years. This is because (1) their
temperatures and luminosities change relatively quickly
with time, and (2) the change is large in comparison to
our measurement uncertainties.
30,000 For a Sun-like star, though, the change is slower. Near
the end of hydrogen core burning, the uncertainty on an
isochrone age is closer to 2 billion years. For a star 30% the
mass of the Sun, this isochrone technique fails entirely,
20 million and the only statement you can make with confidence is
that the star is younger than the age of the universe. This
25,000 is rather unsatisfying.
10 solar masses Spinning stars

B We therefore need something else — something we can
measure easily, something that takes less than many
billions of years to change measurably, and something
20,000 200 million that changes even in very slowly evolving, low-mass stars.
Recently, astronomers have turned to stellar rotation. We
call the idea of age-dating stars via their rotation periods
3 solar masses
B to A gyrochronology. Early estimates showed that rotation-based
ages may be more precise than isochrone ages for stars like
the Sun, and the method is the only means of inferring
15,000
2 billion precise ages for stars less massive than the Sun.
All stars rotate. Our own Sun rotates with a period just
1.5 solar masses shy of a month. We can measure rotation in a variety of
F
different ways, but perhaps the most straightforward is to
study how the brightness of a star varies with time. If you
10 billion were to carefully watch the surface of the Sun, you would
10,000
1 solar mass see dark sunspots (regions of intense magnetism) and
G bright regions (called faculae) rotate into and out of view
over the course of the month. Because the spots aren’t the
same brightness as the rest of the surface, they change the
30 billion
Sun’s overall brightness while they’re in view. Sunspots
0.75 solar mass thus ‘modulate’ the brightness of the Sun over one rotation
5000 K
200 billion
0.5 solar mass
M
0 50,000,000,000 100,000,000,000 150,000,000,000 200,000,000,000
Main sequence lifespan (years)

cycle, making it possible to measure the period. Apart from a then we can use these ages to tune our rotation-based clock
handful of large and nearby stars, we can’t resolve the surfaces and calibrate our models.
of other stars to see the individual starspots, but we still can The Sun is one example of such a system, where we can use
see the periodic dimming as the stars rotate. radioisotope dating of primordial meteorites to measure the
We’ve found that when we look at young stars they are age of the Solar System, and thus the Sun. However, this only
spinning rapidly, generally completing a rotation in one works for our own star, since we can’t yet collect rocks from
to 10 days. The older a star becomes, the slower it rotates. other planetary systems to directly measure their ages.
Physically, we think this is the consequence of both mass loss One important class of stellar system where age
and magnetism. Sun-like stars undergo slow but steady mass measurements are possible are open clusters: groups of stars
loss, blown away from the stellar surface as a wind of particles. born together. These stars are coeval and have the same
The Sun loses about 2×10 -14 solar masses of material a year. composition; the only difference among them is their masses.
That’s a lot in human terms: It’s equal to about 70 times the In a cluster we can measure an isochrone-based age of the
biomass in carbon of all life on Earth, every year. However, more rapidly evolving, massive stars and then apply that age
it’s nothing for the Sun: It would take the Sun 3,600 times the to every star in the cluster. However, while clusters less than
current age of the universe to lose all of its mass at this rate. 1 billion years old tend to be common and nearby, open
The wind may be insignificant in terms of mass loss, but it clusters disperse with time. Clusters that are older than the
is significant in terms of angular momentum loss. The wind Sun tend to be rather rare and distant, making it a challenge
interacts with the Sun’s magnetic field as it streams away, to study the rotation of their stars.
resulting in a torque on the star’s rotation. The Sun loses Until recently, we only had a handful of clusters with
angular momentum to these magnetised winds and thus rotation measurements, and essentially no stars older than
spins down. the Sun with truly robust age and period measurements. The
planet-hunting Kepler mission made all the difference. It gave
Turning an idea into a tool us two critical new types of information: rotation periods for
It’s one thing to recognise that old stars spin slower, and a much larger sample of stars than ever before, and access to
quite another to be able to translate that rotation period a new way of measuring ages independent of rotation.
into an estimate of the age. Nor do we really understand the Kepler’s view of the sky was pixelated, but it could detect
physics behind stars’ mass loss and magnetism. exceptionally tiny variations in the brightness of stars. To
To overcome this challenge, we can let nature tell us understand how sensitive Kepler really was, let’s consider an
the right answer: If we measure rotation periods in special analogy. The Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas boasts the brightest
systems where we can measure the age in some other way, spotlight in the world, which is actually made from a room
How a Star Slows Down

1 Particles stream out 2 Particles follow the stellar magnetic 3 Eventually the particles break
of the star as a wind. field lines out and get whipped around free, carrying some of the star’s
by the rotating field as they travel. rotational momentum with them.
INFOG R A PHIC: TERRI DUBÉ / S&T; HOW A STA R SLOWS DOWN: G REGG DINDER M A N / S&T
Not to scale
GALACTIC TIMEPIECES
full of bright xenon lamps focused into a beam. Now imagine t STELLAR
you go stand in among these lights with a small LED torch. SEISMIC WAVES
Something with Kepler’s sensitivity looking down would be Acoustic waves take
many paths through
able to detect the difference in intensity as you turned your
a star, depending
torch on and off against the background of those spotlights: on the density and
a signal of only a few to tens of parts per million. This was temperature of the
a requirement for Kepler’s main mission to detect Earth-like plasma that they
planets passing in front of Sun-like stars, but it also made it travel through.
These waves
an incredibly powerful tool for studying stars overall.
change the star’s
Kepler’s sensitivity gave us the ability to detect spots even brightness in subtle
on quiet stars with relatively few of them, something very ways, enabling
difficult to do from the ground. It enabled us to detect the astronomers to
rotation of tens of thousands of stars, and of older cluster detect them.
stars than ever before.
Kepler also gave us access to another powerful technique:
asteroseismology. Just as seismology on Earth is the key to 150,000 main-sequence stars, it detected pulsations in only
understanding the structure of Earth’s core, asteroseismology about 500 of those targets. And, because those pulsations
allows us to peer into stars’ deep interiors. In Sun-like stars, become harder to detect in lower-mass stars, there are a mere
the churning convective regions in their outer layers produce handful of main-sequence stars less massive than the Sun
sound waves and set the star ringing. These sound waves with detected pulsations.
cause the star to pulsate, and the surface becomes slightly While stars with precise seismic ages are few in number,
HIG H SPINS: G REGG DINDER M A N / S&T, SOURCE: J. L. VA N SA DERS E T A L. / NATUR E 2016; STELL A R SOUND: LE A H TISCIONE / S&T, SOURCE: SOI / STA NFORD UNIV ERSIT Y
brighter and dimmer over the pulsation, a signal we could we can use this whole new class of calibrators to tune our
detect with Kepler. rotation-based clocks. For the first time, we could test our
Some of those sound waves pass near the stellar core where period-age relations for stars older than the Sun.
nuclear fusion is occurring. Sound passes at different speeds
through a core rich in hydrogen fuel and one where most of Surprises and puzzles
that fuel has been converted to helium ‘ash’. This means that The picture that emerged from Kepler was puzzling.
by studying these acoustic waves, we effectively have a means Measurements of rotation periods in the open clusters
of measuring how much of its fuel the star has burned. aligned beautifully with the period-age relations we already
Because the fraction of the fuel a star has burned is closely had, as did the seismic stars that were younger than middle-
connected to how long it has been burning, it gives us a tight aged. However, the old seismic stars were a problem: They
constraint on the stellar age, even in old stars. were spinning faster than expected for their old ages.
Asteroseismology is incredibly powerful, but it’s also Furthermore, something was wrong with the full,
limited to the brightest stars. While Kepler stared at about 30,000-some-star sample with measured periods. The
old, slowly rotating stars we thought should be there were
40 missing. It’s very possible we simply overlooked their subtle
rotational signals: As stars age they become less spotty, and it
becomes harder to detect the brightness modulation created
30 by spots. However, it could also be that stars never actually
manage to spin down to those long periods, a fact we had no
Sun
way of knowing without having precise asteroseismic ages to
Period (days)
highlight the old stars.

20 My collaborators and I put forward an idea that might
explain what we saw: If stars stopped spinning down as
quickly midway through their main-sequence lives, we could
10 explain the behaviour of both our young, trusted open
clusters and the old seismic stars. However, in order for that
to happen, something drastic needed to change in the spin-
down. Either the strength or shape of the magnetic field, or
0
0 2 4 6 8 10 the nature of the mass loss, must undergo a transition in
Age (billion years) order to weaken the angular momentum loss.
We think the magnetic fields in Sun-like stars are driven
p SURPRISING SPINS Stars in young clusters (red) spin down
as expected with age (black line). But stars age-dated with
by a dynamo that results from the interaction between the
asteroseismology (blue) spin too fast. The stars shown here have star’s rotation and the circulation of material in the outer
temperatures of 5600 to 5900 kelvin, similar to the Sun (about 5800K). convection zone. We argued that the spin-down might

eventually change the nature of the dynamo, which would our interest in gyrochronology to begin with. Kepler and its
then weaken the angular momentum loss. If that transition successor mission K2 added young, low-mass cluster stars to
also meant that stars were less spotty, it could explain the full our sample, and already we’re seeing that the picture we’ve
sample as well: Stars never make it to long periods (they stop constructed for the Sun’s rotational evolution doesn’t describe
spinning down), and we don’t see a pileup of stars that have the behaviour of these low-mass stars all that well. Calibrator
stalled their slowdowns because they have very few spots and stars are even harder to come by for these low masses, and the
it’s hard to see them rotating. hunt is on to find them. We’re very motivated in our search
If this scenario is true, it means that all solar mass stars — these are the most numerous stars in the galaxy, the most
halfway through the main sequence — in other words, the difficult to age-date, and the most likely host stars for future
same age as the Sun — are undergoing this transition, and interesting exoplanets discovered by the ongoing Transiting
that our Sun is at a somewhat ‘special’ point in its life. This Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) mission.
is an uncomfortable claim for any scientist who has had the For researchers working on this problem, these puzzles
Copernican Principle drilled into them for decades. But it’s are just as exciting as the prospect of creating a galactic
also intriguing. What if the Sun is undergoing a magnetic timepiece. When we are eventually able to describe the spin-
transition? What does that mean for space weather on Earth- down well, we will suddenly have an incredibly powerful tool
like planets? Will the Sun continue to have an 11-year magnetic for measuring ages in our hands. However, every time a new
cycle? Will the number of spots on its surface decline? observation breaks our models, we are equally excited: It’s
a chance to learn about deeply uncertain aspects of stellar
Moving forward evolution that stellar astronomers have struggled with for
So far, our attempts to understand how rotation changes more than 100 years.
with age have raised more questions than they’ve answered. It turns out when you ask a star its age, you get its whole
And it’s very unlikely that the surprises are over: We’ve only (magnetic) life story.
looked at the tiny fraction of stars similar to the Sun, and
as we expand that view we’ll need to expand our physical ¢ JENNIFER VAN SADERS is a professor at the University of
understanding as well. Hawai‘i at Manoa. She spent the first few years of her career
For example, we’ve still had little chance to study the convinced she didn’t want to study stars, but then she saw the
rotational evolution of those low-mass stars that ignited light and never looked back.
q MISSING STARS? When astronomers plotted some 30,000 stars’ rotations, they found that far fewer of them spun slowly than expected. The
lefthand plot shows the observed stars. The righthand plot is a comparison of the data to what’s expected if stars continued to spin down with age.
In both plots, 95% of stars lie below the orange line. The redder the region on the righthand plot, the more stars are ‘missing’ compared to what
astronomers expected to see. If there’s a point at which the rotation rate is slow enough that it doesn’t affect motions in the star’s convective zone, then
it could affect the magnetic field and explain why magnetic braking hasn’t continued to spin stars down. Note that stars cooler than 5100K (red line)
aren’t old enough to have spun down yet. The tall purple ‘fin’ on the righthand plot is from older, swollen stars, which the calculations don’t handle well.
Number of stars expected, divided by

number of stars observed
More stars than expected Fewer stars than expected
Number of stars
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 0.00 0.25 0.50 0.75 1.00 1.25 1.50 1.75 2.00

70 70
60 60
50 50
)
Period (days)
40 40
30 30
20 20
PLOTS: THE AU THOR
10 10
0 0
6500 6000 5500 5000 4500 4000 3500 6000 5500 5000 4500 4000 3500
Temperature (kelvin) Temperature (kelvin)
BINOCULAR HIGHLIGHT by Mathew Wedel
ARIES
USING THE
STAR CHART
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WHEN
Late October 11 pm
Early November 10 pm
g
NE
Late November 9 pm
5° bino These are daylight savings times.
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savings is not applicable.
w
Uranus
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OR IO N
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the bright star Canopus in the
Rigel
target. Unless you have a big planet-killing telescope you’re not constellation Carina is about
going to see much more than a little dot anyway, so you might
6
µ
a third of the way between the
h
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LEPUS
α
Uranus through binoculars is to get some sense of what it was like for middle of the chart. So if you
β
early observers. The analogy isn’t perfect; binoculars tend to have lower look into the south-eastern
magnifications and wider fields of view than scopes. But the challenge sky, you’ll find Canopus about
remains the same: to pick a bright point of light out of the surrounding
β
halfway between the horizon
star field and determine that there’s something different about it. and the zenith.
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It’s not an easy task, as witnessed by the number of skilled historical
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MA
were. Galileo himself is suspected to have seen Neptune at least twice, for latitude 35°S (for example,
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in 1612 and 1613. John Flamsteed unknowingly observed Uranus several
R
Sydney, Buenos Aires, Cape
ε
times starting in 1690 but catalogued it as a star. It wasn’t until William Town). If you’re much further
Herschel independently discovered Uranus in 1781 that anyone realised it north of there, stars in the
was a Solar System object, and even Herschel took it for a comet at first. northern part of the sky will be
So here’s an exercise that may give you some appreciation of the higher and those in the south
challenges that our ancestors faced: Observe Uranus, sketch its lower. If you’re further south,
position against the background stars, and see how many nights it
Fa
the reverse is true.

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takes to determine that the planet has moved. The stars Xi (ξ) Arietis,
n
31 Arietis and 29 Arietis will be good visual anchors with which to –1

judge the planet’s movement. While you’re out there, imagine that it’s 0
1620, and your binoculars are the finest optics in all the world — and ONLINE You can get a real- 1
for you, for that time, they will be. time sky chart for your location at
2
skychart.skyandtelescope.com/
3 Star
¢ MATT WEDEL is always amazed at how much of the universe you can skychart.php
unlock with a handful of aluminium and glass. 4 magnitudes

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Fa c i n g S o u t h
UNDER THE STARS by Fred Schaaf
For many of this magazine’s readers

the change from standard time to
daylight-saving time happened on the
first Sunday of October, which this
year falls on the 4th. This means that
sunsets are now happening one hour
later on the clock. That also means the
sky fills with stars an hour later too —
including the mighty constellations of
the summer sky.
At 0h sidereal time mid-November
Orion’s Belt is making its majestic rise
SUMMER RISING
in the east with its unmistakable line
Orion, summer’s iconic
constellation, clears
of three Belt stars. High in the south,
the eastern horizon at the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds
roughly 0h sidereal time are reaching for the meridian. The
on November evenings. Southern Cross, meanwhile, is right
down on or below the horizon for many
Shine on with firsts

Australasian observers.
Joining Orion in the east and
northeast are Canis Major with the
and bests
brightest star in the sky, Sirius, and
Taurus with arguably the nicest naked-
eye star cluster, the Pleiades.
High in the south is the star
Come get your share of the November night sky. Achernar at the far end of its
constellation, Eridanus. Halfway down
Why in the world are we here? “We’re made of star-stuff,” and poet to the horizon is Canopus, the second-
Surely not to live in pain and fear Walt Whitman’s Songs of Myself line brightest star in terms of apparent
And why on earth are you there about a blade of grass being “the magnitude. High overhead we have the
When you’re everywhere, journeywork of the stars”. But there’s constellations Fornax and Sculptor,
Come and get your share. another section of the Lennon song that each with its own famous grouping of
And we all shine on suggests an intimate link between us galaxies. And if you’re far enough north
Like the moon, and the stars, and the sun. and all parts of the universe you can grab a telescope and try for
Yes, we all shine on, A month of firsts and bests. Before galaxy M31 in Andromeda.
Everyone. we get to that link, however, let’s When you’re everywhere. In Instant
— From the song Instant Karma consider the many first sights that Karma, Lennon sings “why on earth are
by John Lennon make mid-November evenings special. you there, when you’re everywhere”.
The time we want to focus on is 0h What’s the cosmic connection? Think
I
n February, 1970, two months before sidereal time. That’s when the 0h line of it this way. You’re “everywhere” (or
the Beatles break-up became public, of RA (the one that passes through the at least many places at once) when
John Lennon composed, recorded equinox point) is on the meridian. This you view the November evening sky
and released his song Instant Karma happens at about 10:15pm as November and take in sights that span vast
in just 10 days. Fifty years later, the starts and about 8:15pm as the month distances — from Mars within our own
song seems especially relevant with the ends (both given in Australian Eastern Solar System, all the way out to the
world in the grip of a pandemic and Summer Time). This year a spectacular, Andromeda Galaxy some 2.5 million
some countries experiencing social and colourful, and very bright interloper will light-years away.
political upheaval. be nearby. I’m talking of course about In this context, seeing everywhere is
Of course, the main astronomical Mars, which is only a few weeks removed the closest thing to being everywhere,
reference in the song is the repeated from when it reached maximum and a fine way to “get your share” of the
chorus about humankind shining on brightness, on October 6. The Red Planet universe surrounding us.
S. OTA ROL A /ESO
“like the moon, and the stars, and the spends November near the 1h line of RA,
sun”. It strikes me as at least a cousin to meaning it transits roughly one hour ¢ FRED SCHAAF is eager for his share
Carl Sagan’s famous Cosmos comment, later than the times given above. of the summer skies.

Image courtesy Dr. John Carver (50 megapixel MicroLine ML50100 camera)
Kepler CMOS: Paradigm Shift

It is no surprise that the CCD’s best performance is with a single long exposure. What may be surprising is the Kepler KL4040 CMOS
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

CCD cameras, filter wheels, and focusers to pave your way to
success—whichever path you choose. Designed and manufactured in New
York, USA.
Visit us at flicamera.com for

more information about our
cooled CMOS and CCD
cameras, focusers, and
color filter wheels.
© 2018 Finger Lakes Instrumentation LLC. All rights reserved.

SUN, MOON & PLANETS by Jonathan Nally
Giants stride the sky

The Solar System’s two largest planets are unmissable in the west sky after sunset.
W
e’re about to be treated to the see, being much brighter than Mercury Shining brightly together in the
best planetary conjunction and higher above the horizon. Look for west as the sky begins to darken, the
of the year, when Jupiter the Moon close by on November 13 duo will slowly creep closer and closer
and Saturn sidle up to each other in and December 13. Earth’s ‘sister world’ together — from a separation of 5° at the
mid-December. It’ll be a sight not to be will remain visible in the dawn twilight beginning of November to just 0.1° apart
missed, with the duo so close together through until February next year. on December 21. It’ll be fascinating to
that you’ll be able to see both of them Mars (–1.7, 17.5″) is nice and high watch the gap between them narrow
in the same field of a telescope. in the northern sky after the Sun night by night. Keep your fingers crossed
But let’s start as always with sets. Even though the planet passed for good viewing conditions!
Mercury (mag. –0.6, dia. 6.3″, Nov. 15), opposition in October, it’s still worth a Jupiter, Saturn and the Moon will
and I’m afraid there’s not much to glance at it through a telescope before also form a nice triangle on December
say about the innermost planet for it becomes too distant and its apparent 17, with the two planets 0.5° apart and
November and December. Hugging size shrinks dramatically. the Moon just 3° away.
the eastern morning horizon across The Red Planet will finish its Uranus (5.7, 3.8″) reaches opposition
the two months, the tiny world will retrograde motion on November 16 and on November 1, visible all night long
reach superior conjunction (ie. on the then start heading in the right direction after the Sun has gone down. A pair of
other side of the Sun) on December 20, again. Look for the Moon nearby on binoculars will bring the planet into
soon after which it will reappear in the November 25–26 and December 23–24. view, but why not have a go with the
western sky after sunset. If you’re very Jupiter (–2.1, 35.6″) and it sibling unaided eye (see page 50)? A telescope
lucky, you might spot Mercury and the Saturn (0.6, 16.0”) are the two planets will clearly reveal a tiny disk with a
thin crescent Moon together, just above of most interest at the moment, with distinct blue/green colour.
the horizon, on November 14. the pair of gas giants in close apparent Neptune (7.9, 0.1″) has been in
Venus (–3.9, 12.4″), too, is low in proximity to each other during retrograde motion for about five
the east before sunrise, but easier to November and December. months, but as of November 29 it will
p Just before sunrise; Mercury is hard to see. p Jupiter and Saturn are getting closer. p The thin crescent Moon joins Venus.

by Bob King METEORS
Sparks from Leo & Taurus

N
ovember has no strong meteor rich, so its reasonable to expect some
showers unless there happens excitement.
to be an outburst from the The Northern shower reaches
resume prograde motion again. The annual Leonids. That occurred most its maximum rate on the night of
eighth planet is heading for conjunction recently in 2002 when up to 3,000 November 11–12, with a harmless
with the Sun in March next year. meteors an hour blazed across the sky. morning lunar crescent in play. These
Finally, Earth will reach the southern According to the American Meteor meteors radiate from a point roughly
summer solstice on December 21, Organization, we won’t get a repeat 1° southeast of the Pleiades, in Taurus.
which is the day when it is furthest performance until 2099, when Earth Although the Southern Taurids
south in the sky (declination –23.5°) and next passes through a dense strand peaked on the night of October 29–30
the hours of daylight are longest. of debris shed by the shower’s parent, (when the Moon was just shy of full),
Comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle. Moderately the display has a broad maximum and
rich Leonid displays of around 100 remains active until November 20.
meteors per hour are also expected These meteors radiate from a location
when the comet returns in 2031 and roughly 12° southwest of the Pleiades.
2064. In the meantime, the normal
version offering 10–15 meteors per
hour will have to do.
But why twiddle your thumbs?
Viewing conditions are ideal for the
Leonids this year. The shower peaks
in a moonless sky at around 12 UT on
the morning of November 17th. Watch
for a smattering of extremely fast
meteors streaking from the Sickle of Leo
between 3:00 and 5:30am local time,
when the radiant stands high in the
northeastern sky.
The Northern Taurids and Southern
Taurids are also active this month. Both
showers derive from Comet 2P/Encke
and produce a handful of meteors
per hour at best. But despite their low
p The duo will be even closer on the 21st. rates, both Taurid streams are fireball-
SKY PHENOMENA LUNAR PHENOMENA

NOVEMBER DECEMBER NOVEMBER
1 Uranus at opposition 4 Moon 4° south of Pollux Full Moon …… Oct 31st, 14:49 UT
3 Moon 5° north of Aldebaran 7 Moon 5° north of Regulus Last Quarter …… 8th, 13:46 UT
7 Moon 4° south of Pollux 10 Moon 7° north of Spica New Moon …… 15th, 05:07 UT
9 Moon 5° north of Regulus 13 Venus 1° south of the Moon First Quarter …… 22nd, 04:45 UT
11 Mercury greatest elong. west (19.1°) 17 Jupiter 3° north of the Moon Full Moon …… 30th, 09:30 UT
13 Venus 3° south of the Moon 17 Saturn 3° north of the Moon Perigee …… 14th, 12h UT, 357,837 km
13 Moon 7° north of Spica 20 Mercury at superior conjunction Apogee …… 27th, 00h UT, 405,894 km
14 Mercury 1.5° south of the Moon 21 Neptune 5° north of the Moon
16 Mars stationary 21 Southern summer solstice DECEMBER
16 Moon 6° north of Antares 21 Saturn 0.1° north of Jupiter Last Quarter …… 8th, 00:37 UT
17 Venus 4° north of Spica 23 Venus 6° north of Antares New Moon …… 14th, 16:17 UT
19 Jupiter 2° north of the Moon 24 Mars 6° north of the Moon First Quarter …… 21st, 23:41 UT
20 Saturn 3° north of the Moon 25 Uranus 3° north of the Moon Full Moon …… 30th, 03:28 UT
26 Mars 5° north of the Moon 28 Moon 5° north of Aldebaran Perigee …… 12th, 21h UT, 361,773 km
30 Moon 5° north of Aldebaran 31 Moon 4° south of Pollux Apogee …… 24th, 17h UT, 405,012 km
COMETS by David Seargent
Best for binoculars

Comet C/2020 M3 (ATLAS) is well placed for southern observers, and might reach magnitude 9.
S
ome comets brighten slowly in Libra), although fading may become
and fade rapidly; others show swifter as the comet moves further C/2020 F3 NEOWISE was
best seen from the Northern
relatively symmetrical light from the Sun.
Hemisphere, displaying
curves. But the most ‘obliging’ comets knots and kinks in its
(all other things being equal) are those A new NEOWISE bluish ion tail and bands
that rapidly brighten as they move The Near-Earth Object Wide-field within its dust tail.
toward perihelion, and fade only slowly Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE)
as they move away. project scored another find on August 2
Comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) was in the form of a 19th-magnitude comet
one of these, becoming a surprise deep in the southern skies. Like its
performer, especially for northern earlier namesake, C/2020 P1 (NEOWISE)
observers, during July. It was close to has a small perihelion distance of just
magnitude zero as it emerged into the 0.34 astronomical units, which it will
twilight following perihelion on July 3 reach on October 20. Although it was
and, later in that month, provided a fine intrinsically very faint at the time of
naked-eye display with a dust tail more discovery, recent computations suggest
than 20 degrees long. a dynamically evolved elliptical orbit.
We in the south missed the comet’s If this is confirmed, it seems that this
best. However, following the full Moon comet, like 2020 F3, is not making
in early August, the comet was still its first approach to the Sun and may
marginally visible with the naked eye brighten rather rapidly as it nears
and — for observers blessed with rural perihelion.
skies — a broad fan-shaped dust tail Early October will find C/2020 P1
could be traced for about two degrees low in both evening and morning
with binoculars. twilight, moving from Hydra into
In mid-August, the comet was still Corvus in the morning skies as the
close to 7th magnitude. If this slow second week of the month begins. It
rate of fading continues, it should be will pass Earth at 0.66 a.u. on October
about magnitude 11 at the end of the 12 and will be in Virgo at perihelion,
first week of October (when it will be when it will be within 16 degrees of Hawaii on June 27. It soon became
the Sun. Thereafter it will emerge into apparent that C/2020 M3 (ATLAS) is
sight from the Northern Hemisphere. a periodic comet in the Halley/Swift-
Early brightness estimates (all by CCD Tuttle class, having a period of 138
at the time of writing) suggest a rather years.
steep brightening trend, although it Although intrinsically faint
is difficult to disentangle any genuine at discovery, C/2020 M3 (not
tendency from the inevitable scatter unexpectedly for an object of
in the estimates. Because of this this orbital type) was found to be
uncertainty, magnitude forecasts for significantly brighter at the end
early in October’s second week range of August, with several estimates
from 3 to 10.5! indicating a magnitude of 10.7 to 11.
An image secured by Michael Mattiazzo
NEOWISE: G ER A LD RHEM A NN
Suitable for the south (Swan Hill, Victoria) on August 28

In early July, it was announced that revealed a strong central condensation
cometary activity was present on a and a coma of 10 arcminutes,
p C/2020 M3 (ATLAS) displayed a strong
central condensation and a coma spanning 10
possible near-Earth object candidate corresponding to a true diameter of
arcminutes in this image taken on August 28 by found by the Asteroid Terrestrial-Impact around 347,000 kilometres.
Michael Mattiazzo. Last Alert System (ATLAS) team in Well placed for observing from

by Alan Plummer VARIABLE STARS
southern latitudes, this should be a T T Tauri is located at 04h 21m 59.44s, +19° 32′ 06.5″. This chart (courtesy of the AAVSO) is
good binocular object through next approximately 2 degrees square and has visual magnitudes shown with decimal points omitted —
month or so. C/2020 M3 will cross so 75 denotes a magnitude 7.5 star. North is down, east is to the left.
from Eridanus into Lepus during the
second half of October, into Orion
as November begins and through to
Taurus by the start of the third week of
that month. Continuing its northerly
trek, the comet will pass into Auriga
during the first week of December.
Magnitude 18.8 at discovery, C/2020
M3 will reach perihelion on October
24 at 1.3 a.u. from the Sun. Given the
late August estimates, it may be about
magnitude 9 in the middle of October
and possibly half a magnitude brighter
during late November. It will pass just
0.35 a.u. from Earth on November 15.
Other visitors
As detailed in the previous issue of
AS&T, 88P/Howell continues to be well
placed as it drifts from Ophiuchus into
Sagittarius in the middle of October
and into Capricornus at the start of the
third week of November. Moving away
from the Sun, the comet is expected to
fade from about magnitude 9.5 to 11
An opposite attraction
during this interval. Far from the Galactic centre, T Tauri is the star of the show.
On July 18, ATLAS detected an object
which was subsequently reported as ith the rich star fields of T Tau is the class prototype of the ‘T
a possible new comet on August 11.
Follow up observations identified it as
a return of the periodic comet P/2009
W Sagittarius long gone with the
winter, you might think that
the opposite direction — the Galactic
Tauri stars,’ which have dusty disks, jets
and lithium in their spectra. Lithium
is an indicator that a star is young,
Q4 (Boattini), the 2015 return of anti-centre — is bereft of interest. because the element is easily destroyed
which was missed due to unfavourable Not so! Towards the constellations by nuclear reactions. Young stars
circumstances. This year will see the of Auriga and Taurus, open star are usually found in loose, unbound
comet arriving at perihelion (1.31 clusters, bright and dark nebulae and associations because they have not had
a.u.) on December 26, after having variable stars abound. Our nearest time to drift far from where they form.
approached Earth to 0.376 a.u. on open star cluster, the Hyades, lies in These are called ‘T associations’.
December 22. this direction, as does the nearest T Tau is easy to find, just to the west
During the 2009 apparition, P/2009 large-scale star formation region, the of Epsilon Tauri, the star that forms
Q4 reached magnitude 12 to 13, and Taurus-Auriga dark cloud. Our target the opening of the ‘V’ of the Hyades
— as this year’s return is a slightly this issue is T Tauri, the brightest of with Aldebaran. At a distance of 470
more favourable — it may become the proto-stars associated with that light years, T Tau and the Taurus-Auriga
about one magnitude brighter, making molecular cloud. dark cloud lay far beyond the Hyades.
it a suitable object for observers with T Tau was discovered in 1852 by T Tau is known to range between visual
large aperture telescopes and good sky asteroid hunter J. R. Hind when he magnitudes 9.3 and 13.5, although in
conditions. noticed a 10th-magnitude star that was recent years it has flickered around 10th
not plotted on his charts. Along with magnitude.
■ DAVID SEARGENT’S interest in comets the new star an adjacent nebula was
was first sparked by his grandfather’s spotted, now known as Hind’s Variable ■ ALAN PLUMMER enjoys observing
stories of Halley in 1910, and revived by Nebula or NGC 1555. The nebula no matter which season happens to
missing (except for one brief glimpse) ‘shines’ with reflected light from T Tau, be current. He can be contacted at
Seki-Lines in 1962. and so it varies along with the star. Alan123604@live.com.
CELESTIAL CALENDAR by Bob King
3h 00m 2h 30m 2h 00m +16°
α
β 19
ARIES +20°
2
γ 29 Path of Uranus
Star magnitudes
Aug 1 July 1
3 Path of Uranus 2020
4 Sept 1
5 Oct 1 +14°
6 Mar 1
5
Star magnitudes
Nov 1 Feb 1
+10° 6
µ ξ1 Dec 1
λ ξ2 7 ARIES Jan 1
PSC 2021
8
9 31
CETUS
γ α
α
+12°
M77 δ 2h 40m 2h 30m 2h 20m
0°
Catch Uranus at opposition

See if you can spot it without telescopic aid.
U
ranus, will reach a milestone in Uranus betrays its planetary nature Our Moons of Uranus tool will help you
the early morning of November with a telltale tiny disk 3.8″ across. keep tabs on the planet’s five brightest
1, as it comes to opposition in a Through a 25-cm or larger satellites: https://is.gd/UranusMoons.
barren region of sky in southern Aries. telescope under dark skies, you Uranus is famous for its sideways tilt
At magnitude 5.7, Uranus is easy to should be able to pull in the planet’s — its rotational axis is inclined 97.8° to
spot through binoculars even from the two brightest moons, Titania and the plane of its orbit. It also takes a long
suburbs. But the fact that so few stars Oberon (magnitudes 13.9 and 14.1, time to complete an orbit — 84 of our
populate the area in Aries will make respectively). Use 250× or greater to Earth years. So depending on your Earth
this opposition ideal for a challenge discern these dim specks from the age, if you had been born on Uranus
attempted by few amateurs: finding the spillover glow surrounding the planet. you’d likely be less than one year old!
planet without optical aid. After all,
from a rural sky it’s not too difficult to
see stars slightly fainter than Uranus. November 30 penumbral lunar eclipse
Pick a night when there’s no
Moon and when the planet is near Moo
n’s
the meridian. A particularly good path South
opportunity comes in the third week of
October after moonset. That’s when you Moon enters
can make use of a fortuitous alignment. penumbra
(unobservable)
You’ll find Uranus sitting roughly 7:32 UT
Mid-
eclipse
midway between 19 and 31 Arietis — 9:43 UT
Moon
stars with magnitudes nearly identical leaves
penumbra
to that of the planet. Use averted vision
We s t
(unobservable)
East
11:53 UT
to look for this line of stellar equals.
Uranus currently lies 2.8 billion Ecliptic
kilometres from Earth. Although it’s
UMBRA
slightly less massive than Neptune,
the planet is 1,600 kilometres wider,
making it the Solar System’s third PEN
UMBRA
biggest planet after Jupiter and Saturn.
Through a 15-cm telescope at 75×, North

t The gegenschein and part of the zodiacal
band are visible in this photo showing the
European Southern Observatory’s Very Large
Telescope facility in Chile’s Atacama Desert.
Also called counterglow, the gegenschein is a
fuzzy patch of sunlit interplanetary dust.
band. Midway along its length, directly

opposite the Sun, the band brightens
Midnight
into the gegenschein, a German word
meaning ‘counterglow’.
Much like with the full Moon or a
meeting with the

planet at opposition, sunlight strikes
the dust particles in the gegenschein
head-on. And just as the full Moon
gegenschein
reaches its greatest altitude around local
midnight, so too does the gegenschein.
I first noticed the phenomenon about
15 years ago from a dark-sky site. Once I
knew what to look for, I started noticing
F
or many years, I thought the the Sun’s location in the sky at any the gegenschein more often and under
gegenschein was reserved for particular time. Like the zodiacal less pristine skies. You can, too.
mountaintops and desert locations light, the gegenschein is composed of While a dark sky is crucial, it doesn’t
hundreds of kilometres from city lights. minute grains of comet and asteroid have to be perfect. As I mentioned
I never expected to see it from my own dust illuminated by sunlight. This earlier, I’ve seen the gegenschein from
backyard. But observational barriers should come as no surprise, because home, where I deal with modest light
have a way of falling when one decides they’re both manifestations of the same pollution from a nearby city. Plan to
to ignore convention and look anyway. phenomenon. look when the Moon is absent from the
The gegenschein is a cousin of the The zodiacal light shines brightest midnight sky. Use averted vision and
zodiacal light and may be the closest nearest the sunset (or sunrise) point sweep around the area until you discern
thing to nothing that you’ll ever lay on the horizon, and gradually fades as a hazy presence that’s a little brighter
ESO / Y URI BELE TSK Y
eyes on. An ovoid glow about 10° you follow its conical form upwards. toward its centre.
wide by 5° high, the gegenschein is Seen from the darkest locales, the light Once you see the gegenschein, the
centred on the ecliptic at the antisolar arcs along the ecliptic across the entire zodiacal band awaits as your next
point — the spot directly opposite sky as the exceedingly faint zodiacal challenge!
NOVEMBER’S LUNAR ECLIPSE Watch the Moon slip through Earth’s faint outer shadow.
I
f you weren’t convinced that you saw difference in tone between the two shadow at 11:53 UT.
any trace of Earth’s shadow during regions around the time of maximum If you have good viewing
previous penumbral eclipses, you eclipse. conditions, you should be able to
should have no doubt as the November If you’re in New Zealand you’ll easily detect a grey veil across the
30 event unfolds. At maximum eclipse, get to see the whole event, with the northern third of the lunar disk
83% of the Moon will lie in Earth’s eclipse beginning shortly after the around the time of maximum.
ECLIPSE ILLUSTR ATION: G REGG DINDER M A N / S&T
outer shadow. Moon rises above the horizon. But I don’t know about you, but after
I’ve struggled at first but eventually if you’re in Australia the Moon will four penumbral eclipses in a row
succeeded in seeing a trace of still be below the horizon as the event this year (only three of which have
penumbral shading during previous begins, and only those in the eastern been visible from Australasia), I’m
eclipses, by carefully comparing the states will see the majority of it. Those a little starved for some umbra.
bright highlands along the Moon’s in central and western Australia will Thankfully, in 2021 there will be
northern limb (the part deepest in see only the later stages. a total lunar eclipse on May 26,
shadow) with the highlands edging The Moon will enter the penumbra followed by a near-total event on
the southern limb. The shadow at 7:32 Universal Time, reach its November 19. Both will be visible
can betray its presence through a greatest depth at 9:43 UT and exit the from Australasia.
EXPLORING THE SOLAR SYSTEM by William Sheehan
The changing face of Mars

The Red Planet’s shifting sands bring changes to the Martian landscape.
M
ars reached opposition on Lacus on the other side of the planet, nomenclature; he changed Schiaparelli’s
October 13 and at magnitude which sometimes appears round and at term lacus, meaning lake, to lucus,
–2.5 outshone nearly every other other times complex and elongated. meaning grove or forest.
object in the night sky. With the Red According to Schiaparelli, Libya was Rather oddly, Lowell seemed oblivious
Planet exhibiting a generously large partly inundated by the neighbouring sea to the presence of Martian dust, believing
disk of 22.4 arcseconds, observers have in 1882 and 1884. Later, while observing the planet lay under perpetually clear
had a great opportunity to study its with the great 77-centimeter (30-inch) skies. By failing to understand the
mysterious tapestry of dark and light refractor of the Nice Observatory, French opacity of dust in its atmosphere, he
markings for the weeks leading up to astronomer Henri Perrotin found that overestimated the latter’s thickness by
after opposition. the ‘land’ had disappeared completely. an order of magnitude. He also failed to
Mars’ most prominent dark marking, Schiaparelli exclaimed: appreciate that the usually regular and
Syrtis Major, was first recorded by the even outline of the planet’s terminator
Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens “The planet is not a desert of arid rocks. was due to the smoothing presence of
on November 28, 1659. Later observers It lives; the development of its life is dust, and so thought that the surface
saw the same region as intensely revealed by a whole system of very must be remarkably flat and free of relief.
blue-green and came to identify it complicated transformations, of which As the 20th century began, the
as an actual Martian sea — a relic some cover areas extreme enough to be vegetation theory marched on. Lowell
of perception that survives in other visible to the inhabitants of the Earth.” Observatory astronomer Earl C. Slipher
Martian nomenclature today. published pairs of images taken at
Astronomers once thought Martian It became clear by the end of the different seasons, claiming proof of
seas held water and even displayed 19th century that the dark areas vegetation’s existence on Mars. He
marked changes in their outlines could not be true seas. For one emphasised the dark area Pandorae
over time. During the last decades of thing, observers never saw specular Fretum as especially susceptible to
the 19th century, the astronomical reflections of the Sun within them. periodic strengthening and fading out,
world was full of excitement about the Astronomers adjusted, proclaiming as if it went from spring and summer
‘canals’ made famous by the Italian them to be the dry beds of dead seas, verdure to autumn and winter sere.
astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli after while the perceived colour changes Most astronomers of the time were so
the opposition of 1877. Changes in the were reinterpreted as marking the mesmerised by the claim that there was
outlines of these dusky features were seasonal growth and fading of life on Mars that they did not consider
noteworthy enough to merit headlines in vegetation. Percival Lowell’s ideas of the possibility that dust might have
newspapers. The areas where differences an embattled civilisation of Martians coated the region in the interval between
were most often seen include the area resorting to irrigation on a planetary the photographs.
of Libya, which forms a notch on the scale influenced observers, as did his At the opposition of 1954, when Mars
southeast side of Syrtis Major, and Solis supple modifications of the existing was far south of the celestial equator,
Slipher received National Geographic
funding to mount a campaign to
Bloemfontein, South Africa, in order to
photograph Mars. His images seemed
to bear witness to an enormous change.
“Shortly after our observations began,”
Slipher wrote, “we discovered that a
 Mars frequently changes, even from one

apparition to the next. Note the dark features in
the west and north of Solis Lacus (right image)
that appeared during the intervening dust
storm of 2018. Damian Peach recorded the
two on June 5, 2016, and September 8, 2018,
respectively.

new dark area of considerable size had topographic differences still seems to
appeared in the desert regions of Mars… explain a subset of the storms. However,
a little less than the size of Texas”. thanks to orbiting spacecraft imagery,
However, whatever was going on was we now know that many of the great
short-lived. summer storms actually have a distant
Following the Great Dust Storm origin, starting out along the tracks of
of 1956, the new dark area vanished seasonally repeating winter dust storms
as quickly as it had come. This storm originating a hemisphere away. Plotting
represented a turning point in the these tracks helps scientists better
history of Mars interpretation. It was understand the way that dust alters
not the first large dust storm observed the albedo features in places like Solis Lighter dust fills Libya at top right,
spilling into the dark area of Syrtis Major.
on the planet. But for the first time Lacus, Pandorae Fretum and Libya.
some astronomers — notably Dean Like the polar vortices of Earth, large
B. McLaughlin of the University of cyclones develop in the polar regions of of it would end up far to the east, piled
Michigan — began to understand the Mars, especially around the North Polar up along the slopes of the Syrtis Major
planet’s albedo changes in terms of Cap during the northern hemisphere’s Planum shield volcano. For a time, the
the relentless movement of windblown cold winter. Some of these cyclones dust somewhat truncated that side of
sand and dust, seeing their shifting can become enormous. However, from the Syrtis’s dark, triangular form. Later,
outlines as resembling the patterns of Earth they are hard to study, because winds came and stripped most of that
an Etch-a-Sketch board. Among the first during much of autumn and winter dust away. It finally settled within the
converts to McLaughlin’s theory was northern latitudes are hidden beneath ancient impact basin Isidis Planitia.
Yerkes Observatory astronomer Gerard the clouds of the North Polar Hood. The Martian winds blow
P. Kuiper. Earlier a strong advocate of During the 2001 planet-encircling on, continuing to produce a
the vegetation theory, Kuiper completely dust storm observed by NASA’s phantasmagoria of changes that
changed his mind after 1956. Mars Global Surveyor, bands of dust fascinate telescopic observers on Earth.
We now know, of course, that there originating in circumpolar cyclone What we are seeing are the ever-shifting
is neither liquid water nor vegetation on activity began to move southward, shapes caused by wind and dust. But
Mars. There is, however, lots of sand and picking up more dust as they went let’s not entirely forget the changing
dust, as well as outcrops of weathered through Mare Acidalium and Chryse, shorelines of seas and vast tracts of
basalt. There are also seasonal winds, and then along the equator into the vegetation grown during the last ebb of
capable of raising dust devils, regional Tharsis region. Bright Tharsis dust, a dying race of Martians imagined by
dust storms and planet-encircling storms. injected into Solis Planum, caused the our predecessors.
A combination of warming and local Solis Lacus albedo feature to change
shape. Here, the dust was caught up in ¢ BILL SHEEHAN is co-author, with Jim
q Giovanni Schiaparelli’s 1878 map of Mars, the strong winds of the subtropical jet Bell, of The New Planet Mars, coming
featuring the first ‘canali’. South is up. and made its way across Noachis. Much soon from the University of Arizona Press.
SY RTIS M A JOR: N ASA / JPL / USGS; M A P: WIK IMEDIA CO M M ONS / PUBLIC DO M AIN
OBSERVING by Thomas A. Dobbins
Unfortunately, quality pentaprism

diagonals are 3× to 5× more expensive
than a conventional star diagonal.
Economics aside, they present a further
difficulty. In the standard 1¼inch
format a typical pentaprism diagonal
has an optical path length of about 120
millimetres. Some instruments will lack
sufficient intravel to allow access to the
focal plane with such an arrangement.
The late Danish planetary observer
Per Darnell devised a simple, elegant
solution to the vexing problem of image
orientation. He employed a pair of
conventional star diagonals to provide
an even number of reflections, yielding
an inverted image with no lefttoright
reversal. Both mirror and rightangle
prism diagonals are suitable for this
novel use, though mirror diagonals are
preferable for instruments with focal
ratios faster than f/8 to avoid chromatic
Using a pair of 90° diagonals produces an and other aberrations introduced by
even number of reflections in the light path of a prisms.
refractor or Cassegrain reflector, correcting the The optical path length of a typical
mirror-reversed view commonly seen through
these instruments. And the diagonals are easily
1¼inch mirror star diagonal is about
adjusted to provide a comfortable viewing angle. 75 mm, while that of a rightangle
prism diagonal is about 60 mm. In
2inch format, a typical mirror star
Become a planetary pro diagonal has an optical path length

of 110 mm, while a rightangle prism
diagonal prism diagonal requires about
Innovative use of accessories can enhance 80 mm of inward focus travel.
your observing experience. The combination of a pair of
conventional diagonals has an optical
path length that equals or exceeds that
IMAGES WITH SOUTH at the top Righting the view of a pentaprism diagonal, but Darnell
and west at left have long been the Observers with refractors and Casse solved this problem by threading a
convention for drawings and photos of grains can still enjoy an inverted image Barlow lens into the entrance of the
astronomical objects, as well as lunar like those with a Newtonian reflector by second (outer) diagonal. This wrinkle
atlases and maps of Mars intended for removing the star diagonal and looking makes the focal plane accessible in any
telescopic observers. straight through the instrument. instrument while providing the high
A Newtonian reflector produces an Accessing the eyepiece, however, magnifications required to discern
inverted image, making comparisons requires uncomfortable contortions lunar and planetary details with
with the eyepiece view straightforward when training the instrument on targets eyepieces of longer focal length and
— simply rotate the photo or drawing located at an appreciable angle above comfortable eye relief.
to match the view. Unfortunately, the the horizon. Prolonged observing in this Most 1¼inch format star diagonals
image through a refractor or Casse fashion is literally a pain in the neck. of recent vintage feature internally
grain reflector (including Schmidt and Fortunately, you can eliminate threaded barrels that accept standard
Maksutov variations) equipped with both physical and mental gymnastics eyepiece filters. These have a 28.5mm
a conventional mirror or rightangle by using a pentaprism diagonal. external thread with a pitch of 0.6 mm.
prism star diagonal is erect but flipped Pentaprisms employ two internal Happily, the lens cells of many Barlows
TO M DOBBINS
lefttoright. This mirrorimage reversal reflections to divert the light path by feature the same external filter thread
occurs in any optical system that 90° while at the same time providing an that can be easily unscrewed from their
reflects light an odd number of times. inverted image with no mirror reversal. barrels and screwed into a star diagonal.

The Barlow’s stated amplification factor
will be preserved if the length of its
original tube is approximately equal
to the optical path length of the star
diagonal.
Schmidt- and Maksutov-Cassegrains
that focus by moving the primary
mirror can easily accommodate a pair
of star diagonals without recourse to
the Barlow lens, but it’s best to use Even number Odd number
a 2-inch-format diagonal as the first of reflections of reflections
diagonal of the pair to avoid vignetting.
The first star diagonal is inserted p Newtonian reflectors produce a correct-reading, though upside-down image because they
in the focuser and rotated until the reflect the light path twice (left). Cassegrains and refractors usually reflect the optical path an odd
number of times, resulting in a view that is right-side-up but mirror-reversed (right).
output barrel is parallel to the ground.
You then insert the second diagonal
with the attached Barlow lens into the variable polarising filters that cannot moderate levels of illumination, an
output barrel of the first diagonal. You be separated in this fashion, to avoid attribute of human perception that
can simply swivel the second diagonal the annoyance of having to withdraw psychologists call Weber-Fechner’s law.
to a comfortable viewing angle, the eyepiece in order to rotate one filter Dimming excessively bright images
regardless of the altitude of the object relative to the other. often reveals markings that would
under study. One vastly under-appreciated otherwise elude detection, notably
attribute of a variable polarising filter delicate lunar rilles or festoons and
Dimming the view is its ability to render the chromatic narrow belts and rifts on Jupiter.
Another accessory that increases aberration of refractors less obtrusive. Variable polarising filters are
its ‘bang for the buck’ is a variable Not long after the invention of the indispensable when observing Venus.
polarising filter. This device consists telescope, smoked-glass lenses were Enveloped in a canopy of highly
of a pair of identical polarising filters often employed to suppress the false reflective clouds that have an apparent
screwed together, each serving as a colour produced by the era’s primitive surface brightness almost 10× greater
miniature picket fence that permits single-element objectives. Simply than the full Moon, Venus invariably
only light waves vibrating in the reducing image brightness makes the appears featureless unless steps are
direction of the pickets to pass. defocused red, blue and violet light that taken to reduce the intense glare. The
When the axes of the polarisers are constitute the purple haze of ‘secondary cloudscape of Venus is rarely devoid
parallel, the amount of incident light spectrum’ of doublet achromat of markings if its dazzling brilliance
transmitted is maximised (typically refractors much less conspicuous. is sufficiently subdued. Other bright
about 40%), but when the axis of one Unlike the ‘minus violet’ filters that are targets that benefit from variable
polariser is orientated perpendicular widely used for this purpose, a variable polarising filters, albeit to a lesser
to the axis of the other virtually no polarising filter will not impart a yellow degree, are the Moon, Mars and Jupiter.
light is transmitted. You can adjust the cast to the image. With my 15-cm f/8 achromat, I’m
brightness of the image over a broad Low-contrast markings on a uniform consistently able to see more detail on
range simply by rotating one filter with background are best discerned under Jupiter’s disc at 140× using a variable
respect to the other, much as with a polarising filter transmitting about 25%
dimmer switch. of incident light than I can at 200×
I prefer to separate the polarising without the filter, despite the smaller
filters and screw one into the eyepiece image scale that lower magnification
M A RS: STSCI / N ASA; POL A RISER: TO M D OBBINS
and the other into a short extension provides. This holds true even when
tube that remains stationary. This seeing conditions are excellent and the
varies the image brightness by higher magnification should provide
simply rotating the eyepiece without the more detailed view. The saturation
interrupting observation. Steer clear of of the planet’s subtle pastel hues is also
increased.
u Attaching each half of a variable polarising
filter to the eyepiece and the other to an
extension tube enables you to simply rotate
¢ TOM DOBBINS enjoys observing the
your eyepiece to reduce the glare of a bright planets, and always from comfortable
planet or lunar crater. viewing angles.
ARCHIVAL TREASURES by Steve Gottlieb
The lost discoveries of

The famed American astronomer
was an avid observer yet didn’t
publish many of his findings —
now, his unreported discoveries
OB54
are coming to light.
R. G ENDLER / ESA / HUBBLE; BA R N A RD: S&T A RCHIV ES; POSS-II / STSCI / CA LTECH / PA LO M A R OBSERVATORY (2)
NGC 206
ANDROMEDA’S MANY STELLAR ASSOCIATIONS

Barnard discovered the OB association catalogued by
Sidney van den Bergh in 1964 as number 54 in a list
containing 188 such objects in the Andromeda Galaxy.
Barnard was following up on a supernova that had
recently appeared at the centre of the galaxy when he
chanced upon this faint nebulosity.

THE LIFE OF LEGENDARY US astronomer for the world’s first permanent mountaintop
Edward Emerson Barnard is a rags-to- observatory also included the pioneering
riches story. Born in 1857, he endured an spectroscopist James Keeler and the skilled
impoverished childhood in Nashville during double-star observer Sherbourne Wesley
the Civil War era. Before his ninth birthday, Burnham.
he was already working as a photographer’s Barnard jumped at the prospect of using
assistant in order to support his widowed the new 90-cm (36-inch) Clark refractor
mother. Despite severe economic hardships — the largest in the world at the time —
and the lack of a comprehensive education, under the inky skies seen from atop Mount
he rose to become one of the leading Hamilton. During his Lick years, Barnard
astronomers of the late 19th and early 20th regularly documented features on Mars and
centuries. Jupiter and was a trailblazer in wide-field
At 19, Barnard purchased a 125-mm Byrne photography of comets and the Milky Way.
refractor for US$380, which amounted to p PROLIFIC OBSERVER In 1892, he capped his visual career with
E. E. Barnard might not have
two-thirds of his annual salary. The lure of a the discovery of Amalthea, Jupiter’s fifth
published as avidly as he could
US$200 prize for finding new comets offered have, but thankfully he left a rich moon — a supremely tough target and the last
by Rochester, New York businessman and legacy in copious logbooks. planetary satellite to be discovered visually.
philanthropist Hulbert Harrington Warner, Spectacular photographic discoveries
prompted him to start searching for them, followed, many bearing his name: Barnard’s
and he discovered nine between 1881 and 1887. The prize Star, all the dark nebulae carrying the designation ‘Barnard’
money helped finance his first home, which he called ‘Comet (or simply the letter ‘B’), Barnard’s Loop (photographed earlier
House’. by William Henry Pickering at Harvard College Observatory)
During this period, he took undergraduate classes in and more. But he was also an indefatigable visual observer
mathematics and physics at Vanderbilt University. He also of nebulae, a term used in his day to describe any nonstellar
made several astonishing discoveries using both Vanderbilt’s object, including galaxies. While scouring the heavens for
15-cm Cooke refractor and his own telescope. These include comets, he must have run across many such unknowns. Yet,
the Pacman Nebula (NGC 281), the California Nebula (NGC curiously, he published only a few of these discoveries.
1499) the eponymous Barnard’s Galaxy (NGC 6822), and an Several years ago, I came across the Lick Observatory
independent discovery of the Rosette Nebula (NGC 2237). Historical Collections Project and their high-resolution
Although Barnard lacked advanced training, Edward scans of early staff logbooks (collections.ucolick.org). By
Singleton Holden, the first director of Lick Observatory, examining Barnard’s currently scanned logs from May 1888
offered him a position. Holden was impressed with Barnard’s through October 1890, I found a treasure trove of uncredited
visual prowess and anticipated the attention new comet deep sky discoveries that have lain hidden in his personal
discoveries would bring to the fledgling observatory. The staff logbooks for more than 130 years.
 QUARTET IN GEMINI It was while he was pointing the Lick 30‑cm

telescope at Alpha Geminorum, familiarly known as Castor, that Barnard
discovered these four galaxies shown below. Curiously, despite the fact
IC 2193 that Castor is one of the most comprehensively observed double stars,
nobody had noticed (or reported) these objects before Barnard did in 1888.
It took him another nine years, though, before he published his finding.
IC 2196
uHICKSON GROUP 99
Part of a quintet later
catalogued by Paul
Hickson in 1989, Barnard
observed these two HCG 99C
IC 2194 members of the compact
galaxy group on the
night of January 27, HCG 99B HCG 99A
1889. The glare from the
IC 2199 magnitude‑11.5 star at
lower right of the largest
member of the group, HCG
30′ × 20′ 99A, prevented Barnard 10′ × 10′
from detecting the galaxy.
ARCHIVAL TREASURES
Hubble X Hubble V
ESO; UGC 10445: POSS-II / STSCI / CA LTECH / PA LO M A R OBSERVATORY; PA LO M A R 8: ROBERT PÖL ZL / CCDGUIDE.CO M; CO ME T DR AWING: LICK OBSERVATORY
BARNARD’S GALAXY AND HUBBLE’S NEBULAE
Some four years after discovering NGC 6822,
Barnard noted two giant H II regions in the irregular
galaxy, each of which dwarfs the Orion Nebula.
But it was only when Edwin Hubble recorded these
nebulae in a 1925 paper that they received more
widespread attention.
Barnard’s scribbled notes and measurements are difficult Nashville – October 8, 1885
to decipher, but each entry includes a rough position, a brief Many amateurs are familiar with NGC 206, an enormous
description and occasionally a diagram. I’ve documented star cloud near the southwest end of the Andromeda Galaxy
some 50 unknown discoveries during his first 2½ years at (M31). But few are aware of OB54, a fainter patch exactly on
Lick. These include every category of deep sky object: galaxies, the opposite side of the nucleus on the northeast end of the
globular and open clusters, and reflection and emission galaxy, 42′ from the centre. The “OB” designation comes from
nebulae. Later visual observers rediscovered a few of these Sidney van den Bergh’s 1964 paper “Stellar Associations in the
objects, but most remained unknown until the photographic Andromeda Nebula,” which lists 188 OB associations in M31.
surveys of the second half of the 20th century. Barnard noticed OB54 while observing the 6th-magnitude
Why didn’t Barnard publish these discoveries? Computing supernova SN 1885A, which German astronomer Ernst
precise positions of new nebulae was a time-consuming task, Hartwig had discovered at the centre of M31 on August
and by the late 1880s astronomers had already catalogued 20th. Although astronomers assumed the supernova was
more than 7,800. His true passion was sweeping for new or a galactic nova, it proved to be the first and brightest
known comets, so he spent a limited amount of time on most extragalactic supernova discovery until SN 1987A in the
nebulae encountered along the way. Large Magellanic Cloud.

Barnard wrote the following
to the German journal
Astronomische Nachrichten:
I have for some time suspected a

faint Nebula near the following
10′ × 10′
[East] end of the Great Nebula of
Andromeda. Last night being fine
p UGC 10445 Some 3°
I verified its existence. This object, south-southwest of 3rd-
though extremely faint, flushes out magnitude Zeta Herculis,
quite distinctly by averted vision. this is one of several new
It lies about as far from the new galaxies Barnard discovered
while comet hunting.
star [SN 1885A] as the Nebula
p LONG-LOST GLOBULAR Palomar 8 remained unknown until the
in the preceding end [NGC 206] 1950s, some 60 years after Barnard first spotted it while keeping busy
does. waiting for the comet that would bear his name to rise above the horizon.
John Louis Dreyer, who compiled the New General Lick Observatory – May 9, 1888
Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars in 1888, apparently Barnard began his first night on the 30-cm by pointing it at
missed this announcement, so OB54 didn’t receive an Castor (Alpha Geminorum) and found four faint galaxies —
NGC number. Through my 60-cm at 125×, this faint patch IC 2193, 2194, 2196 and 2199 — only ½° south of the star. At
angles southwest to northeast and spans 2.5′ × 1.5′. The the time, Castor was diving towards the western horizon and
contrast against Andromeda’s halo varies with the seeing — was only 22° in elevation. Why is this discovery noteworthy?
sometimes I find OB54 obvious; at other times, it’s barely Castor is one of the most widely observed double stars, yet no
distinguishable. earlier astronomer had noticed this galactic quartet.
Barnard headed west for the San Francisco Bay Area Barnard sketched a rough diagram and tried to compute
in September 1887. He was so eager to start his work at precise offsets from Castor. This was a frustrating task
Lick that he arrived before observatory construction was without a filar micrometer, the device astronomers then used
completed — first light for the 90-cm refractor was planned for measuring angular separations. During four nights, he
for December 31, 1887, but occurred a week later due to filled several pages of his notebook with manual calculations
weather and equipment issues. Once the observatory was for various corrections. Despite all the effort put into the task,
up and running, Holden assigned Barnard the Lick’s 30-cm Barnard didn’t publish his discovery for another nine years; it
Clark refractor (first used by Henry Draper in New York for finally appeared in the December 1897 Astronomical Journal.
double star observations), a 16.5-cm refractor and a 100-mm These IC galaxies range from 13th- to 14th-magnitude and
comet-seeker. Eight long months after leaving Nashville, and are visible through a 25-cm scope as small greyish fuzzies
suffering photon deprivation meanwhile, Barnard resumed with brighter cores. Larger scopes will resolve ovals 30″ to 40″
his nightly comet sweeps. across in various orientations.
BARNARD’S COMET DISCOVERIES AND ASSOCIATED FINDS t FRAGMENTS

Barnard
September 3 and October 30, 1888 the morning of July 7, 1889. On August witnessed and
Barnard found his first two comets at 1, Barnard was startled to see two recorded the
Lick, C/1888 R1 and C/1888 U1. companions, B and C, accompanying disintegration
June 23, 1889 In the early hours, the comet 1′ and 4.5′ from its nucleus. of Comet 16P/
Brooks.
Barnard discovered the periodic That same night he strapped the 6-inch
Comet 177P/Barnard using the 6.5- Willard camera to the 30-cm refractor
inch refractor, his fourth catch in a little and made a wide-field, three-hour
more than a year at Lick. He followed it exposure, revealing an astounding miniature of the larger comet”. Barnard
intently over the next week as it moved tapestry of Milky Way clouds and dark followed the entourage over the next
through Andromeda, calculating the nebulae in Sagittarius. several weeks as fragments B through
hourly motion and predicting its position Three nights later Barnard joined E disintegrated. The break-up of 16P/
for the following night. Burnham and spied two fainter pieces, D Brooks followed a close passage within
August 1889 Prolific comet hunter and E, with the 90-cm. He reported that the Roche limit of Jupiter in 1886 — a
William Robert Brooks discovered the B and C each had a small nucleus and similar scenario to that of Shoemaker-
extraordinary Comet 16P/Brooks on a short, faint tail, “presenting a perfect Levy 9 in 1992.
ARCHIVAL TREASURES
July 7, 1888 – January 1, 1889 January 27, 1889

Barnard began the evening of July 7, 1888, by recording a Before 8 p.m. Barnard spotted a small galaxy 1.8° southwest
wealth of detail in Jupiter’s belts and the start of a shadow of 2nd-magnitude Alpheratz, or Alpha Andromedae, and 10′
transit by Io. He then turned his attention to NGC 6822, the west of a 7th-magnitude star. He returned to the field two
Local Group dwarf he had discovered four years earlier (and nights later to measure its position and picked up a second,
that bore his name) in the northeast corner of Sagittarius. much fainter companion. These two galaxies, HCG 99B and
His logbook entry reads: HCG 99C, are part of a compact quintet later catalogued by
Paul Hickson in 1989. Barnard missed HCG 99A, the largest
Examining [NGC 6822] with power 175, it is a remarkable member in the group, because of the masking glare of a
object, somewhat elongated and dense and irregular. At the superimposed 11.5-magnitude star.
northern side are two very small nebulae, the preceding is HCG 99A is a phantom spike through my 45-cm,
moderately bright, the following is faint, both near small stars. extending 30″ due north of the star. HCG 99B appears small
and round with a tiny nucleus. HCG 99C, a faint droplet of
Barnard’s “two very small nebulae” are in fact giant light, is attached to the western edge of HCG 99B’s halo.
H II regions separated by 3′, each of which dwarfs the
Orion Nebula in size. Edwin Hubble labelled these features January 29, 1889
Hubble V (western) and Hubble X (eastern) in his 1925 While combing the skies for comets, Barnard encountered
paper “NGC 6822, A Remote Stellar System.” You might also several new galaxies. UGC 10445 is located 3° south-
recognise Hubble X as IC 1308. southwest of 3rd-magnitude Zeta Herculis, the southwest
I’ve glimpsed Hubble V and X as dim smudges through a corner star of the Keystone asterism. Following William
20-cm scope, though Hubble X hovers at the edge of visibility. Herschel’s reporting format, Barnard described it as “faint,
Through my 45-cm at 220×, they both appear as dense not large, round, very gradually brighter in the middle”.
14th-magnitude knots, each 25″ in diameter. Try using a UGC 10445 is an isolated dwarf spiral at a distance of 50
UHC (ultra-high contrast) or an O III nebula filter — I found million to 60 million light-years. Classified as a blue starburst
they both mildly improved the contrast. galaxy, its dusty but bright nucleus is surrounded by gas-rich
On New Year’s Day 1889, a solar eclipse crossed northern blue arms undergoing vigorous star formation. The object
California. Barnard took part in a Lick expedition, which appears irregular through my 60-cm, with a mottled 1′ halo
set up equipment 210 kilometres north of San Francisco at containing two low-contrast patches.
Bartlett Springs. After photographing the Sun’s corona, he
rushed back to Lick to continue with his observing program, February 4, 1889
which he did at a fanatical pace. During the last three weeks Scanning east of Puppis, Barnard found a small
of January, he was glued to the eyepiece every clear minute 12th-magnitude galaxy, which modern research reveals is
spanning a period of 15 nights. extraordinary. Hen 2-10 lies 24′ southwest of 5.3-magnitude
Eta Pyxidis and shares the same low-power field. It wasn’t until
1967 that astronomer-astronaut Karl Henize rediscovered this
object during a hydrogen-alpha survey of the galactic plane,
though he misidentified it as a planetary nebula.
Hen 2-10 is an irregular dwarf galaxy comprising only 3%
A DA M BLOCK / M OUN T LEM M ON SK YCEN TRE / UNIV ERSIT Y OF A RIZON A / CC -BY-SA 3.0
the mass of our Milky Way. Astronomers classify it as a Wolf-
Rayet galaxy — its spectrum is replete with broad emission
lines arising from a sizeable population of massive Wolf-
Rayet stars. At the galaxy’s heart is an actively feeding black
hole that weighs in at 3 million solar masses and a nuclear
starburst that’s furiously pumping out newborn stars. A
study published in 2017 found superbubbles expanding at
high velocity, the result of gas ejected from the central star-
forming regions.
Visually, the most prominent feature is a bright nucleus
wrapped in an oval halo. Large-scope owners may find a
modest contrast gain using a narrowband filter.
July 3, 1889
SH 2-297 Also known as Cederblad 90, this nebula lies at the While waiting for the comet that bears his name to appear
southern tip of the Seagull Nebula, a region rich in emission and over the eastern horizon (see box on page 59), Barnard swept
reflection nebulae.
northeast of Jupiter and discovered an object he described as:

. . . small, round, gradually brighter in the middle, 2′ or 3′
[diameter] . . . with 700× probably resolvable. It is likely
a globular cluster. I can occasionally see the stars. Much
compressed, 13th mag . . . With lower powers, it looks like a
small faint comet or nebula.
When I checked Barnard’s position, I realised he had

found the globular cluster Palomar 8. It remained unknown
until the 1950s, when George Abell found it again on the
National Geographic-Palomar Observatory Sky Survey plates.
To locate Palomar 8, start at the large naked-eye cluster
M25 and slide 2.4° to the east-southeast, passing an elongated
group of 7th- to 10th-magnitude stars. The globular is visible
with direct vision through my 20-cm reflector as a small,
granulated glow with no noticeable core. My 45-cm scope
resolves at least a dozen stars over a lively 3′ halo.
CEDERBLAD 51 Associated with the Herbig Ae/Be binary star HK
Orionis, this reflection nebula is at the northern end of the Lambda
October 28, 1889 Orionis Molecular Ring, a gigantic star-forming region.
In the early evening, Barnard observed Comet 16P/Brooks
with the 90-cm and simultaneously discovered the HCG 97
quintet (IC 5351, 5352, 5356, 5357 and 5359) in Pisces, 3.5-magnitude star marking the head of Orion.
which he described as a “nest of nebulae”. The comet’s On wide-field images, HK Orionis sits along the north
location was only 1/4° away from these galaxies. He published side of the Lambda Orionis Molecular Ring, also known as
the discoveries, but not until 1906 when he was at Yerkes Sh 2-264. Within this immense star-forming region are young
Observatory. Herbig-Haro objects, T Tauri stars, pre-brown dwarf candidates,
After discovering the quintet, Barnard returned to the and several dark nebulae. Through my 45-cm scope, I logged
30-cm and found Sharpless 2-297, a small nebula in Cederblad 51 as a 4′ wide, diffuse patch just north of the star.
northern Canis Major. He described it as a “faint, diffused
nebulous atmosphere, 2′ in diameter” surrounding the August 11, 1890
8.0-magnitude star HD 53623. Sh 2-297 lies at the southern Barnard began the evening by tracking down his early
CED 51: A DA M BLOCK / M OUN T LEM M ON SK YCEN TRE / UNIV ERSIT Y OF A RIZON A / CC -BY-SA 4.0; IC 342: M ASIL IM AGING TE A M
tip of the photogenic Seagull Nebula (Sh 2-296), a 2.5°-long Lick comet C/1888 R1, which he called “most excessively
nebulosity that winds from Monoceros into Canis Major. difficult”. He then moved low in the northeast and discovered
The surrounding complex houses scores of massive stars, the galaxy IC 342 in Camelopardalis. Barnard’s sketch
part of the CMa OB 1 association, as well as 30 or more shows the galaxy’s core within two converging strings of
emission and reflection nebulae. A 2019 study reported that a
chain of molecular clouds rims the Seagull Nebula, forming
a shell-like structure that extends 3.6° × 2.5°. The authors q GRACEFUL FACE-ON SPIRAL Due to its proximity to the plane of
the Milky Way, IC 342 is challenging to observe — the intervening dust
suggest multiple supernovae occurred 1 million to 6 million
dims the object by two magnitudes. But the image clearly shows the two
years ago in this area. The blasts ejected three known runaway strings of stars superimposed on the galaxy’s core that Barnard noted in
stars and triggered several localised regions of star formation. his logbook on the night of August 11, 1890.
Sh 2-297 may be an example of such a star-forming region — it
harbours a young infrared cluster discovered in 2003.
My 45-cm shows a 3′ hazy glow with a wide pair of
10th-magnitude stars off the east side. A narrowband filter
yields a small contrast gain, with a stronger response using a
hydrogen-beta filter. The diameter swells to at least 4′ with a
dim extension to the east.
February 9, 1890
Having observed Comet 16P/Brooks, Barnard swept up
Cederblad 51, a weak nebulosity on the north side of
11th-magnitude HK Orionis. This million-year-old star is a
pre-main-sequence Herbig Ae/Be binary, still encased in a
dusty, embryonic accretion disk. Search for HK Orionis 2.4°
to the north-northwest of Meissa (Lambda Orionis), the
ARCHIVAL TREASURES
three and five stars, respectively, forming t BARNARD WITH THE 90-CM TELESCOPE
a distinctive V. Two years later, British The prolific astronomer was so eager to start
observing with the new instruments at Lick
amateur William Denning made an
Observatory that he arrived several months before
independent sighting of the galaxy while first light of the telescopes. The 90-cm saw first
comet hunting with his 25-cm reflector, light on January 7, 1888, after a week of weather
and Barnard yet again missed out on and technical issues.
receiving credit by failing to publish.
IC 342 is a large face-on spiral with
loose open arms spreading across 20′. Barnard continued his remarkable
Situated only 10° from the plane of career at Lick until 1895, after which he
the Milky Way, the veil of intervening joined the staff at Yerkes Observatory.
dust reddens and dims IC 342 by two His photographs of the Milky Way,
magnitudes. If we had an unimpeded taken during the spring and summer
view, IC 342 would be a magnificent spiral of 1905 at Mount Wilson, formed the
but for its mean surface brightness, which basis of his opus, A Photographic Atlas of
is a meager 15 magnitudes per square Selected Regions of the Milky Way. In 1916
arcminute. However, I find the visibility he discovered Barnard’s Star, a nearby,
more dependent on sky quality than aperture. Under dark, low-mass red dwarf with the largest-known proper motion
transparent skies you can spot IC 342 using a small scope across the sky (10.3 arcseconds per year). He found his
or large binoculars, 3.2° south of 4.6-magnitude Gamma eponymous star by comparing his Lick plate from 1894 with
Camelopardalis. photographic plates taken in 1916 with the 1.0-metre Yerkes
My 20-cm at low power shows a prominent refractor.
12th-magnitude core adjacent to a star of similar brightness. When the Lick Historical Project processes Barnard’s
Surrounding the core is a diaphanous halo that stretches later notebooks, I expect it will uncover dozens of additional
beyond 10′ in diameter. Viewing through my 45-cm, the 30″ discoveries — I’m sure they’ll reveal a horde of exciting finds.
core rises to a stellar nucleus, and the halo shows hints of
patchy spiral structure. The field contains a jumble of 10th- ¢ When he’s not out observing, STEVE GOTTLIEB has been
and 11th-magnitude stars — to identify IC 342, look for a investigating the discovery history of deep sky objects for
distinctive line of five superimposed stars. more than 35 years.
Lost Treasures
Object Constellation Mag(v) Size PA RA Dec.
OB54 And — 3.4′ × 1.7′ 48° 00h 44.6m +41° 52′
IC 2193 Gem 13.3 1.5′ × 0.9′ 87° 07h 33.4m +31° 29′
IC 2194 Gem 13.7 1.0′ × 0.3′ 50° 07h 33.7m +31° 20′
IC 2196 Gem 12.5 1.4′ × 1.1′ 150° 07h 34.2m +31° 24′
IC 2199 Gem 13.6 1.1′ × 0.6′ 25° 07h 34.9m +31° 17′
Hubble V Sgr ~13.5 40″ × 30″ — 19h 44.9m –14° 43′
Hubble X Sgr ~14 45″ — 19h 45.1m –14° 43′
HCG 99B Peg 13.7 1.0′ × 0.9′ — 00h 00.8m +28° 24′
HCG 99C Peg 14.7 0.8′ × 0.4′ 87° 00h 00.7m +28° 24′
UGC 10445 Her 13.1 1.9′ × 1.5′ 145° 16h 33.8m +28° 59′
Hen 2-10 Pyx 11.6 1.7′ × 1.3′ 130° 08h 36.2m –26° 25′
Palomar 8 Sgr 11.2 4.7′ — 18h 41.5m –19° 50′
Sh 2-297 CMa — 7′ — 07h 05.3m –12° 20′
Ced 51 Ori — 4′ — 05h 31.5m +12° 10′
LICK OBSERVATORY
IC 342 Cam 8.4 21′ × 21′ 167° 03h 46.8m +68° 06′
Angular sizes 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.

by David Grinspoon COSMIC RELIEF
Comet NEOWISE put on quite a show

this year for those lucky enough to
be in the right viewing locations.
My virtual comet sighting

There’s nothing like being there, but these days we can all find a pretty good view.
FEW THINGS STIR THE SOUL like the My favourite was Comet Hyakutake, appreciate all the more something
sight of a comet airbrushed onto a dark the Great Comet of 1996. Known that has occurred in recent decades.
starry sky, its ghostly glow intruding on officially as C/1996 B2, it was Today we have a truly interconnected
a familiar celestial landscape, its tail discovered in January that year and global visual system. In the age of the
blown by unseen winds, reminding us made a close approach to Earth in late internet and digital cameras, anyone
that the cosmos is far from static and March. I was fortunate to be staying with a web connection can now savour
fully known. The transience is part of in a hut far from any city, and I’ll celestial wonders photographed in
the thrill. never forget my first glimpse of it as a exquisite detail against a dizzying array
Comets travel through time as well little phosphorescent smudge near the of backgrounds. So, I ‘saw’ NEOWISE
as space. Short-period comets, which horizon, at first so subtle I wondered rising over distant hills, reflected in
originate in the Kuiper Belt, beat a slow if I wasn’t imagining it. Then, as my a mountain lake, passing above a
rhythm through our history. The most eyes adjusted, or when I looked through European cathedral, and even, in time-
famous is 1P/Halley, which has a period binoculars, the immensity of the tail lapse, rising from the limb of Earth
of 76 years, roughly equal to the current hit me, an extended object that visibly as shot from the International Space
average human life expectancy (which moved during the course of the evening. Station.
is twice what it was the last time the There’s no way to predict how many Of course, there’s still nothing like
comet came around). In 1986, along good naked-eye comet viewings any of being out under a dark, star-speckled
with a group of fellow uni students, I us will get during our lives. So, any time sky with good friends, a night breeze,
trekked into the desert, pre-dawn, to you have the opportunity to see one, the song of cicadas, and the stunning
observe Halley. you should seize it. immediacy of the celestial sphere.
I’m a big fan of long-period comets, Having said all this, I have a But these days, when more of us than
which come from much farther out, confession to make: I missed seeing ever live in cities and are sometimes
in the Oort Cloud. These surprise Comet NEOWISE (C/2020 F3) this stuck there, I’m so grateful for all of
ROGER N. CL A RK, CL A RK VISION.COM
guests fly in fast and show up suddenly, year. For multiple reasons, including a the talented astrophotographers and
without warning, from any direction convalescing dog needing to be carried appreciative that our experience of the
in the sky. Sometimes it’s only a matter about, I just couldn’t leave the dense, cosmos has become shared in this way.
of months between discovery and bright city where I live, and a week of
closest approach. Occasionally they thunderstorms put the dampeners on ■ DAVID GRINSPOON is an
can brighten dramatically, providing my binocular gazing efforts. astrobiologist and author who needs to
delightful views. But missing this comet made me get out of the house more.
IMAGING TECHNIQUE by Sean Walker
This method is all about improving signal

and reducing noise, and knowing when
you need to apply it.
FOR ROUGHLY A CENTURY, photographing deep sky objects

was a relatively straightforward endeavor. You’d load your
camera with film, aim your telescope at a chosen target,
open your shutter, and keep a guide star on the crosshairs
of a guiding eyepiece. When the exposure was deemed long
A
enough, you’d close the shutter and move on to another
target. Later you’d develop your film, print your favourite
shot and that was it. Photographing the Sun, Moon and
planets was a similar exercise, though the exposures were
considerably shorter.
But with the advent of desktop computers and digital
detectors in the late 20th century, new techniques arrived
that greatly expanded astrophotographers’ abilities to extract
more and fainter detail from their deep sky images. One
technique that has become ubiquitous in today’s processing
arsenal is image stacking.
The pros
and cons of
Image Stacking
The power of image stacking
The term ‘image stacking’ is self-explanatory: Combine
multiple images of a single object to get a better result.
Rather than take a single, long exposure of your chosen guiding that could be ruined if a tripod was bumped or an
target, you capture many short ones and then combine the aircraft crossed the field of view. If you shoot, say, a dozen
results with post-processing software. Stacking originated 5-minute exposures with the intention of stacking them into
A LL IM AG ES BY AU THOR UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED
in the darkrooms of professional astronomers, though it the equivalent of a 1-hour exposure, you can simply discard
required a complex and difficult technique, which limited any spoiled frames without greatly affecting the end result.
its migration into the amateur community. That changed There are multiple benefits to image stacking besides
when home computers and astronomical image-processing mitigating the damage that a passing aircraft or satellite
software became widely available. might cause. Stacking also permits you to capture great
The sensitivity of CCD (and now CMOS) cameras, photos by working within the capabilities of your equipment.
combined with the impressive processing power of home Imagers often limit the length of their individual
computers, means that an astrophotographer today can exposures to the time that their telescope mount can
combine many short exposures to achieve results similar to a accurately track without requiring corrections. This often
single, long exposure. This was a game-changer. For one, we no means a series of 3- to 5-minute exposures, depending on
longer needed lengthy, uninterrupted intervals of painstaking the tracking accuracy of their mounts. Many commercial

B C
A SINGLE VS STACKED Combining multiple B OVERPOWERING NOISE The first C NEARLY OVERLOOKED Stacking can
exposures of a given target suppresses noise and goal of stacking is to improve the signal- also minimise or erase faint comets from
other unwanted signals, including bright satellite to-noise ratio of the resulting image. This your images, if you don’t know they’re
trails in deep sky astrophotos. These examples comparison of the area surrounding M86, present in the first place. The faint and
of M61 seen above left demonstrate the power in Virgo, shows the difference between 20 distant Comet Schwartz C/2014 B1 is
of stacking. The top image combines a single minutes of exposures through each RGB barely perceptible in the individual red,
20-minute exposure recorded through each RGB filter recorded with a 105-mm f/5 refractor green, and blue images (top) but becomes
filter, while the bottom image is a stack of twelve (top), with the same field using four hours more apparent when stacked images are
20-minute images shot through each colour filter. of exposure per colour filter (bottom). registered on the comet itself (bottom).
mounts use worm-gear drives that inherently have periodic is important because every digital exposure records both
error. This causes the drive to alternately slightly speed up signal and noise, and we want to collect as much signal as we
and slow down during each revolution of the worm gear, can while reducing the amount of noise. Noise accumulates
producing elongated stars in the image. Not all mounts are more slowly during an exposure than the signal does, which
created equal, so the periodic error can be different for each is why a long exposure is better than a short one. That’s why
mount even of the same model. By limiting exposures to a combining multiple exposures lets you vastly improve the
shorter duration than the cycle of this periodic error, you resulting SNR compared with that of the individual sub-
can often capture perfect star images without the need for exposures, greatly improving the overall quality of the image.
guiding. Stacking allows you to make full use of these short Noise isn’t actually reduced by stacking; it’s simply being
exposures. But how does it accomplish this? overpowered by a much greater increase in the signal.
Stacking short exposures also permits imagers to capture
More signal, less noise targets under light-polluted skies — something that was
Stacking several shots improves the signal-to-noise ratio nearly impossible to do with film. But you’ll need much
(SNR) compared with that in a single short exposure. This more accumulated exposure under bright skies to record
IMAGING TECHNIQUE
the same result you could under a pristine dark sky. This is
because much of your exposure records light pollution — an
undesirable ‘signal,’ but signal nonetheless.
However, stacking is just as beneficial when shooting
under dark conditions. The same principle applies: Increase
the desired signal while reducing the overall contribution of
noise. Perhaps the biggest difference is that under a dark sky
you can shoot longer individual exposures to stack later.
How to stack p MOVING TARGETS Stacking isn’t always the best strategy,
particularly if you’re interested in recording moving objects. These two
Stacking is now so common in astrophotography that
minor planets were seen passing through a field in southern Virgo on the
virtually all astronomical image-processing software includes evening of March 24 as the author was recording images through red
several ways to combine images. and blue colour filters. The interlopers were only noticed by blinking the
Before stacking your shots, you first need to calibrate and unstacked individual images.
align them with one another. Although your mount may
have provided very good tracking, your pointing may slowly works well for bringing out extremely weak signals. There are a
creep over the course of an hour — not enough to produce few downsides to summing your exposures, however. Summing
elongated stars in individual sub-exposures, but enough that includes many signals you’d likely prefer to remove, such as
if you simply stacked the frames without aligning, the result aircraft and satellite trails, and random artifacts caused by
would be a trailed image. Some imagers use an additional high-energy cosmic rays that leave bright spots or lines in an
technique called dithering, which offsets the telescope’s image. The pixel values of a summed image quickly exceed
pointing by a few pixels in a random direction between the bit depth of your camera, departing from 12-, 14- or
exposures. This helps to ensure that small imperfections in 16-bit depth, so save your image in a file format (such as IEEE
detectors (including hot or dead pixels) do not appear in the floating-point FIT data) that can handle large pixel values.
same spot on every exposure after aligning the series and can Another common stacking technique is averaging the
be removed using a method I’ll describe further on. data (sometimes referred to as mean combine). This method
After you’ve aligned your individual images, you can stack takes the average value for a given pixel in the stack, resulting
them using one of the common methods, including sum, in a smoother image than a summed result. The benefit to
average, median or sigma rejection (an outlier-rejection method). averaging is it produces a high SNR that is kept within the
Stacking using the sum method performs basic maths — it bit-depth range of your original data. But the downside is that
takes your images and adds the values for a given pixel location averaging does not remove unwanted signals.
together. This routine ensures no photons are wasted and Median combine works by assessing the range of values
for a given pixel location in the stack and assigning a final
q OUTLIER REJECTION The most powerful stacking routine for value that is at the midpoint of the range. This method is
removing unwanted signal is known as sigma rejection. Most advanced
good for removing noise in your images but produces a lower
astronomical image-processing software includes some variant of this
algorithm, which examines each pixel in each aligned image and rejects SNR than an image stacked using the average algorithm.
signal that falls outside of the measured average. The screen below Median combining does not remove pixels with outlier
shows the STD sigma reject routine in CCDStack2, which highlights in values (satellites, aircraft), but these values do not affect the
red areas targeted for rejection. resulting value at the midpoint of the range the way they do
with averaging.
There are stacking methods called minimum and
maximum, which reject the highest- and lowest-value pixels
from an image series and stack similarly to a median combine.
Some programs offer this tool as a single min/max setting,
while others allow you to only reject the minimum or the
maximum. This can work well for removing bright, unwanted
signals, including some streaks from satellites and aircraft.
The last option for stacking can be the most powerful,
particularly today when the number of satellites orbiting the
Earth is rapidly increasing. This technique, known variously
as sigma rejection, sigma clip, or some other variant that
includes sigma in the title, is perhaps the best for removing
outlier signals while producing a high SNR in the final
image stack. Sigma rejection basically works by examining
your images and calculating the average signal for a given

pixel, then rejecting everything that deviates t LUCKY IMAGING Planetary images benefit greatly
substantially from that calculated average. from stacking. The top picture of Mars is a single video
frame recorded with a monochrome camera and a
Sigma-rejection algorithms work extremely
red filter. The stacked result (middle) combines 1,600
well at removing satellite trails, aircraft streaks frames, greatly overpowering the noise compared with
and even slight guiding errors if only one or two a single frame. The bottom photo includes stacked
images suffer from less-than-perfect guiding. video sequences shot through green and blue filters and
It produces a smooth, low-noise result slightly combined and sharpened to produce the colour result.
lower than simple averaging. The downside is
that sigma rejection requires a lot of frames to astrometry is concerned with accurately
work best — often 10 or more. When combined measuring the positions and motions of objects,
with dithered guiding, the method also excels stacking isn’t advised. Photometry benefits from
at removing cosmetic defects from your image, the increased SNR produced by the method,
including hot and cold pixels, and even bad though you should only use average stacking to
columns on a CCD detector. avoid distorting the data.
There are times when it isn’t advisable to
Planetary stacking stack planet images or even lunar photos. Several
Stacking isn’t only useful in deep sky images. impacts have been recorded on Jupiter that just
Every high-resolution picture of sunspots, lunar happened to be noticed by the photographers
craters and the major planets you see today was while they were recording their videos. These
likely produced by stacking. Planetary imagers important events would have gone undetected if
use a slightly different type of stacking known as lucky imaging. the video frames were stacked as intended! Likewise, several
This technique uses a high-speed video camera to record amateurs recorded a meteor impact on the Moon as totality
dozens and sometimes hundreds of frames per second to began during the January 21, 2019, lunar eclipse. Stacking
improve the chances of capturing sharp frames during brief these images and video frames erases the impact flash from
periods of steady seeing conditions. These videos are then the result, demonstrating that it pays to carefully examine
loaded into a planetary stacking program where each frame your videos for transient events before stacking.
is evaluated for sharpness and contrast. Then the sharpest With the exceptions noted above, there’s no denying
frames are averaged, creating a single, high-dynamic-range that stacking can lead to impressive improvements in
image with an excellent SNR. Such an image can then be your astronomical images. With the ready availability of
sharpened to show features approaching the theoretical sensitive cameras, excellent imaging telescopes and powerful
resolving limit of the telescope used to acquire the data. computer software, your results will be limited only by your
Image stacking revolutionised planetary imaging, perhaps imagination. Stacking is a powerful technique that has
even more than it did deep sky photography. Some intrepid become a standard method in both professional and amateur
imagers have even experimented with lucky imaging of some astrophotography. Just remember to check your unstacked
of the brighter deep sky objects, such as the Homunculus images so that you don’t miss out on a discovery just waiting
nebula surrounding Eta Carinae. Lucky imaging produces by to be revealed.
far the highest-resolution images with amateur equipment.
¢ SEAN WALKER has been stacking astrophotos for more
When not to stack than 20 years.
Stacking has many important benefits, but there are times
when it isn’t the best solution to a problem.
Most stacking algorithms minimise, and in many cases LUCKY CATCH
completely remove, moving objects from your images. This Although stacking
means that minor planets (asteroids) and faint comets can vastly improves the
quality of planetary
be unintentionally erased from a series of images when images, it can erase
combined using sigma-rejection methods. So, if you’re momentary events,
hunting for undiscovered objects within the Solar System, such as impacts.
Fortunately, Aussie
you’ll be best served by animating a series of images to look imager Anthony Wesley
for moving targets. Stacking a series of images using the sum was paying attention
method works well for minor planets, but the result requires while recording videos
of Jupiter on June 3,
aggressive stretching to show their faint streaks during an 2010, when an asteroid
exposure series. collided with the
Stacking is also tricky when you are targeting a moving planet.
object, such as a comet. For these objects you’ll need to
register your images on the comet before stacking. Since
AS&T TEST REPORT by Alan Dyer
The Sharpstar hyperbolic astrograph

We test a 15-cm astrograph promising sharp images across a wide field. Does it deliver?
Sharpstar 150-mm SHARPSTAR, A NEW BRAND in the secondary mirror floating in the middle
astronomy market, is offering an of the field. This is not an instrument
f/2.8 HNT Hyperbolic attractive line of premium refractors intended for wide-field views of the
Newtonian Astrograph and two unique reflectors specifically night sky. However, it does work
US price: $1,995 for astrophotography. The larger superbly for its intended purpose: wide-
astrograph is the Sharpstar 20-cm PNT field astrophotography.
Newtonian, which offers a focal ratio
What we like of f/3.2 using a traditional parabolic Optical performance
Excellent speed and edge primary mirror coupled with a coma- Jiaxing Ruixing Optical, the company
correction correcting lens. manufacturing the Sharpstar line,
Good focus stability We tested the smaller reflector, a has created an instrument with an
Light weight 15-cm f/2.8 Newtonian. The 150 f/2.8 optical design similar to the legendary
HNT (Hyperbolic Newtonian Telescope) Takahashi Epsilon 130 and 180
A LL PHOTOS BY THE AU THOR
What we don’t like is designed specifically for imaging. Newtonian astrographs. Like the two
Inconvenient camera rotation While a supplied adapter enables an Taks, the Sharpstar 150 HNT uses a
Limited filter options eyepiece to be attached, any eyepiece hyperbolic primary mirror matched to
Abundance of diffraction with a focal length longer than about a corrector lens in the focuser to yield a
spikes 16 mm or so will produce a view wide field largely free of off-axis coma
with a dark shadow from the large and on-axis spherical aberration, all

t The Sharpstar’s 420-mm focal length and To collimate the HNT, the A
f/2.8 speed are ideal for capturing wide-field instructions recommend removing
targets, offering a field of view of 4.8° by 3.2°
its corrector lens. As this is threaded
with a full-frame sensor. This deep image of
M45, the Pleiades, is a stack of eight 8-minute directly into the focuser, I was reluctant
unfiltered exposures at ISO 400 with a Canon to remove it early on in the testing, not
EOS Ra mirrorless camera. Inset: The author knowing if I could replace it properly. As
tested the Sharpstar Hyperboloid Newtonian it turned out, my fears were groundless,
astrograph using a Canon EOS Ra camera, on
though removing and replacing the
an Astro-Physics Mach1GTO mount guided
with the now-discontinued SG4 standalone corrector is not an operation I’d want to
autoguider from Santa Barbara Instruments. perform in the field.
As a result, I left the corrector in
while offering tremendous speed at place and used the eyepiece adapter
f/2.8 for a focal length of 420 mm. to inspect a star at high power, B
The HNT projects an image circle while adjusting the primary mirror’s
I measured to be 55 mm, though the collimation screws to make the star’s
more conservative specifications state image symmetrical both in and out of
a fully illuminated field of 44 mm. The focus. That did the trick.
latter is sufficient to fill a full-frame In subsequent testing the
(24 × 36 mm) sensor. I performed most instrument never travelled farther
of my testing using the full-frame Canon than from my house to the backyard
EOS Ra mirrorless camera I recently each night, so I did not subject it to
reviewed (AS&T: May/Jun 2020, p. 66). field trips on rough roads. But over
However, while the corners of the two months of testing on cold winter
frame were certainly illuminated, nights I found no need to re-collimate
some minor light fall-off occurs the HNT. Performance remained C
toward the frame edges, as should consistent and reliable.
be expected with such a fast optical I shot several fields, such as the Belt
system. I measured just over one stop of Orion, that included bright stars. I
of darkening at the extreme corners did see dim blue ghost reflections from
of a full-frame image, a surprisingly bright stars in some cases. However, the
low level of vignetting for an f/2.8 multi-coated three-element corrector
reflector. The generously sized 70-mm did a good job suppressing flares.
(minor axis) secondary mirror is one With bright stars in the field, what I
key factor to keeping the vignetting did see were diffraction spikes. These
low. Users can compensate for the spikes were not just around the stars
vignetting with the usual practice themselves, a characteristic of any
D
of taking and applying flat-field reflector with spider vanes holding the
calibration frames. secondary mirror in the optical path.
Stars were also tight to the corners, Diffraction spikes were evident across
though not perfect. With the corrector the field far removed from the source
at its factory-installed position down star. While ‘content aware’ cloning
the focuser, stars did exhibit a slight during image processing could take care
amount of what looks like coma at the of these, they are an annoying artifact
extreme corners. Even so, the amount to deal with.
of aberration was no more than what I
see with some of the refractor and field- Filter use
flattener combinations I use. The fast photographic speed of the
p (A) The astrograph’s corrector lens comes
Achieving that level of performance HNT makes using light-pollution and threaded into the barrel of the focuser. (B) A
did require careful collimation of the narrowband filters more necessary recessed well on the corrector lens accepts
primary mirror — not surprising after but also practical. Even using dense 48-mm filters that sit on the corrector. (C)
the instrument had been shipped to filters, exposures can still be reasonably The included thin M63-to-M48 adapter
me. Out of the box, images exhibited ring then holds the filter in place. (D) A
short, allowing the capture of lots of
user-supplied T-ring with 48-mm threads
asymmetrical aberrations, with stars images in a single night. But how do screws onto the adapter for attaching
on one side of the frame more distorted you physically place a filter in the path? DSLRs. Mirrorless cameras require a custom
than on the other. There is no filter drawer or camera adapter or additional extension.
AS&T TEST REPORT
adapter onto which you can thread a that improved the field flatness. It did.
filter. As such, users may wish to experiment
Instead, the top of the corrector with the spacing.
lens in front of the camera has a slight In my case, I would have left it
recess into which you can drop a there except that decreasing the lens-
standard 2-inch (48-mm) filter, which to-camera spacing meant that when a
is then held in place by the supplied 2-inch filter was placed on top of the
thin M63-to-M48 adapter ring, which corrector lens, the camera’s T-ring would
in turn accepts a 48-mm threaded not screw onto the focuser as far as it
T-ring or 48-mm nosepiece. would without the filter in place, placing
The method works but requires the camera at a very different rotation
removing and replacing the camera angle. This made shooting aligned sets of
for each filter change. For DSLRs and filtered and unfiltered images virtually
S The primary mirror cell contains three
mirrorless cameras, using a clip-in impossible. The image examples here
collimation screws and matching lock knobs.
filter in the camera body itself is were all taken with the corrector at its All are recessed so the tube can be placed
another choice, but one that still ‘factory-set’ position down the focuser. on its end or inserted into its case without
requires removing the camera to swap accidentally affecting the collimation.
filters (and adds more vignetting into Mechanical features
the optical path). Cooled astronomical The telescope’s focuser is a 2½-inch, them stripping the slots. Instead, I
cameras with thin filter wheels dual-speed rack-and-pinion design with set the T-ring so my camera clicked
between the camera and focuser should 30 mm of travel. A DSLR with its back- onto the focuser with north up (my
come to focus with the 150 HNT. focus requirement of approximately preferred orientation for most shots)
The issue is that, unlike most other 55 mm reaches focus with the focuser and just left it there for all my testing.
telescopes with add-on field-flattener extended only 10 mm. So while the A better method of rotating the
lenses, the HNT’s corrector lens doesn’t HNT is optimised for DSLR use, there’s camera would increase the versatility
just slip into or screw onto the focuser enough travel and back focus to of the instrument, particularly for an
— it is screwed directly within the accommodate most other cameras. The astrograph.
threaded interior of the focuser. focuser proved solid and precise, and it The HNT’s tube has a small dovetail
While the corrector lens can be locked down well to prevent slippage. bracket that will accept the standard
removed outright (as suggested for The one feature the focuser lacks is mounting shoes on many finderscopes
collimating the mirrors) or adjusted in a convenient camera-angle adjuster. or small guide scopes. The slotted
its position, doing so requires using a Turning the camera to frame fields carrying handle on the top could also
supplied lens spanner. I tried raising the requires loosening three slot-headed be used to bolt on a guide scope.
corrector up the focuser, reducing the screws at the base of the focuser, most The telescope’s tube rings each have
distance from the lens to the camera not very accessible, and with slots five ¼-20-threaded holes on their top
sensor by a few millimetres, to see if so wide I found my attempts to turn and bottom surfaces for adding your
W Included with T The corrector lens can be removed but only by unthreading it with
the Sharpstar the supplied tool. Collimation is still possible using a star test with the
150 is a solid corrector in place. Using a laser collimator will require removing the lens.
storage and
traveling case
measuring 59 by
32.5 by 29 cm
and weighing
11.5 kg with the
instrument.

S Left: With an inside diameter of 185 mm, the HNT’s oversized tube is lined with black flocking to reduce internal reflections. The focuser and fittings
do not intrude into the light path. While the secondary mirror supports are sturdy, their width introduces bright, long diffraction spikes to images with
bright stars. Right: The tube rings have multiple bolt holes for attaching user-supplied plates and rings, or one of the two supplied dovetail bars. The
Losmandy D-style plate is shown here.
own mounting plates and dovetail bars All the tube fittings are dressed in Adding to the polished finish is the
if needed. The HNT, however, does come a red anodised finish, a colour popular carbon-fibre tube. It not only looks
with two: a narrow Vixen-style and a these days with many brands of mounts good but helped significantly to stabilise
wider Losmandy-style dovetail bar. and accessories. The HNT looks superb focus. On sub-freezing winter nights,
The tube assembly is light, at only and is sure to catch the eye of admirers once the scope had settled down from
5.8 kg and so will work well on lighter on the observing field. An included being in the warm house, I found I
and affordable mounts such as the foam-lined and metal-trimmed travel could focus once and not worry about
Celestron AVX or Sky-Watcher HEQ5. case makes it easy to take to dark sites. refocusing over the next two or three
hours of shooting — impressive for such
T Using an Optolong L-Enhance filter brought out faint nebulosity in this blend of six 8-minute a fast reflector.
frames at ISO 1600 with the filter and six 5-minute exposures at ISO 800 without the filter.
Additional 30- and 60-second unfiltered exposures at ISO 400 added the bright core region. All
were captured with a Canon EOS Ra. Recommendations
Once I sorted out the initial issues of
camera orientation and collimation, I
soon set testing procedures aside and
just used the 150 HNT to take what I
considered some of my best shots of
some of the most popular sky targets,
often using filters.
The current generation of multi-
band filters really makes nebulae pop
when shooting with one-shot-colour
and DSLR cameras, even under dark
skies. On most nights I took filtered
and unfiltered shots to blend together
later in processing. The HNT’s f/2.8
speed made it possible to get all the
shots needed for not only one but
several targets each night.
While I’ve been a fan of
apochromatic refractors for decades,
this is a reflector astrograph I soon
came to appreciate and enjoy using. I
can certainly recommend it.
■ ALAN DYER can be contacted through

his website at amazingsky.com.
ASTRONOMER’S WORKBENCH by Jerry Oltion
tt Howard Banich’s 20-cm

f/3.3 telescope is as functional
and fun as it is beautiful.
t The optical tube assembly

fits completely inside the rocker
box, and the finder and Sky
Commander controller store
away inside the base extender.
The azimuth bearing uses

two roller bearings and one
Teflon pad to achieve smooth
motion with such a short lever
arm. The altitude bearings have
one roller and one Teflon pad
each.
An f/3.3 masterpiece
Some works of art are worth the wait.
WHEN HOWARD BANICH HEARD that The OTA is a 75-cm length of bearings a hard surface to ride on
the Tele Vue Paracorr provides good aluminium tubing with the ends and provide just the right amount of
field correction down to f/3.5, his first rolled for extra rigidity. One nice thing friction.
impulse was to grind an f/3.5 mirror about an f/3.3 system is that Howard The rocker box looks like it might be
and see how well it really worked. He could leave extra tube up front for metal, but it’s actually just cheap 12-mm
overshot a little and wound up with light baffling and still have a relatively plywood stained black.
f/3.3, but as he says, “the mirror was short scope. He also lined the inside When Howard finished the scope,
an experiment anyway”. But yes, the with 2-mm black EVA foam sheeting, he found that it was still too short for
Paracorr worked well even at that fast held in place with two-sided tape. The comfortable viewing. Also, it was a
focal ratio, so he set out to build a scope extra length and dark interior provide bit top-heavy. So he built a wide base
around his new mirror. excellent contrast at the eyepiece. extension out of two more circles of
That was about 25 years ago. Three One problem with such a short inexpensive plywood and some 2 × 4s.
mounts and one refiguring later, the OTA is that it doesn’t provide as much Yet even with this extender, bending
scope is finally a joy to observe with. leverage as a longer scope would, so down to look through a Telrad or even a
The mount has a traditional two- Teflon on laminate makes the bearings right-angle finder was a literal pain. So
bearing Dobsonian altitude motion, but too stiff. Howard solved that problem he installed digital setting circles, and
HOWA RD BA NICH (3)
built into a beautiful, tall rocker box that by using only one Teflon pad per bearing now finding stuff is a breeze.
not only puts the scope at a comfortable and using roller bearings for the other
viewing height but also houses the contact points. Aluminium strips and ■ JERRY OLTION appreciates function
optical tube assembly for storage. an aluminium plate give the roller first, but beautiful form is a close second.

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You can now update your address details online at the subscription page, just log in as a subscriber OR send us your new details by email. 11/20
NIGHT LIFE
t Nicolas Lefaudeux’s winning entry in the

Insight Investment Astronomy Photographer of
the Year competition.
the enormous opportunities the broader

industry represents in developing
technologies that help life on Earth”.
Head of the Australian Space Agency,
Dr Megan Clark, added that “We would
love the Australian Space Discovery
Centre to become a place where the
community can come together to
explore the latest innovations in space
technologies and learn about Australia’s
role in expanding national and
international space activities”.
Seeding an interest
Meanwhile, a Japanese research
project to be launched to the
International Space Station will carry
in space
amongst its cargo a consignment of
seeds from Australia’s national flower,
the Golden Wattle. The seeds will spend
about six months in orbit before being
Curiosity for the cosmos will spark a new generation of enthusiasts. brought back to Earth and distributed
to schools as part of the inaugural
T
his year’s David Malin Awards the federal government having invested Australian Seeds in Space educational
attracted another fantastic nearly $700 million into the sector. The program. Students will plant the seeds
range of images of all varieties of goal is to triple the size of the Australia’s as part of science experiments.
celestial objects (see pages 14–17). For space business to $12 billion per annum “This is a fun and exciting way to get
the next 12 months you’ll be able to see and create an extra 20,000 jobs by 2030. our young people engaged in STEM and
the images in the flesh at the visitors’ Speaking at a ceremony to mark the combines Australia’s oldest industry
centre at the Parkes Observatory in start of construction of the building, agriculture with our blossoming space
NSW, and a second touring exhibition federal Minister for Industry, Science industry,” Minister Andrews said.
will soon travel to selected venues and Technology, Karen Andrews,
 At the start of construction of the Australian
beginning with Sydney Observatory. said that “Sparking young people’s
Space Discovery Centre: Dr Jason Held (Saber
In the UK, the winners of the imagination about space isn’t just about Astronautics); SA premier, Steven Marshall;
annual Insight Investment Astronomy the wonder of the unknown, but about Senator Andrew McLachlan; and SA Minister
Photographer of the Year competition making sure they can take advantage of for Trade and Investment, Stephen Patterson.
have been announced, with Nicolas
Lefaudeux taking out first place for his
imaginative image of the Andromeda
A NDRO MEDA: N. LEFAUDEUX; OPENING: AUSTR A LIA N SPACE AG ENCY

Galaxy. You can see all the winning
images at rmg.co.uk/whats-on/
astronomy-photographer-year.
In Adelaide, construction has begun
on the Australian Space Discovery
Centre and a state-of-the-art Mission
Control Centre. The Australian Space
Discovery Centre will be equipped with
interactive space exhibits and a careers
advisory hub, while the Mission Control
Centre will be available for use by space
companies and researchers to control
satellites and space missions. Australia
is officially back in the ‘space race’ with

IN PROFILE
t The Great Melbourne Telescope is slowly

being restored by a team of volunteers,
including Jim Pollock.
interested and in touch with what is

going on. I enjoy writing and — having
been interested in astronomy most of
my life — I have no shortage of ideas to
write about.
For the last 15 years I have also been
heavily involved in the restoration of
the Great Melbourne Telescope.
What is on your astronomy ‘to do’ list?

Finishing the two telescopes that I have
been building for far too long. One is a
15-cm f/15 refractor. I designed a Clark-
type objective using the chapter on ray-
tracing in the book Amateur Telescope
Making – Advanced. I wrote a ray-tracing
Jim Pollock
program in BASIC that enabled me to
optimise the design and minimise the
lens aberrations. I finished the crown
and flint lenses quite some time ago.
J
im Pollock has had a life-long directions in a book. Looking back, The other project is a 50-cm f/4.5
interest in astronomy, and it was pretty poor but it enabled me Newtonian. The hardware is complete;
has been involved in amateur to observe the Moon and the planets. the primary mirror is ground, polished
astronomy in Victoria for longer than Seeing lunar craters, the moons and and partly figured. All I need to do is to
he’d like to admit. As director of the cloud bands of Jupiter and the rings complete the figuring and it is set to go.
Great Melbourne Telescope Section of of Saturn was just mind-blowing. Of I hope to finish both telescopes
the Astronomical Society of Victoria course at that point aperture fever set in before I die!
(ASV), he is heavily involved in the and, as they say, the rest is history.
restoration of that classic telescope.
What has been your favourite moment
What got you into astronomy? when stargazing?
I remember as a child in the UK, Probably seeing lunar craters for the first
observing a total lunar eclipse; it must time through that 15-cm telescope. The
have been in 1949 or 1950. At school, other unforgettable event was seeing
the day after the eclipse, we were taken Sputnik 1, the world’s first artificial
into a darkened room and shown by the satellite, in 1957. (Actually, what we
teacher, using a torch and two balls of all saw was the rocket that carried the
different sizes, how the shadow of the satellite into orbit, but we did not know
earth obscured the Moon. It was a very that at the time.) It was an amazing
effective demonstration, and one which experience, looking up and seeing this
I have never forgotten. In late September ‘star’ moving silently across the skies.
1950 I saw a blue Moon and, the next
day, a blue Sun, caused by smoke What sort of astro activities are you
particles in the atmosphere from forest engaged in?
fires in Canada. The Moon and Sun were I spend much of my spare time writing
both a beautiful turquoise blue. These articles for the ASV’s bi-monthly
G M T: M USEU MS VICTORIA
events sparked my interest in the skies. magazine, Crux, and for the ASV’s
weekly newsletter Crux Extra! With
What was your first telescope setup? COVID-19 restricting the holding of p A 50-cm-diameter lump of polished glass is
My first telescope was a homemade meetings, we launched Crux Extra! quite heavy, as evidenced by the expression on
15-cm reflector built using only the as a way of keeping the membership Jim’s face.
GALLERY
Astrophotos from our readers
STARRY GEMS
Christine Krebs
This photo of the Milky Way was taken under pristine skies at
Lake Maraboon near Emerald in Queensland. Christine used
a Nikon D500 DSLR and Sigma 18–35-mm lens at 18 mm.
The composite image comprises a 57-second foreground
exposure, while the sky was made from three, 57-second
exposures tracked using a Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer.

COMET NEOWISE
Stephen Mudge
Stephen made a quick trip to Wivenhoe Dam west of Brisbane on
July 28 to photography comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) low above the
horizon. He used a Canon EOS 6D camera and 70–200-mm telephoto
lens at 200 mm, mounted on a Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer Mini for
the twenty, 12-second exposures.
PTOLEMAEUS
Clay Reid
Ptolemaeus is a prominent, 154-km-
wide impact crater near the centre of the
Moon’s near side. For this shot Clay used
a Sky-Watcher Skymax 180 Pro scope and
a ZWO ASI178MC camera. The exposures
were captured using SharpCap.
GALLERY
DOUBLE DRAGONS
Stefan Nebl
The Fighting Dragons (NGC 6188) and the ‘Dragon’s Egg’
(NGC 6164) are nebulosity in the southern constellation,
Norma. For this Hubble palette (H-alpha, S II, O III) image,
Stefan used a Sharpstar 15-cm f/2.8 HNT scope and
ZWO ASI183MM Pro camera.

t CAPTURING
CARINA
Mervyn Millward
There’s lots to see
in this image of the
outskirts of the Carina
Nebula complex,
including the open
cluster NGC 3324 and
nebula Gum 31 in the
centre of the image,
and open cluster NGC
3293 to the left of
centre. Mervyn used a
Takahashi FSQ85EDX
refractor and a QSI
583wsg camera.
The exposures (10x
300-second luminance;
10x 300-second
HaRGB) were captured
over a period of several
months.
RHO OPH
Mark Forteath
The Rho Ophiuchi complex is a star-forming region about 460
light-years from Earth. For this image Mark used a William
Optics Star 71-II refractor and an unmodified Nikon D750
camera. It is a mosaic of 23 tiles, totalling 1,162 exposures
taken on moonless nights in July and August 2020.
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.
Market
Moon Chart & Phase Maps set
Place
A set of 8 laminated pages, each 23 x 33cm,
comprising maps of
the entire near side
of the Moon on
one side, plus lunar
phase on reverse
side, complete with
SpaceTime* covers the latest news
features marked in astronomy & space sciences. The
along the terminator show is available as a free twice
(dividing line weekly podcast through itunes,
between night and Stitcher, Pocketcasts, SoundCloud,
day). Plus instructions, a reference guide and
crater index. A must for lunar observing.
Bitesz.com, Audio Boom, and from
$14.95 + P&H spacetimewithstuartgary.com
SpaceTime is also broadcast coast
Star charts to coast across the United States on
18 star charts by world-
renowned celestial Science360 Radio by the National Science
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Covering the entire
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for the Southern spacetimewithstuartgary.
Hemisphere (with a tumblr.com
index to constellation
and bright stars), these charts are A4 size SpaceTime Facebook
with a water-resistant coating, making them facebook.com/
perfect for use at the telescope. Made in spacetimewithstuartgary
Australia. $14.95 + P&H
SpaceTime Twitter
Use the order form on page 75, Make sure your purchase is covered by
@stuartgary
visit skyandtelescope.com.au Australian warranty. Only purchase from
Celestron Authorised Retailers. * Formerly known as Star Stuff on ABC radio
or call (02) 9439 1955
Design Your Own Custom Adapter at Attention Club

www.preciseparts.com Members
Did you know you can get a
Create and order online your astronomical adapter
with Build-An-Adapter discounted subscription to
in just a few clicks or taps Australian Sky & Telescope by being
a member of an astronomy club?
Build-An-Adapter knows how to interconnect most Subscribers also get 10% off
commercial astronomical devices including charts, books etc.
Focusers, Rotators, Correctors, Off-Axis Guiders, Contact your club or call our office:
Filter Wheels, Cameras, and more…
Australian Sky & Telescope.
info@preciseparts.com Tel: (02) 9439 1955
subs@paragonmedia.com.au

Next Issue
Missing a magazine?
Limited copies of the last 12 months’ back issues are available.
Only $7.50 per copy + $3 P&H. Grab yours before they go!
ON SALE
December 3
SEP/OCT 2020 JUL/AUG 2020 MAY/JUN 2020 APRIL 2020

Three missions head for Mars Aussie finds eight comets Two asteroids revealed Happy birthday Hubble
Comet photography guide Deep sky video guide Build a carbon-fibre scope Deep sky photography
Test report: StarSense Explorer Test report: Optolong filters Test report: Canon EOS Ra Test report: Esprit 150-mm
Complete 2021 sky guide

We give you everything you need to plan
FEB/MAR 2020 JAN 2020 NOV/DEC 2019 OCT 2019 your next year’s observing sessions in our
Farthest star you can see Mars’ killer weather Mapping the Milky Way Revealing the X-ray universe comprehensive 2021 sky guide.
Don’t buy a dud scope Australia’s Dark Sky Reserve Image calibration Martian rover’s discoveries
Test report: Meade LX85 Test report: GSO 25-cm Cass Test report: Celestron RASA 8 Test report: Nikon’s Z6
Seeing satellites
To order, use the form on page 73, phone 02 9439 1955 We’ve all seen low-Earth orbit satellites
or email subscribe@paragonmedia.com.au flying overhead. But have you ever seen a
geostationary satellite? We show you how.
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ADVERTISER INDEX Australian Sky & Telescope magazine acknowledges

and thanks the advertisers who appear in this issue. Speciality equipment manufacturers Double vision
Twin telescopes are a great way to
and dealers are an important resource for astronomers. We encourage you to contact these
boost your imaging output when seeing
advertisers and benefit from their experience. conditions are favourable.
Australian Sky & Telescope .... 11, 73, 80, 81 Orion Telescopes & Binoculars ............ 6, 7
Avalon Instruments .................................. 83 PreciseParts ............................................. 80
A place for everything
Keeping your eyepieces, filters, adaptors
Celestron ............................................. 3, 84 Sky-Watcher (Tasco Sales Aust.) ............... 2 etc neat and tidy can be tricky. We reveal
Finger Lakes Instrumentation ................. 45 Stuart Gary’s SpaceTime ......................... 80 some innovative storage solutions.
OzScopes .......................................... 33, 35
FOCAL POINT by Derek Wallentinsen
My time of transits
Warning: Watching a planet cross the face of the Sun is highly infectious!
p Black-dot fever resulted in this image of
LAST NOVEMBER MARKED the end of passersby in a city park. It was a foggy
Venus crossing the Sun on June 6, 2012.
a season in my life as an astronomer. morning, and anxious moments went
As I’m a ‘senior’ amateur, Mercury’s by: Would it be clear enough to see
passage across the Sun on that day Venus? Not only was it really clear, Mercury 2016: Spreading the fever
may have been the last transit of a the fog was the perfect density to dim became my goal. Working as a
planet I’ll experience in my lifetime. the sunrise, showing a large black spot national park ranger enabled me to
I savour my two decades of transits, visible without any filters or optical create and present a transit program
each of them infecting me with an aid. After the transit ended, our small for park visitors. Discouraged by rain
incurable condition: black-dot fever. crowd had happy faces all day long. at dawn, I set up the scopes on wet
During that time I’ve witnessed half a Mercury 2006: My setting for this one footpaths in the park. My black-dot
dozen transits, and each event has its was atop cliffs overlooking the Pacific luck continued to hold, with the skies
unique memories for me. Ocean. Numerous visitors saw the quickly clearing, enabling 140 people
Mercury 1999: With the Sun low in event through my 90-mm Maksutov, to enjoy the spectacle.
the afternoon sky, the event would be and I captured some fine images of the Mercury 2019: I found myself at
a short passage, lasting less than an planet’s silhouette against the solar sunrise within a different national
hour. I hoped for an impressive view, disk. It never ceases to amaze me how park with the transit already in
as some important visitors would be tiny a planet is compared to a star. progress. This time I set up a
looking through my telescope. I rigged Venus 2012: Eight years and I again hydrogen-alpha solar scope along with
a small reflector to project the transit set up in a city park with several my 125-mm Maksutov. I infected
image onto a piece of white cardboard. instruments. I assigned my C5 SCT another generation of rangers while
My wife and son and a few friends to strictly visual observing. Visitors training them on the basics of safe
made it to the event. They were quite came by and enjoyed a look. Two solar observing. Fifty people watched
intrigued with the setup and the aspects were most thrilling to me: the the progress of Mercury across the
spectacle. It was my first transit, and I rare privilege of seeing both Venus Sun, some of us seeing the black-drop
immediately caught the bug! transits possible in a lifetime, and effect at third contact. What a way to
Venus 2004: Filled with excitement the even rarer sight of the arc of the end my time of transits!
SEAN WALKER / S&T
after reading up on the history of this planet’s aureole through the C5’s
planet’s transits, I set up a TV video eyepiece during the last minutes of ¢ DEREK WALLENTINSEN works as
system attached to a Meade 70-mm ingress. Sunlight shining through the a national park ranger protecting the
scope to easily share the view with atmosphere of another world! land as well as the dark skies above.

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DEEP SKY Hunting E.E.

Barnard’s ACCESSORIES Gadgets to IMAGING Learn the pros &

THE ESSENTIAL MAGAZINE OF ASTRO

with radio eyes P26

If you already have a DSLR camera, just add a Sky-Watcher Star

\ Star Adventurer 2i multi-function equatorial tracking mount

PAUL WILSON - ASTROPHOTOGRAPHY SET UP WITH STAR ADVENTURER PRO KIT

FOR ALL YOUR SKY-WATCHER PRODUCTS ESPRIT 150ED HEQ5PRO

18 To touch the Sun

4 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE November | December 2020

Orion® Magnetic 1 & 3-Pound Orion® GrandView™ ED Waterproof

Check out the Orion page on Facebook

No signs of life in Vela…

8 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE November | December 2020

in the 1990s. His research led to the

.. but signs of life on Venus? observations are needed to detect other

 Ganymede and Europa are two of Jupiter’s

paper, we also mentioned detections

JUPITER: DA MIA N PE ACH; CA NDIDATE MOON: EDWA RD ASH TON (UBC)

10 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE November | December 2020

To order, use the form on page 73 or call 02 9439 1955.

A warm, dusty slightly off-kilter, hinting that whatever

12 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE November | December 2020

t Transits of Mercury could be predicted once

of the Sun. When Mercury reached the

The David Malin Awards 2020

14 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE November | December 2020

PHOTO EDITOR’S CHOICE WIDE-FIELD

16 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE November | December 2020

SOLAR SYSTEM Peter Ward, ‘Hadley Rille’

18 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE November | December 2020

Inside the Sun’s atmosphere

Taking the heat

20 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE November | December 2020

T PARKER’S SUNSCREEN The heat shield consists of two main

metals, like those used in nuclear reactors or rocket nozzles.

22 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE November | December 2020

only imager, a roughly shoebox-size telescope that peeks over

WISPR IM AG E: N ASA / N AVA L RESE A RCH L A BOR ATORY / PA RK ER SOL A R PROBE

24 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE November | December 2020

CABLE UPON CABLE UPON TANGLED CABLE … Never had

T JANSKY’S MERRY-GO-ROUND This replica of Karl Jansky’s original

LISTENING TO THE UNIVERSE

26 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE November | December 2020

The ﬁrst signals

28 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE November | December 2020

LONG WAVES AND LONGER WAVES

W MICROQUASAR Wobbling jets emanate

GOSS E T A L.; SS 433: B. SA X TON (NR AO / AUI / NSF ), R. M. HJELLMING

A ND K . J. JOHNSTON; G REEN BA NK: NR AO / AUI / NSF; M OST: DIA N A

30 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE November | December 2020

CHIME The CHIME radio array in British

INTERFEROMETRY IN ACTION The dishes of the Very Large Array

32 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE November | December 2020

OUTBACK ARRAY A test cluster of SKA-Low antennae point to

telescopes will help us solve. Stay tuned.

34 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE November | December 2020

36 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE November | December 2020

wear and alignment of horses’ teeth change as they age,

10 solar masses Spinning stars

0 50,000,000,000 100,000,000,000 150,000,000,000 200,000,000,000

Main sequence lifespan (years)

38 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE November | December 2020

How a Star Slows Down