Indholdsfortegnelse for November 2021 i BBC Sky at Night

Perseverance pays off The Martian rover collected a rock sample on its second try NASA’s Perseverance rover has lived up to its name by successfully cacheing its first sample of Martian rock on Monday 6 September, after a failed attempt back in August. To prevent a second disappointment, the rover used its CacheCam to visually confirm there was Martian material in the sample tube after drilling. Another sample was acquired from the same rock on 8 September. The ultimate goal of the mission is to learn how Mars’s climate changed over time, as well as looking for signs of past life by cacheing samples of rock that will be returned to Earth by a future mission. Perseverance is currently exploring Jezero Crater, which was once home to an ancient lake.…

What will you need to stargaze on Bonfire Night? First of all you’ll need to dress appropriately – and by that we mean warmly, in a jacket, hat and gloves, not like Guy Fawkes in buckled shoes, a pointed hat and a ruff collar! Take your copy of this magazine out with you, so you can use the star charts to help you find all the targets. Although all the targets we’ve suggested observing here are visible to the naked eye, it’s a good idea to take a pair of binoculars with you if you have them; they’ll make the bright objects even clearer, enhance their colours, and help you find the fainter objects if it’s very hazy. And if you’re worried about even trying to stargaze on a night…

Finally, it’s about to happen. All being well, on 18 December, the 6.5-tonne James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will leave Earth, ready to study the Universe in unprecedented detail. After being launched on a European Ariane 5 rocket, astronomy’s new eye on the sky promises to yield new insights into the origin and evolution of planets, stars, galaxies and the Universe as a whole. “JWST has no competition,” says long-time project scientist John Mather at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. “There is no other way to see what it can see.” Sporting a segmented primary mirror 6.5m in diameter and equipped with sensitive cameras and spectrographs, the James Webb Space Telescope has often been called the successor of the famous Hubble Space Telescope (HST). Indeed, with a light-collecting area almost…

1. The Cosmic Question Mark 10x50 Nu (v) Ceti is the dot at the bottom of the 2¼° long question mark that, when it is in the south of the sky, extends straight up above it. Four 6th magnitude yellowish stars make the curved part of the question mark, and the 7th magnitude star in the middle of the upright is a hot brilliant white colour that contrasts nicely with the rest of the Cosmic Question Mark asterism. □ SEEN IT 2. M77 15x70 M77 lies slightly less than 1° east of Delta (δ) Ceti. It’s a Seyfert galaxy, which means that most of its light comes from gas spiralling into its central black hole. This makes it quite easy to see the nucleus, but any skyglow will obscure the…

The face of the Moon today records hundreds of millions of years’ worth of asteroid and comet impacts – its disc is peppered with countless craters and large basins, where immense collisions punched deep into the lunar crust. But scattered across the Moon’s pockmarked highlands and smooth basalt seas emanating from some craters are also striking, bright features. They are cosmic splashes of rock and dust that give a hint of the dynamic and tumultuous past of our nearest neighbour. Astronomers call these surface features ‘ray ejecta’ – the material thrown out from the impacts that made their parent craters. These dazzling ray systems are generally associated with younger craters. Tycho, for example, is thought to have formed around 109 million years ago. The bright streaks are, in essence ‘fresher’,…

COPERNICUS Copernicus is a magnificent crater that has an extensive ray system surrounding it that’s every bit as impressive as its terraced walls and towering central peak mountains. The crater’s bright ejecta blanket can be perceived with the naked eye when the Moon is full or in a late gibbous phase, but to explore the intriguing wavy nature of the rays you’ll need a small telescope of 4-6 inches (100mm-150mm) in aperture. KEPLER A short hop from Copernicus is the similarly impressive crater Kepler. Though Kepler itself is smaller than Copernicus it nonetheless has a fine ray system that is a delight to explore with a large telescope using a medium magnification eyepiece. There’s an interesting mix of forms visible within the rays, from some that shoot out radially in…

Ask anyone to name a dwarf planet and the answer is likely to be Pluto. Since its discovery in 1930, Pluto had been classed as a classical planet and it wasn’t ‘demoted’ to its dwarf status until 2006. But it wasn’t the first planet to be reclassified. That honour belongs to the lesser-known dwarf planet Ceres, which happens to reach opposition – when it will be on the opposite side of Earth to the Sun – on 27 November. So, it’s a fitting time to shine more than sunlight on this 940km-wide world which has proven to pack a pretty good cryogenic punch. Ceres is named after the Roman goddess of corn and harvests (she also gives us the word cereal). It was discovered on New Year’s Day 1801, by…

Imaging Ceres in the Hyades Track the progress of the dwarf planet as it passes across the open cluster in Taurus Dwarf planet Ceres reaches opposition this month and by chance it does so while tracking across the Hyades open cluster in Taurus, the Bull. Shining at seventh magnitude, Ceres isn’t difficult to see, but normally you do need a few star-hopping skills to locate it. Within the Hyades, this isn’t the case – assuming you can find the Hyades of course! To find Ceres, follow the line of Orion’s Belt northwest to arrive at orange Aldebaran (Alpha (α) Tauri). The Hyades is the sideways V-shaped pattern next to Aldebaran, which is visible to the naked eye and easy to find from the bright star. On the trail of Ceres…

When did you first want to become an astronaut? Around the age of five or six. We were studying the Solar System at school and the teacher pitched a tent in the middle of our classroom. When we went in the lights were turned off and she had everything covered in pieces of grey cloth to look like the Moon. That was the day when I decided that I wanted to become an astronaut and see for myself what the surface of the Moon looked like. How did you start preparing to become an astronaut? At times, it seemed impossible, but I chose to study mechanical engineering because I wanted to become an astronaut. I selected the university I went to because I knew that it had an internship programme…

Visit www.skyatnightmagazine.com/bonus-content/85UKFCX/ to access this month’s selection of exclusive Bonus Content NOVEMBER HIGHLIGHTS Interview: astronaut Nora Al Matrooshi The UAE’s first female astronaut discusses her ambitions and hopes for the future of spaceflight Watch The Sky at Night: Question Time Live Maggie, Chris and Pete join a panel of experts to field questions on space and astronomy in front of a live studio audience Build a roll-off roof garden observatory Access plans and images to help with this month’s project to build your own observing station. See page 76 for full details The Virtual Planetarium Pete Lawrence and Paul Abel guide us through the best sights to see in the night sky this month…

Getting under Europa’s skin Surface features could reveal the thickness of the icy shell around Jupiter’s moon Europa is a very dynamic and fascinating moon. Its surface is only between 40 to 90 million years old (as determined by crater counts), which indicates that it is constantly renewing its face. The Europan surface is absolutely smothered with landforms that suggest ongoing geological processes: long ridges, large regions of broken-up ‘chaotic’ terrain, and smaller areas of uplift and circular pits. It’s also clear that underneath its hard-frozen surface Europa harbours a deep ocean of liquid water. But one of the biggest mysteries surrounding Europa is just how thick that shell of ice really is. And solving this is crucial to understanding the moon’s internal structure, its geological history, and even the…

Looking ahead to the JWST As the much-anticipated James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) nears its launch date, Maggie and Chris look back at some of the incredible telescopes throughout history that have redefined our understanding of the cosmos. The team also looks at how the JWST could enable astronomers to unravel some of the biggest secrets in the Universe. BBC Four, 14 November, 10pm (first repeat BBC Four, 17 November, 7:30pm) Check www.bbc.co.uk/skyatnight for more up-to-date information…

There’s one night every year when it’s guaranteed that people will be lured away from their TVs and out into the darkness, and that’s 5 November – Bonfire Night. As darkness falls some families head into their gardens to light a handful of fi reworks, while others join the crowds in parks or sports grounds to bask in the glow of a bonfire and watch a large display. This year might be different due to COVID-19, but not even a global pandemic will stop us standing in a field for an hour or so and “oohing” and “aahing” at the sight of rockets exploding in cascades of colour. But watching fireworks is seeing only half of the display available because, as we’ll show here, if the sky is clear on…

Venus is in the hot seat this year: NASA and ESA recently announced three new missions to our nearest planetary neighbour, and another two have just flown past on their way to different destinations. Back in August, ESA’s Solar Orbiter and the ESA-JAXA collaboration, BepiColombo, performed gravity-assist flybys, marking the first time since 1985 that three spacecraft have made in-situ scientific observations at Venus at the same time. (The third, JAXA’s Akatsuki, has been in orbit since December 2015.) Solar Orbiter is, obviously, a mission to study the Sun, not planets, so most of its cameras are useless at Venus. Most of BepiColombo’s sensitive cameras can’t see space during its long cruise to Mercury. But both spacecraft carry large suites of instruments designed to measure the intensity and direction of…

When work on an infrared successor to the Hubble Space Telescope began in 1996, a quarter of a century ago, the plan was to build an 8m instrument that would launch in 2007 and would have a price tag of just $500m. “We were over-optimistic about schedule and budget,” says project scientist John Mather of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, which manages the development of JWST. By 2005, cost estimates had risen to a few billion dollars, and NASA called for a redesign with a smaller primary mirror. Still, thanks to many technical setbacks and associated delays – in particular with the development of the vulnerable sunshield – prime contractor Northrop Grumman eventually delivered the telescope in 2016, after which a long period of testing began. In early 2020, the…

Venus Best time to see: 30 November, from 16:30 UT Altitude: 10° Location: Sagittarius Direction: South-southwest Features: Phase, subtle atmospheric shadings Recommended equipment: 75mm or larger Venus is an evening object, suffering from being in a southern ecliptic part of the sky. In fact, it’s currently in Sagittarius, the most southerly of the Zodiacal constellations, and this keeps its altitude low as seen from the UK. Despite this, at mag. –4.7 Venus is intensely bright and as long as your south through to west-southwest horizon is relatively clear you should be able to see it, weather-permitting of course. Venus reached greatest eastern elongation on 29 October when it appeared separated from the Sun by 47°. It’s now heading back towards the Sun, gathering pace as it speeds towards inferior conjunction…

Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko is the comet made famous by ESA’s spectacular Rosetta mission. This month it can be found passing from Gemini into Cancer. At 00:00 UT on 1 November, 67P is located 2° southwest of mag. +3.8 Iota (ι) Geminorum, and predicted to appear at integrated magnitude +10.7. On the night of 3/4 November it passes approximately one degree south of Iota Geminorum heading east. It lies 40 arcminutes southwest of mag. +4.1 Upsilon (υ) Geminorum at 00:00 UT on 5 November, and southeast of the star by a similar distance at 00:00 UT on the 6th. At 00:00 UT on 8 November it lies 1.6° south of Pollux (Beta (β) Geminorum). The comet then passes close to mag. 5.0 Phi (φ) Geminorum on the nights of 9/10 and 10/11…

Capella (Alpha (α) Aurigae) rides high across the winter sky, a yellow beacon at the top of the misshapen pentagon that represents the main part of the constellation of Auriga, the Charioteer. Look at Capella through a telescope and you’ll see numerous other stars nearby. These are listed in the Washington Double Star Catalogue as Capella A (the main star) through to Capella R. Of these, only two are known to be true physical companions, Capella H and Capella L. The others appear close simply because they occupy the same line of sight as Capella A. This month’s challenge is to locate Capella H and possibly Capella L. The main star, Capella A, is a spectroscopic binary, Aa and Ab, two yellow giant suns in a 104-day mutual orbit around…

Sometimes it pays to look at things in a completely new way in order to see them in a different light and appreciate them anew. There’s a striking processing technique you can try that turns our regular view of the lunar disc on its head. Put simply, you invert the colours of the Moon so that light features (like ray ejecta) become dark while dark features become light. What’s so great about this method is that it’s something that can be done with a range of lunar imaging styles and equipment levels; you can do it holding a smartphone up to a scope’s eyepiece or with advanced mosaics of the whole disc. For the best results, try it at full Moon or during the late gibbous phases of the lunar…

Ceres reaches opposition – a position in space on the opposite side of Earth to the Sun – in the constellation of Taurus, the Bull, on 27 November. Catch it at its closest approach to Earth when it’s visible at its highest point in the sky around midnight. Its star-like point of light will shine at mag. +7.2, within the range of 10x50 binoculars. A binocular object throughout the month, the best times to view Ceres will be from midnight UT on 1 November, 23:00 UT on the 15th and 22:00 UT on 30 November. Between 1/2 and 3/4 November the dwarf planet passes just south of the red giant star Aldebaran (alpha α Tauri) with the pair closest on the night of 2/3, separated by only 7 arcminutes. Thereafter,…

Using a histogram to improve nebulae images Enrich a nebula’s colours and add depth to the background with photo-editing software When you take an image with a camera, in a perfect world you would get every exposure spot-on, meaning there would be no need to make any further adjustments. But the reality is that we nearly always need to make adjustments after taking photographs, usually using our preferred photo-editing software. In most cases it’s a matter of studying a histogram and using the ‘Levels’ and ‘Curves’ features or, in the case of PaintShop Pro, an actual ‘Histogram adjustment’ tool. The histogram itself is simply a way of showing the varying light levels captured in your image from the dark tones on the left (the ‘Blacks’) to the white highlights on…

Vixen was among the first manufacturers to launch a lightweight star tracker into the market with its Vixen Polarie. With a vast array of such trackers now available, we took their latest offering, the Vixen Polarie U for some dark-sky testing. It is sold as a standalone unit that does not include an equatorial mount or a dedicated polar scope, which are optional extras. For this review we were loaned both additional items. When we unboxed the Polarie we found a very compact and reasonably light mount, in fact 20 per cent lighter than Vixen’s previous model. The housing of the Polarie U is plastic, but it feels very rigid and robust and doesn’t flex when pressed. On the underside of the tracker there is a ⅜-inch thread with a…

VICTOR M BLANCO 4-METRE TELESCOPE, 31 AUGUST 2021 It may not have the conventional looks of a galaxy, but Centaurus A (also known as NGC 5128) is no less spectacular. It’s one of the brightest objects in the night sky and, at just 12 million lightyears away, is a popular target for Southern Hemisphere observers. This new image from the Dark Energy Camera on the Victor M Blanco Telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CITO) in the Chilean Andes, captures Centaurus A in extraordinary detail. Its unorthodox appearance is the result of a shroud of dust and gas that blots out the elliptical galaxy’s bright nucleus. These intricate, dark wisps are sprinkled with faint blue stars born from red clouds of hydrogen. They are the remnants of Centaurus A’s…

White dwarfs could be lying about their age by hiding behind a youthful veil of hydrogen, a new study has found. These small, dense stars represent the final stage in the life cycle of most stars, when they have thrown off their outer layers of hydrogen, leaving only the core behind. The current understanding of white dwarfs is that all fusion within them has stopped and that they are cooling down over time. This creates a strong link between a star's temperature and its age, which astronomers make use of to date how old stars are. However, a new set of observations made with the Hubble Space Telescope has thrown this relationship into doubt. "We have found the first observational evidence that white dwarfs can still undergo stable thermonuclear activity,"…

During the 1980s, the Voyager 2 spacecraft transformed our view of the ice giants, Uranus and Neptune, from mere wandering points of light to complex and beautiful planetary systems. The Voyager data remains a treasure trove of information on the planets’ interiors, atmospheres and diverse satellites. But with only a single encounter recorded for each planet, we haven’t even scratched the surface of these worlds. Out there on the ‘frozen frontier’, discoveries await the next robotic explorers. Today, the international community is lobbying space agencies to mount a mission to these ice giants, the only major class of planet yet to have a dedicated orbital explorer. The scale of the challenge is matched by the scientific importance of these two worlds. As we gaze out to extrasolar planets, we’ve realised…

Live Haw Wood Farm Astronomers’ Week Saxmundham, Suffolk, 1-8 November Enjoy a week of stargazing and astrophotography at Haw Wood Farm, a designated Dark Sky Discovery Site. The camp pitches are £12 per night and you can book by phone (01502 359550) or email (info@hawwoodfarm.co.uk). Live Is Anybody There? Grindon Parish Hall, Thorpe Thewles, North Yorkshire, 10 December, 7:30pm Cleveland and Darlington Astronomical Society hosts David Ettie’s talk on the question of intelligent life elsewhere in the Universe, and the risk that aliens may be as unpleasant as humans! New members welcome. www.cadas-astro.org.uk Live Stargazing evenings Observatory Science Centre, Herstmonceux, East Sussex, 12 and 27 November, 6:30pm and 11pm Come and look at some exciting night sky objects through some of the largest telescopes in the country. Other activities will…

PRIMARY MIRROR JWST’s primary mirror is made of 18 hexagonal segments, each composed of beryllium and gold-coated to capture infrared light SECONDARY MIRROR Light from the primary mirror is gathered by the secondary, which reflects it onto the science instruments SCIENCE INSTRUMENT MODULE Here, safely housed, are all the science instruments JWST uses for observing the cosmos MULTILAYER SUNSHIELD Light and heat from the Sun and Earth is deflected to avoid it compromising scientific observations SPACECRAFT BUS Steering and control machinery is stowed away to enable astronomers to manoeuvre the telescope, if need be HIGH GAIN ANTENNA Commands from NASA scientists are received by JWST, and its science data is sent back to Earth STAR TRACKERS Background stars are tracked and used as guides so JWST can locate its intended…

Rasalmothallah (Alpha (a) Tranguli) is located in the small isosceles triangle of stars known as Triangulum, the Triangle. It is a curious constellation, because it could be argued that any three stars form a triangle, unless they’re in a line! There’s a southern equivalent too, Triangulum Australe, the Southern Triangle. In mythology the northern version represents the island of Sicily, but sadly the southern variant has no mythology of its own. Rasalmothallah marks the western end of Triangulum. The ‘Rasal’ portion of the name may sound familiar. The two most common examples of its use are in the star names Rasalgethi and Rasalhague, two stars representing the heads of Hercules and Ophiuchus respectively, so you may have guessed that this means ‘head’. The name Rasalmothallah means ‘head of the triangle’,…

1 M45 We’ll start with one of the most familiar clusters in the night sky, the Pleiades, or Seven Sisters, which is easily visible to the naked eye. Binoculars bring it out well, but you’ll need to use a low power eyepiece when using a scope, otherwise you’ll look right through it. The sheer number of stars revealed with a scope is a joy to behold. If you have dark skies, look out for the misty nebulosity within the cluster, most notably NGC 1435 around Merope (23 Tauri), the southernmost star in the main box shape within the cluster. □ SEEN IT 2 The Hyades The Hyades is a large, sideways, V-shaped cluster at the heart of Taurus and like the Pleiades, requires a low power eyepiece to see it…

STEP 1 Find the right illumination for your target Lunar features change appearance dramatically with varying illumination, and ray systems are no different. While craters look interesting when lit obliquely, ray ejecta appear far more striking – and more visible – when the Sun is high above them. To get the best images, plan your imaging sessions for nights when these features are located away from the terminator. STEP 2 Use the lunar limb or terminator for focusing Without shadows contrasting with bright edges as you’d find on obliquely-lit lunar features, focusing your camera on a ray system that’s lit from a high angle can be tricky. Point your scope over to the terminator, focus there and move back; even if the Moon’s ‘full’ there will often be obliquely-lit craters…

Comet 67P has taught us a lot about the origins of the Solar System, but that’s not to stay it’s remained unchanged since its creation 4.5 billion years ago. It’s passed through perihelion many times, and the cycle of freezing and thawing has changed its composition. If planetary scientists want a comet made of material that’s as it was during the formation of the planets, they’ll need to find a comet on its first trip to the inner Solar System. Comet orbits regularly get knocked inwards (67P used to orbit much further out until an interaction with Jupiter in 1959 brought its orbit closer to the Sun). But astronomers get little warning and only find out about these new comets when they’re already on their way. So, rather than waiting…

Build a roll-off roof garden observatory In part 1 we look at how to locate the observatory and build the floors and walls PART 1 OF 3 Setting up a telescope and a mount for an evening’s observing can take over an hour – more if you’re imaging and add a camera in the mix – and nearly as long to put it all away again. However, if you have even the most basic observatory, setting up can take less than five minutes; as the cliche goes, it’s a game changer. In this series of three articles, we’ll look at creating a roll-off roof (ROR) observatory that has minimal impact in a small garden. We’ll cover the basic structure, the design and installation of solar panels (photovoltaics or PV), and…

The Cygnus constellation Jeffrey Horne, Nashville, USA, June 2020 and August 2021 Jeffrey says: “Last year I wanted to take a wide shot of Cygnus, with long sub exposures (20 minutes each) to see what kind of faint nebulosity I could pick up. I was so delighted by what I saw that I decided to reframe it this year as a two-panel mosaic that would show the region’s entirety. This image is a combination of last year’s data with this year’s.” Equipment: ZWO ASI2600MC Pro camera, Canon 50mm USM 1.4 lens, Sky-Watcher EQ6R-Pro mount Exposure: 40h 20’ total Software: Astro Pixel Processor, PixInsight, Photoshop Jeffrey’s top tips: “Shooting with a one-shot colour camera can be challenging in a city, but with enough forethought and integration time, you can get the…

1 Bresser 1.25 inch BinoViewer Deluxe Price £341 • Supplier Bresser UK www.bresseruk.com Two eyes are better than one and this binoviewer lets you use both by splitting your scope’s single image into two, meaning there’s no more need to squint through a single eyepiece. The deluxe version’s optical system makes it easier to find focus and get the best views. 2 Orion right-angle viewer for polar scopes Price £102.99 • Supplier Orion https://uk.telescope.com Spare your neck when peering through your polar scope with this 90°-viewer that lets you look at a more comfortable angle. A built-in Amici prism means you can switch to double the magnification. 3 Deep-sky DAD field rotator Price £415 • Supplier First Light Optics www.firstligKtoptics.com ADVANCED Framing can make or break an image, and this…