Indholdsfortegnelse for May 2022 i BBC Sky at Night

Visit www.skyatnightmagazine.com/bonus-content/CVNU3XT/ to access this month’s selection of exclusive Bonus Content MAY HIGHLIGHTS Interview: Hubble, Webb and exoplanets NASA’s Dr Richard Barry discusses the science of space telescopes and the hunt for distant worlds. Book preview: Plutoshine Download the first chapter of a new novel of sabotage and mystery set in a human settlement on icy dwarf planet Pluto. Plan your observing for the month ahead Access charts to record your observations of the planets and take this month’s binocular and deep-sky tours. The Virtual Planetarium Pete Lawrence and Paul Abel guide us through the best sights to see in the night sky this month.…

Although it might seem unlikely, jealousy can be a healthy motivator. In my previous life as a secondary school physics teacher, I was often jealous of my students. They’d attend my lunchtime Exoplanets Club, or come to my Astronomy Olympiad prep sessions, or even spend weekends with me at the UK Space Design Competition. Watching them get so excited about space science, and seeing how it was shaping their ambitions and future plans, was really what led me to say, “I want to do that too”. So that is what I did and four years later, I was celebrating the arrival of 2022 at one of the world’s most inhospitable places: Antarctica’s Dome C. Why was I there? My task was to install some software on a telescope’s computer at…

Live Exmoor stargazing Minehead, Somerset, 3 May, 7:30pm From novices to experts, all are welcome to join Exmoor StarGazers for their monthly meet-up and (weather permitting) stargazing session at the Kildare Lodge Hotel. Free. www.facebook.com/ExmoorStargazers Online Why does the Pope have an Observatory? 9 May, 7pm As part of its 20th anniversary celebration, the Society for the History of Astronomy hosts Brother Guy Consolmagno, director of the Vatican Observatory, as he traces how astronomy, the Church and politics have collided since the observatory’s origins in 1582. For Zoom details contact: meetings@shastro.org.uk Online Space exploration talk 17 May, 1pm Astronomer Royal Martin Rees looks at the growing role of robotics in the search for life on other planets in this free Royal Astronomical Society public lecture. See ras.ac.uk/events-and-meetings Online The Sky…

The consensus that the Sun and stars shared a similar composition to Earth became so entrenched in astronomy that it was difficult to overcome. In 1925, Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin submitted her doctoral thesis arguing that hydrogen and helium in the Sun and variable stars was significantly more abundant than on Earth. Her findings showed that hydrogen in particular was by far the dominant known element of the Universe. Her demonstration employed an equation that had recently been derived by Meghnad Saha, to show that much of the variation in spectral lines from the stars could be attributed to their temperature rather than their composition. At the time her conclusion was rejected by prominent astronomers like Howard Norris Russell, due to its contradiction with received wisdom. However, it only took a few…

PICK OF THE MONTH Saturn Best time to see: 31 May, 03:00 UT Altitude: 16° (low) Location: Capricornus Direction: Southeast Features: Rings, subtle banding on the planet, moons Recommended equipment: 75mm, or larger Saturn is a morning planet this month with a low altitude before sunrise. Shining at mag. +0.9 at the month’s start, it brightens marginally by May’s close to reach mag. +0.8. On the morning of 22 May a 57%-lit waning gibbous Moon sits 5.8° south of Saturn. By the month’s end, Saturn only attains an altitude of 14° before the morning dawn twilight begins to reduce its visibility, but it should be possible to follow it through to an altitude of around 16°. Saturn doesn’t handle poor seeing well. The view of the delicate rings, which encircle…

Minor planet 13 Egeria reaches opposition on 4 May when it can be found shining at 10th magnitude in Libra, the Scales, less than a degree to the west-southwest of mag. +2.7 Zubenelgenubi (Alpha2 (α2) Librae). Zubenelgenubi is the name given to the brighter, eastern component of a double star. The fainter companion, Alpha1 (α1) Librae, shines at mag. +5.2 and is located 3.8 arcminutes to the northwest of Alpha2. At 01:00 BST (00:00 UT) on 1 May, 13 Egeria is located about 20 arcminutes southwest of Zubenelgenubi, shining at mag. +10.1. It reaches its peak opposition brightness of mag. +10.0 on 4 May, remaining that bright for a couple of days before dimming again. By the month’s close, 13 Egeria will have faded to mag. +10.8. Its monthly track…

Mars reaches an apparent diameter of 6 arcseconds on 31 May, pretty small but a viable size to record the planet as a disc. This month’s challenge is intended to extend right through into 2023 as we want to you start imaging or drawing the planet at regular intervals from now until opposition on 8 December this year, and then through into the following year. The start of this long-term project won’t be too easy because Mars will be located in the brightening morning twilight, with it being best placed at the end of the month. The frequency of recording will need to be adjusted with the weather, but an observation a week or two apart at the start of the sequence should be sufficient. The planet will remain tricky…

The Spaghetti Nebula, Simeis 147 Yann Sainty, France, 11 October 2021-1 March 2022 Yann says: “The Spaghetti Nebula is an object that I’d always dreamed of shooting, but I knew it wouldn’t be easy. I decided to put all the chances on my side by travelling to shoot where the weather would allow it: from the Vosges mountains to Alsace (camping in 0°C) and Moselle in the east, down to Valensole and several other locations in the south. It took me two months and a total of 3,600km to acquire 55 hours of data for a final two-panel mosaic of 15,000 x 12,000 pixels.” Equipment: ZWO ASI2600MM Pro camera, Takahashi FSQ-106ED refractor, Sky-Watcher ER6-R Pro mount Exposure: Panel 1: Ha 71x 600”, Olll 78x 600”, RGB 90x 10” each; Panel…

DAZZLING DESTRUCTION An unusual triangular region of frenzied star formation blossoms following a head-on collision of two galaxies HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE, 22 FEBRUARY 2022 The two ‘eyes’ in this image are two galaxies left with dramatically different injuries after a direct collision millennia ago. On the left is elliptical NGC 2444, an indistinct haze of gas and dust and mostly elderly and dying stars. On the right is the vibrant NGC 2445, the apparent victor, that sports a beautiful ‘black eye’ from the skirmish: a glittering outer halo of bright, blue, newborn stars around the galaxy’s core. Collectively dubbed Arp 143 and found 181 million lightyears away in the constellation of Lynx, the duo highlight the intense star creation that can be triggered by some galactic collisions. But why the…

Large molecule found in planet growing disc Dimethyl ether (inset, above), a complex organic molecule made up of nine atoms, has been detected in the planet-forming disc around a star (IRS 48, above, left) for the first time. Not only is this the largest molecule ever discovered in such a disc, but such chemicals play a key part in starting life. No black hole ‘nearby’ The ‘closest’ black hole system to Earth, located just 1,000 lightyears away, may not contain a black hole after all. The system was first reported in 2020, but now two independent teams have determined it could instead be a double star system, where one member has had its outer layers stripped by its companion. 5,000 exoplanets confirmed NASA’s list of confirmed exoplanets passed the 5,000…

My name is Freya. I am nine years old and a Brownie Guide. For my Brownie space badge I had to learn some constellations, make a sunspot viewer from a cardboard box and design a spacesuit. I chose to do a spacesuit for my teddy bear, Padstow. I made it out of recycled cardboard, foil and pie dishes. To look like Space Ted was floating in space, we showed a picture on the TV that my grandpa took, hung Padstow in front of the TV and took a photo. I hope you like it. Freya Hunt, Cheshire That’s a fantastic spacesuit Padstow is wearing, Freya, and a very imaginative way to present him against your grandpa’s picture. Your space badge has been well-earned! – Ed. This month’s top prize: two…

LIVE Bowie: Oddity to Mars National Space Centre, Leicester, 20 and 21 May NASA’s Apollo Moon landings and the music of David Bowie are brought together this month in a live event at Leicester’s National Space Centre as the Sir Patrick Moore planetarium – the UK’s largest – plays host to a performance of Bowie’s music alongside an immersive 360° full-dome planetarium show. Bowie’s iconic ‘Space Oddity’ and Ziggy Stardust era was also the time of humanity’s first steps on the Moon, and the show features out of this world imagery of the Apollo missions and spectacular sights from the distant Universe. Tickets £17.50. spacecentre.co.uk/event/bowie-oddity-to-mars…

How can one time of year be better for observing galaxies than others? It’s all to do with Earth’s position in its orbit. During summer, we enjoy our best views of the Milky Way because that’s when the Sun is farthest in our sky from the constellations that contain the brightest and most densely star-packed areas. In spring, Earth’s position gives us our best view of the constellations that contain the most galaxies. This includes galactic clusters, where it’s possible to observe several galaxies at the same time. Many observers look forward to spring because, compared to naked-eye star clusters like the Pleiades, M45, or bright nebulae such as the Orion Nebula, M42, the season’s galaxies are challenging yet rewarding targets. Although some are big and bright enough to be…

Physicists don’t just gather data from the stars. Particle accelerators also feature big in modern experimentation. These often have a toroidal shape, looping particles round and round, boosting their energy as they go. The earliest example of such an accelerator was developed in 1930 by Ernest Lawrence and measured only 5 inches (12.7cm) across. The largest to date has a diameter of more than 5 miles (8km)! By attaching detectors at various points, physicists are able to observe physical events at extraordinary energies. Some experiments have stood out in recent history. The ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland involves the largest particle detector ever made. It is a cylinder 46m long and 25m in diameter, with 100 million sensors. In 2012, ATLAS was key to confirming the…

The fundamentals of astronomy for beginners The early Greeks believed that stars were embedded in an enormous sphere rotating around Earth. Today we know that stars and all the other celestial objects lie at varying distances, and they only appear to move from east to west as a result of Earth itself spinning on its axis from west to east. However, in order to describe the positions and movements of stars above our horizon, astronomers still use this vast imagined shell. It is called the celestial sphere. Projected onto this sphere is a grid system of reference points and lines, which are similar to maps used on Earth. Imagine Earth as a balloon with reference points and lines mapped on its surface; inflate the balloon until it fills the celestial…

Take the perfect astrophoto with our step-by-step guide The total lunar eclipse on the morning of 16 May will be challenging: the the Moon will set around 05:00 BST (04:00 UT), just after the point of greatest eclipse and during morning twilight. The first part of the eclipse begins at 02:32 BST (01:32 UT) as the Moon moves into Earth’s weak penumbral shadow, but this is hard to see visually. As the Moon progresses into the penumbral shadow, heading towards the outer edge of the umbral shadow, so the presence of the penumbra becomes more noticeable as a dark shading. The geometry of this eclipse means the line of approach towards the umbral shadow is optimised. Capturing the whole event Our challenge this month is to record the entire eclipse…

JWST focused on the job ahead The space telescope is nearly ready to begin scanning the infrared Universe After weeks of alignment, NASA finished focusing the primary mirror of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) on 11 March, achieving a precision that exceeds the original goal. The milestone marks the end of a procedure known as ‘fine phasing’. JWST’s main mirror is made up of 18 hexagonal segments; to focus these the team pointed the telescope at a lonely star chosen to be easily identified, with few nearby companions. They then adjusted each panel so that when combined, the 18 separate images were aligned into a single point of light, focused to within an accuracy of 50 nanometres – a fraction of the wavelengths of infrared light it will observe…

A space junk timeline Free-for-all access to low-Earth orbit is increasing the risk of collisions Space is getting increasingly crowded. At least, it is in the region of low-Earth orbit, where many satellites operate. Spanning altitudes between about 160km and 2,000km above Earth’s surface, low-Earth orbit requires less fuel to reach than higher orbits. Its relative proximity to the ground also provides advantages for low-powered communication devices, such as Iridium satellite phones, as well as for Earth observation – think weather-forecasting, monitoring the environment and spying. The International Space Station (ISS) and China’s Tiangong space station also occupy low-Earth orbit, both at an altitude around 400km. There are plenty of objects, however, that have fallen out of use and remain in orbit. Satellites can remain in position long after they…

Destination Moon Fifty years since humans last stood on the Moon, the team look back at the Apollo programme and anticipate NASA’s upcoming Artemis project, which promises to return crew to the lunar surface in 2025. Plus, they’ll reveal how to observe the total lunar eclipse on 16 May, and why the Moon is a great target for astronomy newcomers. BBC Four, 9 May, 10pm (first repeat BBC Four, 12 May, 7:30pm) Check www.bbc.co.uk/skyatnight for more up-to-date information…

The amateur astronomer’s forum Poetry in lunar motion As a poet and a writer, I love the Moon and its associated vocabulary: words such as ‘moonset’, ‘celestial’ and ‘lunation’. But my mind struggles with its more scientific aspects: the Moon’s haphazard schedule; it only being called a quarter when half of it is visible; and the geometry of its rotation. To better my understanding, I combined science with poetry, writing a verse each night for a lunar month titled ‘Between New Moons’. In the lengthening November nights, I’d check my Moon app and set out on late strolls up Bristol’s urban hills in the direction of its azimuth, that’s Moon-speak for bearing. I visualised it as a ship circumnavigating Earth, each night the planet having to rotate a bit extra…

At a glance, physics can seem a radically unfocused discipline. In a single research department you’ll find particle physicists investigating the smallest and most ubiquitous objects we know of, like quarks, leptons and bosons. But you’ll also find astronomers (including astrophysicists and cosmologists) investigating the largest and most distant things that we know of, like galaxies, nebulae and black holes. No other science comes close to matching interests on such a range of scales. So why do both extremes count within the remit-of doing physics? One suggestion is that physicists are interested in the small and big, the near and far, just because they are interested in everything. At least that’s what the many physicists trying to find a ‘grand unifying theory of everything’ might tell you. But the notion…

On a clear evening, as the Sun is setting in the western sky, you may have noticed a scene reminiscent of a watercolour painting: the eastern horizon becomes awash with a band of pale pinks and blues. If you have, it’s likely that you have spotted the Belt of Venus, a subtle atmospheric phenomenon that can be delightful to observe. The name is somewhat misleading, however, because it has nothing to do with the planet Venus, but is instead associated with the girdle or belt worn by the Greek goddess Aphrodite, the Roman counterpart of Venus. Here, we will look at what causes this phenomenon. As the Sun rises in the east or sets in the west, sunlight reflects off the dense atmosphere in an effect called backscattering, which creates…

DON’T MISS Total eclipse of the Moon BEST TIME TO SEE: The morning of 16 May, from 02:32 BST (01:32 UT) until moonset A total eclipse of the Moon occurs on 16 May. The Moon’s 5° orbital tilt normally has it passing above or below Earth’s shadow in space. It’s only when there’s a straight-line alignment between the Sun, Earth and Moon that the Moon crosses into Earth’s shadow. When this happens, the observers on Earth’s hemisphere facing the Moon witness a lunar eclipse. This is what will happen on the morning of 16 May, when we in the UK will be in the right hemisphere for the first half of the eclipse. At the Moon’s distance, Earth’s shadow has two parts: a weak outer penumbra and a dark umbra.…

Montes Apenninus Type: Mountain range Size: 950km long, 100km wide Longitude/Latitude: 0°, 19.9° N Age: 3.2-3.9 billion years Best time to see: First quarter (8-9 May) or six days after full Moon (22-23 May) Minimum equipment: 10x binoculars Montes Apenninus is the most impressive of the lunar mountain ranges visible from Earth. It borders 1,250km diameter Mare Imbrium, arcing from the eastern side of the Mare around to the south-southeast. It contains many lofty peaks, which cast striking shadows across Imbrium’s relatively flat lava during the late waxing crescent and early waxing gibbous phases. With a low Sun angle, the jagged peak shadows give a highly exaggerated impression of the mountains within the Apenninus range. The northern edge of the range begins with Promontorium Fresnel, a rugged outcrop on the…

1. Polaris ‘Engagement Ring’ 10x50 Most astronomers use mag. +2.0 Polaris (Alpha (α) Ursae Minoris) as a mere marker for the North Celestial Pole (NCP), but binoculars reveal that it is part of an asterism, a circlet of mostly 8th and 9th magnitude stars: like a diamond in an engagement ring. Notice that one of the stars in the circlet is slightly displaced away from Polaris; this star is on the line joining Polaris and the NCP, and enables the NCP to be more precisely located. □ SEEN IT 2. Galaxy pair M81 and M82 15x70 The next stop in this month’s tour of the north polar region of the sky takes us to the galaxy pair M81 (Bode’s Galaxy) and M82 (The Cigar Galaxy). Use the chart to help…

Altaz mounts have two axes of rotation: one moves in elevation – up and down – 0° to 90° (altitude); and the other moves in a 360° circle parallel to the horizon (azimuth). Equatorial mounts are like altaz mounts, but tilted at an angle based on the observer’s longitude, which corresponds with Polaris’s altitude. They compensate for Earth’s rotation by having one rotational axis – the RA or ‘polar’ axis – parallel with Earth’s axis of rotation. They are moved by manual adjustment using RA (right ascension) and dec. (declination) setting circles, or a small electric motor on the axes, within the RA and dec. coordinate system, which allows all-night tracking of objects on the celestial sphere. Fully motorised and computerised Go-To mounts remove the need to know RA and…

Expert processing tips to enhance your astrophotos Astrophotography processing is about more than just stretching data and reducing noise, those unwanted artefacts. It is also important to create an even, realistic-looking background for your deep-sky objects. A flat, dark background will enhance the appearance of the target, but depending on the conditions you are imaging in, this can be a challenging thing to achieve. Generally, you don’t want to focus on making the background sky completely black, as this can look artificial. Thanks to light pollution and imagevignetting (where an image appears darker around the edges), captured images will often consist of uneven gradients – different patches of brightness or colour – that become more obvious as we stretch the data. These gradients can be difficult to correct evenly, which…

Considering how molten Venus’s surface was in its past, how might it have formed a liquid water ocean? When we think about the evolution of planets, we envision them beginning their life in a hot and molten state, and as they evolve through time, they emit radiation into space and cool down. So, the key question is whether or not by cooling down, Venus was able to condense the water it had in its atmosphere onto the surface. If the water did not condense, then it is unlikely that liquid water oceans would have formed. The current thinking is liquid water oceans might have formed from steam at an early point during Venus’s evolution, the steam condensing on the planet’s surface and turning from a vapour to a liquid. This…