Innehållsförteckning för March 2021 från BBC Sky at Night

There’s one thing about the aurora that I find especially fortuitous, it’s that our planet’s protective magnetic field transforms deadly radiation from the Sun into an awe-inspiring spectacle. I’ll be keeping this in mind as we get into aurora season this month – the time of year when slightly warmer temperatures, improving weather and still-dark nights make a search for the spectacle more rewarding. To help you get the most out of this time, turn to our feature on page 28, where Tom Kerss explains the processes behind the Northern Lights and how to see them yourself. Another event of note in the night sky this month is the opposition of minor planet Vesta, the brightest of the asteroids. In ‘The Sky Guide’ from page 43, you’ll find all the…

Will Gater Astronomy journalist “In 15 years of writing for BBC Sky at Night Magazine, I’ve explored exciting projects, but hearing the inside story of an asteroid sampling was on another level!” Will looks at NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission at Bennu, page 35 Tom Kerss Aurora expert “Whether staying in the UK or venturing overseas, you can make a plan to go on an aurora-chasing adventure and witness the greatest light show on Earth”. Tom offers tips on catching an auroral display, page 28 Emily Winterburn Physicist and historian “I enjoyed writing about Vesta; I love the way this story shows how productive mistakes can be and why it’s important to never give up!” Emily looks at the role of the ‘Celestial Police’ in Vesta’s discovery, page 60…

Email us at inbox@skyatnightmagazine.com Catching Orion I’ve always been interested in astronomy and for years I’ve been intrigued by astrophotography. I’ve had many failed attempts; the process always seemed so complicated. I promised myself that one day I’d be able to take a passable picture of the Orion Nebula. I spent lockdown studying polar alignment, stacking and various other techniques – learning how to use my equipment properly! I still have a lot to learn, but I’m happy with my first ‘proper’ image of the Orion Nebula (above). I took it on 9 January from my cold back garden with a Sky-Watcher 200P telescope and a modified Sony Bridge camera, capturing three frames (30” exposures at ISO 500) and three darks, stacked in DeepSkyStacker and processed in GIMP. The best…

DOCUMENTARY The Farthest An excellent, witty and moving celebration of that monument to human achievement: the two Voyager missions, launched in 1977 and to this day travelling ever onwards into interstellar space, featuring fascinating interviews with many of those who have dedicated their lives to the project. On Amazon Prime CITIZEN SCIENCE Bursts from Space You could be the first person to hunt down a ‘furbie’, aka Fast Radio Burst or ‘FRB’, if you join this new project. Using weekly data from the CHIME (Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment) telescope in British Columbia, you’ll be tasked with sifting potential FRBs from human-made signals. bit.ly/38EuaDJ Globe at Night Join the battle against light pollution in this international citizen science project to measure night sky brightness. Submit your observations using the Globe…

As the first image came back from OSIRIS-REx on 22 October 2020, everything looked pretty much as expected to the mission’s principal investigator, Professor Dante Lauretta. It was the pictures that were received next – from the robotic explorer’s ‘SamCam’ camera – that caused the concern. “I don’t like this,” said Lauretta, turning to systems engineer Estelle Church who stood beside him in the spacecraft operations centre at Lockheed Martin’s site in Littleton, Colorado. “I don’t like it either,” Lauretta recalls her saying. Lauretta quickly picked up the phone to his colleague, OSIRIS-REx’s project manager, Rich Burns. “Are you looking at the images from SamCam?,” asked Lauretta. “You need to get down here right away!” Just days before, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft had completed the most thrilling phase of its mission…

VESTA REACHES OPPOSITION Get the best and brightest view of the minor planet THINK THIN MOON Locate a wonderful, waxing ultra-thin lunar crescent About the writers Astronomy expert Pete Lawrence is a skilled astro imager and a presenter on The Sky at Night monthly on BBC Four Steve Tonkin is a binocular observer. Find his tour of the best sights for both eyes on page 54 Also on view this month… ♦ The Beehive Cluster, M44, at its highest position ♦ A grouping of Mars, Aldebaran and the Moon ♦ The ‘lunar X and Y’ clair-obscur effects Red light friendly To preserve your night vision, this Sky Guide can be read using a red light under dark skies Get the Sky Guide weekly For weekly updates on what to look…

DON’T MISS MARS AND THE PLEIADES BEST TIME TO SEE: 1-5 March, with closest approach on 3 March and Moon nearby on 19 March Mars has been a beacon in our night skies for many months, but due to the increasing distance between it and Earth, it now appears much dimmer than it did at the end of 2020. In addition, through the eyepiece of a telescope, Mars now appears quite tiny, making its surface markings harder to see. At the start of March, Mars is located 3° south of the beautiful open cluster M45, also known as the Pleiades or Seven Sisters. As it tracks east, Mars also moves slightly north against the background stars. This apparent motion means the planet appears closest to the cluster on the evening…

Vallis Rheita Type: Crater-chain valley Size: 450km x 30km Longitude/Latitude: 51.7° E, 42.5° 5 Age: Older than 3.9 billion years Best time to see: Four days after new Moon (16–18 Mar) and three days after full Moon (30–31 Mar) Minimum equipment: 50mm refractor Vallis Rheita is a curious feature visible near the Moon’s southeast limb. It appears as a two-part linear trough. The northern part is approximately 30km wide and runs for 300km north from the northern rim section of 46km diameter Young D, cutting through the western side of the battered 73km diameter crater Young. Ridges appear to cross the valley along its northern route, but these are rim sections of smaller craters. This suggests the valley is formed by overlapping craters, a crater-chain rather than a true geological…

Vesta, the brightest asteroid in our Solar System’s asteroid belt, will be at opposition on 4 March 2021. Although Vesta can be seen with the naked eye in locations with no light pollution, it can be a challenge to do so. With a magnitude of +5.9 it might just be possible, but it will be perfectly visible with binoculars or a moderate aperture telescope. You’ll be able to find it in the constellation of Leo, the Lion. Vesta was one of the very first asteroids to be discovered and its story is one full of failure, jealously and discredited theories, as all good science history should be. Today we know of around two million asteroids in our Solar System’s asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, but 250 years ago the…

When we look up at the sky through a telescope it’s easy to suppose that we can learn how the Universe appears to us untainted by theoretical and philosophical assumptions. After all, it’s not like we need to know any specific theory of cosmology to operate a telescope or to record what we see. And what could philosophy possibly have to do with it? But in fact, things are not so straightforward. The relationship between what appears to us in the night sky and what our theories say about those appearances is riddled with questions that continue to puzzle philosophers and thinkers. It may turn out that what we can learn about the Universe depends on all sorts of factors we are not typically aware of. A little over 400…

Will space tourism for ordinary people happen in our lifetime? I think so. Right now the price is high, and as competitors are drawn into the field I think it will become more accessible. It will be a luxury for the next few decades, but hopefully a more accessible luxury like how first-class flights are for a special occasion. Fewer than 700 humans have been to space, and the fact that Virgin Galactic could more than double that number in its first few years of operation is amazing. What are your thoughts on the Commercial Crew Program? It’s incredible how far we’ve come in the last decade. NASA has been such a proactive partner in enabling this ecosystem to grow; it’s an amazing thing to accomplish for SpaceX and Boeing.…

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Something as big as a giant radio galaxy should be easy to find but it’s a huge challenge: because their jets extend over a large area of the sky, even quite luminous examples are faint against the bright background of the radio sky. Finding these two giants is an exciting sign that the new MeerKAT telescope is up to the challenge. It’s more impressive when you consider that these discoveries are larger, and have lower radio power, than most known examples. The jets are produced by activity around the host galaxy’s central black hole, and then expand and fade over time. The existence of large, faint giants has been predicted, so this result matches our understanding of how these objects evolve. Chris Lintott co-presents The Sky at Night…

Running since 2016 and clocking up over 200 episodes and half a million downloads to date, The Interplanetary Podcast is an excellent weekly show for anyone even remotely interested in space. Hosted by Matthew Russell, Jamie Franklin, Julio Aprea, Chris Carney and Harriet Brettle – a mix of space enthusiasts and industry experts – it manages to pull off that tricky balance between geek-friendly, informed science and an accessible, light delivery style. Top space experts, including presenter Brian Cox, theoretical physicist Jim Al-Khalili and former astronaut Kathy Sullivan and astronaut Matthias Maurer are among the recent interviewees, plus there’s book chat and news on the latest research, missions and launches. www.interplanetary.org.uk…

Monday 1 Mars is slowly making its way across the sky south of the Pleiades open cluster in Taurus. Closest approach will occur on the evenings of 3 and 4 March. Wednesday 3 Tonight and tomorrow night, mag. +1.0 Mars will be closest to the Pleiades open cluster, separated from the centre of the cluster by 2.7°. Thursday 4 Asteroid 4 Vesta reaches opposition today, shining at mag. +5.9 in the constellation of Leo. From a dark-sky location, it might be possible to spot the minor planet using just your eyes. See pages 47, 53, 55 and 60 for more about Vesta. Friday 5 If you have access to a very flat east-southeast horizon, take a look low above it from 40 minutes before sunrise to see whether you can…

Johann Schröter (1745-1816) Johann Schröter was a lawyer turned astronomer. When William Herschel discovered Uranus, Schröter gave up law to devote all his time to observing. He is best known for his observations and accompanying drawings of the features of our nearest planets. Baron Franz Xaver von Zach (1754-1832) Originally from Budapest in Hungary, Baron Franz Xaver von Zach lived and worked in Paris, London and various European cities, sometimes as a private tutor, at other times a lecturer or in an Observatory. Towards the 18th-century’s end, he helped put together the Celestial Police. Karl Harding (1765-1834) Karl Harding was employed as a tutor to Schröter’s son, before being promoted to be an astronomical assistant and observer at Schröter’s observatory in Lilienthal. Today, he is best known for his discovery…

Galileo may be most famous for the astronomical observations which led to his outspoken views in defence of heliocentricism. But this was not his only contribution to science, nor even the most important. In fact, Galileo was the first to theorise about many physical phenomena which form the basis of contemporary physics. These included the constant period of a pendulum, the relationsKip between the pitch of soundwaves and their frequency, and the independence of nature’s laws from the observer’s own frame of reference (a form of relativity). Galileo was also an impressive inventor, making significant contributions to the development of the navigational compass, the thermometer and, of course, the telescope, whose name was coined to refer to Galileo’s own instruments. And that’s not all, Galileo wrote a highly influential treatise…

Get to know the different types of astro cameras Charlotte Daniels introduces them and recommends the most suitable types of imaging Astrophotography has become increasingly popular and thanks to modern technology, these days we don’t need enormous budgets to get great images; even smartphone cameras can give impressive results. The main consideration when selecting your astro camera is whether you wish to pursue wide-field, planetary, or deep-sky imaging. Typically, any device used for night-sky imaging will need to perform long exposures, have remote shutter capability and ISO control (to alter sensitivity to light). Here we’re going to run through the most popular cameras for astro imaging, pointing out strengths and considerations. We begin with a type of camera that many people will have with them most of the time. 1…

APY Masterclass Catch a star of many colours Use a defocus technique and stacking software to reveal details Advice from a highly commended entrant in the ‘Stars and Nebulae’ category One of the highlights of the winter stargazing season is the bright star Sirius. Shining at mag. –1.46, it’s the brightest star in the night sky. Often noticeable when close to the horizon, Sirius displays myriad colours as its light travels through our turbulent atmosphere. The sight of twinkling Sirius demands attention and even a few seconds of observing will reveal a rainbow of colours. We’re going to look at one of the easiest ways to capture these colours in an image, by using a simple defocus technique and a free stacking software, in this case StarStaX. To capture the…

Television Find out what The Sky at Night team have been exploring in recent and past episodes on page 18 Online Visit our website for competitions, astrophoto galleries, observing guides and more Social media Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram for space news, astro images and website updates Podcasts Listen to our Radio Astronomy podcasts where the magazine team and guests discuss astro news Tablet/phone Get each month’s issue on your Apple or Android device, now with bonus image galleries eNewsletter The best targets to observe each week, delivered to your inbox. Visit bit.ly/skynewsletter Find out more at: www.skyatnightmagazine.com…

20 March 1961 On the 20 March 1961 episode of The Sky at Night, Patrick Moore was joined by bacteriologist Francis Leslie Jackson from King’s College London. While most of Jackson’s work looked at terrestrial bacteria, he was interested in the possibility of finding living organisms on other planets. For the show, Jackson subjected bacteria to the conditions found on other planets – such as the low-pressure carbon dioxide rich atmosphere of Mars or the acidic high-pressure atmosphere of Venus – to see how they fared. This type of work has since blossomed into an entire field of study known as astrobiology. Some researchers run more refined versions of the experiments run by Jackson in the 1960s. Others, like our own Lewis Dartnell who’s monthly column you can read in…

Email your queries to scopedoctor@skyatnightmagazine.com I have a Stella Wi-Fi adaptor connected to a Meade 14-inch LX200 ACF. I would also like to hook up an eyepiece camera but can’t run a cable all the way to my house. Can you suggest any solutions to the problem? KEVIN BOYNE An eyepiece camera usually has a USB connection, but USB cables have a limited length before the signal becomes unreliable. However, this range can be increased considerably by using a USB over Ethernet extender. These extenders comprise two adaptors, one with a female USB socket for the camera and one with a male USB plug that you would connect to your PC, and each have an RJ45 Ethernet port. Your PC’s location adds an additional level of complexity, but in theory…

Universal time (UT) and British Summer Time (BST) Universal Time (UT) is the standard time used by astronomers around the world. British Summer Time (BST) is one hour ahead of UT RA (Right ascension) and dec. (declination) These coordinates are the night sky’s equivalent of longitude and latitude, describing where an object is on the celestial ‘globe’ Family friendly Objects marked with this icon are perfect for showing to children Naked eye Allow 20 minutes for your eyes to become dark-adapted Photo Opp Use a CCD, planetary camera or standard DSLR Binoculars 10x50 recommended Small/medium scope Reflector/SCT under 6 inches, refractor under 4 inches Large scope Reflector/SCT over 6 inches, refractor over 4 inches GETTING STARTED IN ASTRONOMY If you’re new to astronomy, you’ll find two essential reads on our…

KEY TO STAR CHARTS When to use this chart 1 March at 00:00 UT 15 March at 23:00 UT 31 March at 23:00 BST On other dates, stars will be in slightly different positions because of Earth’s orbital motion. Stars that cross the sky will set in the west four minutes earlier each night. How to use this chart 1. Hold the chart so the direction you’re facing is at the bottom. 2. The lower half of the chart shows the sky ahead of you. 3. The centre of the chart is the point directly over your head. Sunrise/sunset in March* Moonrise in March* Lunar phases in March MORE ONLINE Paul and Pete’s night-sky highlights Southern Hemisphere sky guide…

Boötes is a large kite-shaped constellation to the southeast of the Plough asterism. The curved handle of the Plough, extended away from the blade, arcs around to Arcturus (Alpha (α) Boötis), the orange-hued star that sits at the kite’s base. The kite-shape is about as high as the Plough is long and Nekkar (Beta (β) Boötis) at its northern tip. Despite its beta status, mag. +3.5 Nekkar is the sixth brightest star in Boötes. It lies at a distance of 225 lightyears and is estimated to be 3.4 times as massive and 170 times as luminous as our Sun. Its spectral classification is G8llla, indicating it’s a yellowish luminous giant. Nekkar is a slow rotator, with an estimated rotation period of 200 days. (Our Sun has an equatorial rotation period…

1 M95 Leo, the Lion marks the transition to the galaxies of spring. As the winter Milky Way tilts out of the way, we are presented with a sky that looks into d galactic space. Leo contains many galaxies and two famous triples; M65, M66 and NGC 3628 near the Lion’s back leg, and M95, M96 and M105 near its belly, 3.6° northeast of mag. +3.8, Rho (p) Leonis. Located 33 million lightyears from the Sun, M95 is a mag. +9.7 barred spiral appearing surprisingly bright through a small telescope. It looks like a diffuse glow, intensity rising sharply to a bright core. Larger scopes show its glow is slightly elongated. Through a 300mm scope, M95 appears 5x3.5 arcminutes in size, its bright core roughly one-quarter of an arcminute across.…

You can go far with astrophotography by using a DSLR and lenses, but for a deepsky object or planetary photography the addition of a telescope to your setup will widen your options. Your target will appear larger, allowing more detail. Smartphones can be fitted to a telescope eyepiece holder via an adaptor; you just need the right one for your model. Meanwhile, to attach a DSLR you will need a T-ring and nosepiece; the T-ring fits to the camera like a lens. For example, if you are using a Canon DSLR, you’ll need a Canon-fit T ring. Meanwhile, the nosepiece is either 2-inch or 1.25-inch and you’ll find that most telescopes take either diameter. If you are using a webcam, you’ll need to consider modifying it to fit to the…

The Horsehead Nebula Terry Hancock, Colorado, USA, 26-29 September and 24-26 November 2020 Terry says: “The Horsehead Nebula is one of the most beautiful objects in the night sky. In this Hubble Palette version, created with narrowband filters, the Sulphur (SII) wavelength is mapped to the red channel, the Hydrogen-alpha (Ha) is mapped to green and the Oxygen (OIII) is mapped to blue. While the colours aren’t the true colours, the narrowband filters reveal more of the hidden gasses not seen in a visible light image.” Equipment: QHY600 mono camera, Takahashi FSQ-130 apo refractor, Paramount ME mount Exposure: 27.1h total Software: MaxIm DL, PixInsight, Photoshop Terry’s top tips: “I’m fortunate to have high-end equipment, but stunning photos of the Horsehead Nebula can still be obtained with a modest and less…

Not Necessarily Rocket Science Kellie Gerardi Mango Publishing £18.95 • HB Kellie Gerardi, a science communicator working in the spaceflight industry, promises us “a complete guide to the space age”, starting at the very beginning of the Universe and working through her attempts to break into the space industry with a non-STEM degree, her involvement with Mars One and her work with rockets in the Mojave Desert. It’s a lofty aim, and the result is part memoir, part self-help, part history of the Universe and spaceflight. Tips are given on how to get a career in a STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) field and how to become an ‘influencer’. However, a brief to be all-encompassing carries with it the risk of stretching the material thinly, and it is sometimes…

1 Syrp Genie One Price £399 • Supplier Wex Photo Video Tel 01603 486413 • www.wexphotovideo.com ADVANCED Add a new dimension to star trail timelapses with the Syrp Genie One. The device helps with motion control, allowing you to slowly pan a camera to create a more dynamic end result. It connects to your laptop or phone via Bluetooth, Wi-Fi or USB-C and is controlled via an app. 2 Sky-Watcher 355mm Losmandy-style dovetail bar Price £69.99 • Supplier Harrison Telescopes Tel 01322 403407 • www.harrisontelescopes.co.uk With guidescopes, control computers, dew heaters and power supplies there can be lots to add to your optical tube, but this 355mm-dovetail bar can hold even the most complicated setups. Fits 75mm slots. 3 Midnight Astral Parker fountain pen Price £65 • Supplier Cult Pens…

When to use this chart 1 Mar at 00:00 AEDT (13:00 UT) 15 Mar at 23:00 AEDT (12:00 UT) 31 Feb at 22:00 AEDT (11:00 UT) The chart accurately matches the sky on the dates and times shown for Sydney, Australia. The sky is different at other times as the stars crossing it set four minutes earlier each night. MARCH HIGHLIGHTS Mercury reaches greatest elongation west of the Sun on the 6th and is furthest from the Sun (by angular distance) in the morning – rising 30 minutes before dawn. March mornings are favourable for observing such events – or any planets in the dawn glow – from the Southern Hemisphere. This is when the ecliptic (the path of the Sun and planets) makes the steepest angle with the horizon,…