Innehållsförteckning för May 2023 från BBC Sky at Night

Visit www.skyatnightmagazine.com/bonus-content/KZRG5FS to access this month's selection of exclusive Bonus Content MAY HIGHLIGHTS Interview: Comet Madness of 1910 Historian Richard Goodrich explores some of the public hysteria around the 1910 appearance of Halley's Comet DIY Astronomy: Build an artificial star Download extra plans and images to help with this month’s DIY project: a tool to test the quality of your scope and lenses (page 74) Access extra observing materials Download and print out forms that you can use to sketch and record your planetary observations throughout the year The Virtual Planetarium…

Ocean currents spin Europa Currents in the ocean on Jupiter’s moon Europa could be pushing its free-floating icy shell, changing its rotation rate over time, according to a new set of computer simulations. The drag between the ocean and the icy shell could also be responsible for some of the cracks and ridges seen on the moon’s surface. Leicester steps up for space Space City Leicester has become one of the largest enterprise zones for spacerelated activities in the UK. The newly expanded cluster of facilities includes the National Space Centre and will be home to research, production, manufacture and development. Brian May knighted Queen guitarist Brian May received a knighthood from King Charles for his services to music and charity on 15 March. As well as his musical success,…

Although no known asteroid poses a threat to Earth for at least the next century, the database we’ve built up of near-Earth asteroids is not yet complete for smaller bodies that could still cause devastation on a regional scale. Several methods have been proposed to protect Earth from asteroids on a collision course, including blowing them up with a nuclear weapon and using a ‘gravity tractor’, a large spacecraft whose gravity pulls the asteroid so it misses our planet. The strategy identified as the highest priority to develop and test, however, is kinetic impact. In simple terms: fly a spacecraft at high speed into the asteroid so that it is nudged onto a different trajectory. NASA’s DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) mission was developed to demonstratejust this approach. Launched in…

On the 18 May 1977 episode, Patrick Moore was joined by solar scientist Ron Maddison to discuss the ongoing solar cycle. Our Sun goes through a cycle of increasing and decreasing solar activity spanning roughly 11 years, and at the time of the episode Solar Cycle 21 was just getting under way. Solar cycles are normally tracked via the number of sunspots visible on the surface, and in 1977 they were being slow to rise. Given that the previous cycle had experienced extremely low activity, it was thought the same might happen again. However, shortly after the episode aired, sunspot numbers began to rise and the cycle had its most active month in November 1979 - just two years after it began. The number of sunspots has been measured regularly…

At 22:59 EST on 17 February 2023, i was fortunate enough to be at Cape Canaveral to witness the launch of the Inmarsat I-6 F2 communications satellite. I’d won a competition run by Inmarsat for the Scouts and my entry was selected by British astronaut Tim Peake! My entry was all about how space can help reduce global warming on planet Earth. Being a Scout has really helped me to appreciate the environment we live in and what’s beyond it, through developing my skills with activities like the Astronautics activity badge and the Community Impact badge. This was the trip of my dreams because it’s the area I am most passionate about. Space and the developments within it have had a big impact on me, inspiring me to pursue a…

You could fit at least 1,420 Suns across the face of VY Canis Majoris, making its total diameter close to two billion kilometres. Some estimates put it at over 2,000 Suns across, or almost three billion kilometres wide. Earth orbits a mere 150 million kilometres from the Sun, meaning VY Canis Majoris is at least 13 times wider than the Earth-Sun distance. It would take almost three billion Suns to fill up the star. Even Mercury, the smallest planet, can only fit inside the Sun 21 million times. A supergiant star like Betelgeuse would fit inside this hypergiant eight times over. Despite travelling at around 300,000 kilometres per second, it would take a beam of light six hours to travel around the circumference of VY Canis Majoris. That's about the…

The cosmic microwave background was discovered in 1964 and studied in incredible detail by the European Planck mission. It turns out not to be completely homogeneous: there are minute temperature variations in the GMB we see today, created by small density fluctuations when the Universe was around 380,000 years old. Over the course of its 13.8-billion-year history, these density fluctuations have given rise to the rather clumpy large-scale structure of the present Universe, with galaxies, clusters, and superclusters. This growth process was governed by the global properties of the cosmos, such as the abundance of ‘normal' and dark matter, the expansion rate and the amount of dark energy. By meticulously comparing the Planck data with observations of today’s Universe, scientists have been able to quantify these cosmological parameters to a…

Mercury Not visible Mercury is at inferior conjunction on 1 May. Subsequently moving into the morning sky, it’s not wellplaced, rising shortly before sunrise most of the month. By the end of May, Mercury shines at mag. +0.5, only rising 40 minutes before the Sun. Mars 1Mayfrom23:00 BST (22:00 UT) 26 Gemini West Mars is a mag. +1.3 evening planet in Gemini on 1 May and through the month it loses altitude as darkness falls. On the evening of 23 May, mag. +1.5 Mars lies 14.5° west of mag. -4.1 Venus. A beautiful 17%-lit waxing crescent Moon sits between both planets. On the following evening, the 25%-lit waxing crescent Moon sits 3.2° above Mars. Both will be near the Beehive Cluster, M44, at this time, but late…

The large, sparse constellation of Ophiuchus, the Serpent Bearer plays host to this month’s featured asteroid, 11 Parthenope. Shining at mag. +10.4 at the start of May, Parthenope will brighten slightly through the month to peak around mag. +9.5 in early June. Opposition next occurs on 6 June when the asteroid will be below the main body of the serpent bearer, slightly south of a point roughly one-quarter the way along an imaginary line between Sabik (Eta (η) Ophiuchi) and Phi (φ) Ophiuchi. During May, Parthenope’s track starts further to the east, approximately 1.3° north of the mag. +8.4 globular cluster, NGC 6356. It then travels west, in the gentlest of north-arcing curves to pass 0.8° south of Sabik between 24 and 26 May. At this time it will be…

There’s no denying that the occultation or close pass (depending on your location) event with the Moon and Jupiter on 17 May will be hard to observe as it takes place during daylight hours. However, given clear skies, Jupiter can definitely be seen in a blue sky, either using binoculars or through a telescope. Your challenge this month is to go one further and try to photograph the planet. A daylight sky will greatly reduce contrast in the visible spectrum, but as long as you can locate Jupiter, switching to an infrared pass filter combined with an infrared-sensitive camera should make it possible to improve the view. If you don’t have such equipment, don’t worry. It’s still possible to get an unfiltered shot of the planet using a DSLR, but…

There are several Dark Sky Discovery Sites throughout the two parks which offer not only a place to get away from light pollution, but also good sightlines and public access. For an excellent photo opportunity, several spots have wonderful foregrounds to offset your skyscapes. The coast along the North York Moors has clear views of the northern horizon and occasionally the Northern Lights. Byland and Rievaulx Abbey offer beautiful foregrounds, while the fish pond outside Newburgh Priory is a great location for reflections shots. The Dales, meanwhile, are home to Ribblehead Viaduct, an iconic 24-arch Victorian structure that can be photographed with the Milky Way behind it. For the darkest skies, however, aim for the core zone in the heart of each park. Finally, just outside the parks are more…

Skylab's demise was a global media event. With NASA budget pressures leaving the redundant station lacking the control and navigation mechanisms to return it safely to Earth, the world celebrated but also feared its end. On 6 March 1978, NASA ground controllers made contact with the empty station and on 24 April sent reactivation commands to reorient it, extending its lifetime and giving a predicted uncontrolled reentry of mid-1979. Having placed it in a high-drag solar-inertial attitude in January 1979, on 20 June it was manoeuvred into ‘torque equilibrium', giving NASA the option of delaying or advancing its precise orbit for reentry. At 07:45 UTC on 11 July, a tumble command was sent to Skylab from the Madrid tracking station in Spain, shifting the point of reentry away from Canada…

This month’s project is an artificial star - a bright, pinpoint source of light, resembling a real star in the night sky - that can be used to test the alignment and quality of your telescopes and camera lenses. Real stars work perfectly for this sort of testing, but with an artificial star you can test your equipment whenever you like, including the daytime, saving the best nights for observing! Our ‘star’ is produced by shining an LED torch through aluminium foil with a tiny pinhole in it. The illuminated pinhole is reflected in a shiny ball bearing, which improves the star effect and means that the artificial star and telescope don’t need to be perfectly aligned. All the components are protected inside a robust box lined with black felt…

More ONLINE A gallery containing these and more of your images The Rosette Nebula and the Cone Nebula Tim Barry, Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, 6,7,13 and 26 February 2023 PHOTO OF THE MONTH Tim says: "I've been looking for a good target to try out US astrophotographer Chad Leader's 'HoSS' palette for a while, and the area around the Rosette Nebula and the Cone Nebula has proved to be a good candidate. I like the moody, smoky look that it brings to the image, with the teal highlights in the sulphur areas. The image was shot over several nights from a Bortle 5 location just outside Milton Keynes." Equipment: ZWO ASI2600MC Pro camera, Samyang 135mm lens, Sky-Watcher HEQ5 Pro mount Exposure: SII and OIII 115× 5', Ha and OIII 55×5' Software:…

VITAL STATS As the name suggests, the Sky-Watcher Evolux 82ED is an 82mm-aperture refractor that builds on the legacy left by Sky-Watcher’s Evostar range, popular with beginner and intermediate astronomers. However, at 2.9kg and a mere 425mm long when the dew shield is retracted, the Evolux is designed as a more compact and lightweight addition to Sky-Watcher’s lineup. The Evolux 82ED arrived in a single box, revealing a solid and well-padded aluminium carry case. We were surprised at how compact this was for an OTA (optical tube assembly) of this aperture and focal length. We immediately appreciated the lightweight build and noted the extra-long dew shield, which gives extra protection from the elements when fully extended. A single clamshell-style…

JAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE, 14 MARCH 2023 Nothing can last forever, and as some massive stars reach their final moments, they live briefly as Wolf-Rayet stars. This one, Wolf-Rayet 124, or WR124, is found in the constellation Sagitta, some 15,000 lightyears away. WR124 is 30 times the mass of our Sun, and its surrounding nebula, M1-67, is 10 lightyears across. But the star is losing material rapidly, pushing out elements like helium, nitrogen and carbon as cosmic dust - elements that were key to the formation of stars and planets in the early Universe, and which may precipitate new bouts of star formation in the future. This dust is best observed in infrared, and Webb’s powerful instruments pick out the clouds ringing WR 124 with stunning clarity. So far, scientists…

The largest 2D map of the sky ever produced has grown even larger, after the 10th data release of the DESI Legacy Imaging Survey expanded its view to more than 20,000 square degrees, almost half the sky, and introduced additional wavelength coverage. The survey mapped the location of over one billion galaxies, with the hope of better understanding dark energy and dark matter. The new release - which is available to anyone who wants access - includes infrared information to calculate the redshift of distant galaxies. The additions make the map useful to a much wider range of astronomers. "It is this ease of access which has made this survey so impactful," says Arjun Dey at NOIRLab, the organisation that operates several of the telescopes involved with the survey. "We…

Extra-terrestrial life could find a haven in an unexpected place - the narrow band between day and night on planets where one side is tidally locked facing their star. "This is a planet where the dayside can be scorching hot, well beyond habitability, and the night side is going to be freezing, potentially covered in ice. You could have large glaciers on the night side," says Ana Lobo from the University of California, Irvine. Such worlds have been found around many M-dwarf stars, which make up 70 per cent of the stars in the night sky. To see if these common worlds could be habitable, Lobo used computer simulations to reveal that the light-dark boundary region (ironically known as the Terminator Zone) can have temperatures in the ‘sweet spot’ where…

Much of the excitement about early JWST observations has come from finding the most distant galaxies, which we see as they werejust a few hundred million years after the Big Bang. What’s now becoming clear is that there are remarkable systems all over the early Universe, and none more so than galaxy JADES-GS-z7-LA, the subject of this month’s paper. In images, the galaxy is not much more than a faint splodge a few pixels across, but JWST spectra of this faint source tell us that it’s a galaxy at a redshift of 7.3. That means that we’re seeing a system just 729 million years after the Big Bang. What’s even more impressive is that, through careful analysis of that spectrum, we can say something about what this thing was actually…

Will an asteroid destroy Earth? How real is the threat of an asteroid impact on Earth? In this episode, Maggie learns how near-Earth asteroids are monitored, while Chris discovers more about the recent DART mission that smashed into an asteroid to change its orbit. Plus, news about the Winchcombe meteorite that suggests asteroids might bring life, as well as destruction, to Earth. Four, 10 May, 10pm (first repeat will be on Four, 18 May, 7pm) Check www.bbc.co.uk/skyatnight for more up-to-date information…

Little Astronomers morning Armagh Planetarium, 26 May, 10am In this under-5s dome show, budding astronomers conjoin astronaut George as he explores the Solar System, then head to the sensory room for toddler activities and exhibits. Children £5, accompanying adults free. armagh.space/planetarium/whats-on Libby Jackson talk Montpelier, Bristol, and online, 12 May, 7pm In this talk for Bristol Astronomical Society, Libby Jackson, head of space exploration for the UK Space Agency, discusses the UK’s plans for going to the Moon. £3 for non-members. bristolastrosoc.org.uk/all-events Stonehenge and Astronomy Shurdington, Cheltenham, 13 May, 7:30pm Stonehenge tour guide Simon Banton gives a talk for Cotswold Astronomical Society about the site’s astronomical associations, followed by refreshments and a discussion on observing the night sky in May. £2 for non-members. cotswoldas.org.uk/our-events The Summer Sky Swinton Bottom Club,…

As the lighter nights begin to swing around in May, one thing I like to do is fire up Stellarium and plan out all the things I want to photograph when proper darkness returns in the late summer. Almost always, the target that occupies me the most, no matter how many times I’ve imaged it, is the Milky Way. Widefield, nightscape or long-focal-length close-up - it doesn’t matter what format we’re talking about, there’s always something our Galaxy can offer. It’s important to think ahead when it comes to Milky Way imaging. The view changes from month to month, week to week and even hour to hour throughout the night. And the best time to photograph our Galaxy from the UK, in my opinion, is the first weeks of August.…

Noctilucent clouds (NLCs) are high-altitude ice-sheet clouds that form in the mesosphere at a height of around 82km. For the Northern Hemisphere, NLC season runs from late May through to early August and spotting their elusive displays is a popular pastime, helping to counter the frustration of the shorter nights. NLCs are seeded by fragmentary dust from meteor trails. Tiny ice crystals form around these particles when the mesosphere cools. Mesospheric cooling, rather counter-intuitively, occurs in each hemisphere’s summer period. If present, NLCs are typically seen 90-120 minutes after sunset, low above the northwest horizon, and a similar time before sunrise low above the northeast horizon. At such times, it’s dark or at least deep-twilight dark for us on the ground, but the clouds appear to shine. The light is…

Diadem (Alpha (α) Comae Berenices) is the principal star of Coma Berenices, Queen Berenice’s Hair. The hair in question belonged to Queen Berenice II of Egypt, who pledged it to the gods in exchange for the safe return of her husband, King Ptolemy III Euergetes. The star is located in the southeast corner of the constellation, 15° to the west of the bright, orange giant, Arcturus (Alpha (α) Bootis). At mag. +4.3, Diadem is the second-brightest star in Coma Berenices after Beta (β), located 10.4° to the north. Coma Berenices is characterised by the large, triangular-shaped open cluster, Melotte 111, which is located further to the west. It’s the faint cluster stars that represent the queen’s hair. Diadem and Beta Comae Berenices are not part of the cluster. Diadem is…

The Grand Hotel, York This luxury hotel in York hosts Dark Skies Experience packages in autumn and winter, including dinner, a two-hour stargazing session and a one-night stay with breakfast. £405 for two/£315 for one. www.thegrandyork.co.uk• 01904 380038 • yourstay@thegrandyork.co.uk West Cawthorne cabins, Pickering Stylish self-catering A-frame cabins with decks high on a hill within a re-wilded landscape in the North York Moors National Park, with binoculars provided. There’s a two-niqht minimum stay (£320). www.northyorkshirehideaways.com• info@westcawthorne.com Easterside Farm B&B, Hawnby Just outside the village of Hawn by in the North York Moors National Park, this is a 15-minute drive from the Star Hub at Sutton Bank and an ideal base for your stargazing trip. £110 per night. www.eastersidefarm.co.uk • 01439 798277 • info@eastersidefarm.co.uk Old Dairy B&B, Richmond This B&B is…

It’s a common line to hear: "Five hundred years ago, they thought that Earth was flat!" But it’s also completely untrue. Astronomers have been able to prove our planet is a globe for well over 2,000 years, using methods you can recreate at home. The first known reference to a round Earth is in ancient Indian religious texts. The Rigveda, first composed between 1500 and 1000 BCE, includes the verse "In the midst of the Universe, the spherical Earth stays”. Unfortunately, though there is much evidence of ancient India’s extremely advanced knowledge of astronomy, there is little surviving record of their methods. For that, we must turn to the Greek ‘natural philosophers’. The first written evidence that Earth was a globe comes from Empedocles and Anaxagoras in around 430 BCE,…

Mars is an iconic object in the night sky. Its brightness waxes and wanes over a 2.1-year period, appearing at its most brilliant around opposition. That was on 8 December 2022 and it now shows only a hint of its former glory. Its colour is a different matter, the planet retaining the beautiful orange-pink hue that makes it stand out so well. Mars starts May at mag. +1.3, dimming only slightly by month end to mag. +1.6, still an easy naked-eye object. At that point it starts to battle with the evening twilight, but before it becomes totally engulfed it has one last show up its sleeve. At the end of May it will be just west of the beautiful binocular open cluster M44, the Beehive Cluster. This is located…

1 Baader 2-inch Cool-Ceramic safety Herschel prism Mark 11 Price £495 • Supplier The Widescreen Centre • www.widescreen-centre.co.uk ADVANCED Observe the Sun safely in white light using this Herschel prism with its 2-inch barrel and eyepiece holder. It has an integrated rotation mechanism to use with polarising filters to adjust your view’s brightness. 2 Altair Sabre mount v3.0 Price £385 • Supplier Altair Astro • www.altairastro.com This altaz mount lets you to attach two telescopes side by side. Designed to be easy to use with practically no set-up time or need for alignment, this new version has easier-to-grip machined knobs. 3 Scruffs LED beanie hat Price £13.95 • Supplier Scruffs • www.scruffs.com Keep warm through the night without having to worry about finding your torch as this beanie hat has…

The latest astronomy and space news, written by Ezzy Pearson BULLETIN NASA is on track to put the first woman on the Moon within the next few years, after a review of the initial Artemis I mission found no major issues. The uncrewed Artemis I launched on 16 November and, after several scrubbed launch attempts, proved extremely successful. NASA carefully examined the Orion crew capsule and discovered one of the few problems: the capsule’s heat shield had not ablated as predicted, although there was still margin for error. NASA is confident it can remedy several other minor snags and stay on track to launch the first crewed test, Artemis II, in November 2024. At the end of March, the five core stages of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket were…

Anew paper from a group of astronomers and engineers has suggested creating Radio Dynamic Zones, where organisations could test out their radio transmitting equipment to see how it might affect astronomical observations. While there are protections around radio telescope facilities to create ‘radio quiet zones’, these do not extend to orbit, and the advent of megaconstellations - networks of thousands of satellites providing global telecommunications and internet connectivity - has vastly increased the number of satellites being launched. SpaceX’s broadband internet network, Starlink, already has thousands of satellites in orbit, and in March UK-based OneWeb launched the final batch of its 618-satellite network. Amazon has also announced it will move ahead with its own Project Kuiper broadband network of 3,200 satellites, starting the launch phase in early 2024. These networks,…

A pair of galaxies from the early Universe are far more evolved than their age would suggest, according to new images from James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). The primary galaxy, SPT0418-SE, is so distant we are seeing it as it was just 1.4 billion years after the Big Bang. Its light has been gravitationally lensed (bent by a foreground object), making it appear as a near-perfect ring called an Einstein ring. While observing the galaxy with the JWST, a team of astronomers discovered that it has a companion galaxy located just 16,000 lightyears away. Spectral data revealed that both galaxies are rich in ‘metals’. In an astronomical context this means anything heavier than helium - elements that are only formed inside stars and then seeded into space when the star…

The search for life beyond Earth is entering an exciting period. Traditionally, we’ve investigated our planetary neighbour Mars with landers and rovers that examine the landscape using their onboard instruments. This ‘in-situ’ approach essentially delivers a restricted collection of instrumentation to a place where it has access to a large amount of sample material. Now, though, the search for life on Mars is entering a time of sample return. This inverts the traditional in-situ approach, by taking a restricted amount of sample - in the case of Mars Sample Return, about half a kilogram - and bringing it to Earth where it can be analysed by an entire world’s worth of highly specified laboratories. Moreover, laboratory methods are constantly improving; the samples are expected to arrive in the next decade,…

You feel the vibrations as the rocket lifts off from the launch pad. This cramped spaceship is your home for two years as you journey all the way out to Jupiter, the Solar System's largest planet. It's so far away that when you get there the Sun's light is a mere 1/25th as bright as on Earth. And yet, if you were to make a journey of the same distance in some planetary systems, you'd still be inside the star. These celestial beasts - known as hypergiant stars - are colossal. The biggest can fit 10 billion Suns inside, or 14 quadrillion Earths. Such monsters are rare, but they play a crucial role in seeding the Universe with the rich array of chemistry required to sustain life. Their scarcity means…

This month, we’ll take a closer look at the cosmic microwave background. Sometimes called ‘the afterglow of creation’, this extremely faint microwave glow is considered one of the most convincing pieces of evidence for the Big Bang theory. But how is it that we are still observing this ancient light? As we’ve seen in earlier parts of this series, space is expanding. Since the amount of matter in the Universe remains fairly constant, the increasing volume means that the average density of cosmic matter is decreasing over time. That means the density of the Universe must have been much higher in the distant past. Right after the Big Bang, before there were any galaxies, stars or planets, elementary particles were packed almost shoulder to shoulder, and the corresponding temperature was…

PICK OF THE MONTH Venus 1Mayfrom1 hour after sunset 24 Taurus West-northwest Phasesubtlesurfacemarkings 75mmorlarger Venus is a spectacular evening planet throughout May, despite its brilliance being constantly challenged by the bright, expanding spring evening twilight. On 1 May, shining at mag. -4.0, Venus sets 4 hours and 15 minutes after the Sun, giving you approximately 2 hours to view it against a dark sky as it approaches the northwest horizon. On 9 May, now shining one-tenth of a magnitude brighter at -4.1, Venus sits 1.8° to the north of the mag. +5.1 open cluster M35 in Gemini. You’ll need a flat northwest horizon to see this encounter at its best though, as the pair are low when true darkness falls, about 8.5° as seen from…

1.M53 A degree northeast of mag. +4.3 Diadem (Alpha (α) Comae Berenices), you’ll find a small misty patch which appears to grow in size and brightness if you centre it in the field of view then avert your gaze back to Diadem. The apparent changes, which are typical of globular clusters, demonstrate the difference between direct and averted vision. Practice this technique; you’ll need it later when we seek out the galaxies in Markarian’s Chain. SEEN IT 2. FS Comae Navigate to a point half-way between Diadem and mag. +4.2 Beta (β) Comae Berenices, then another degree to the west to an orange star, FS Comae, shining somewhere around mag. +6. The magnitude of this semi-regular variable star varies between mag. +6.1 and + 5.3, with a period of 55-58…

Tonight there's mist on the way to the moors. It creeps through the valley and blots out everything but Venus. But as the minibus climbs up the Sutton Bank escarpment, it begins to clear. By the time we arrive at the North York Moors International Dark Sky Reserve, we're high above the valley mist among heather moorland, low shrubs and stumpy trees. Above us is a big sky with only thin wisps of cloud between the bright stars. The open clusters within Auriga are naked-eye bright and so are the faint suns of Gemini, Taurus and Ursa Minor, all now so elusive from our towns and cities. "Does anyone know, what is the furthest thing it's possible to see with the naked eye?" says astronomer Richard Darn, our host for…

The ancient Greeks believed that circles and spheres were the perfect shapes, a belief which carried over into Old World science. It wasn't challenged until the Enlightenment era, leading to two new theories about our planet’s shape. French philosopher Rene Descartes's theories about vortices in the ether suggested Earth was shaped like an upright egg, stretched towards the poles. Meanwhile, Isaac Newton’s theory of gravity suggested Earth's spin would make the equator bulge out, while flattening the poles. Knowing which was true would greatly increase the precision of naval navigation, so the French and Spanish governments sponsored two expeditions to solve the issue. One would head to Lapland near the Arctic circle, the other to the equator, to measure the length of one degree of latitude. If Lapland was longer,…

A backyard astrophotographer will often strive for worldclass results. Perhaps it is in our nature. But rising to this challenge requires continued improvement in post-processing techniques and also careful consideration of attainable goals for each project. In years past, I was honoured to be recognised and awarded in the annual APY exhibition. It happened again in 2022 as my image, ‘Edge-On’, was shortlisted in the ‘Galaxies’ category. It’s interesting to revisit it and consider what makes this particular image stand out above thousands of other submissions. The target is NGC 891, a beautiful spiral galaxy 30 million lightyears distant. Our vantage point lies along the plane of its galactic disc. We are treated with a spectacular edge-on view: a diffuse stellar halo crossed with a complex, backlit dark dust lane.…

VITAL STATS With a name straight out of Greek mythology, where Nyx is the goddess of the night, the new NYX-101 is a harmonic drive mount from Greece-based Pegasus Astro. We received the NYX-101 mount and matching Pegasus carbon-fibre tripod as a package and right away we were really impressed by the lightweight nature of both items and the quality of materials used, along with the attention to detail in the machining of the various components, even down to the locking power lead connector and easy-toadiust alianment handles. Both the mount head and tripod come with a protective carry bag, making them highly portable, with a combined weight of just 8.5kg. A huge benefit of harmonic drive mounts is…

What is dark matter and why is it called ‘dark’? We have evidence suggesting that there should be a certain amount of mass in the Universe, but this mass cannot be observed directly. Even in early works from the 1920s, astronomers knew that in order to explain how fast some galaxies move there needed to be more mass than we could account for. An astronomer called Fritz Zwicky came up with the name dark matter’, but essentially the name only reflects that we don’t really know what it is. What do we think dark matter might be made of? Most of the community - not all - believes that dark matter is made of particles that don’t interact with electromagnetic radiation, instead only interacting with normal matter through gravity. Essentially,…