by Jonathan Nally | Dec 22, 2019 | Amateur astronomy, Astronomy, News
Above: Observers in Darwin will see around 43% of the Sun’s diameter covered up by the Moon. Image courtesy Joshua Tree National Park. Amateur astronomers in the northern of Australia will witness a partial solar eclipse on December 26. The event will actually be an...
by Jonathan Nally | Dec 20, 2019 | News, Planets, Space missions
Above: The aeroshell and heat shield for the Mars 2020 mission. Image courtesy Lockheed Martin. The contraption in the foreground of this image looks a bit like the Jupiter 2 spaceship from the TV series Lost in Space, but it is in fact part of the aeroshell for the...
by Jonathan Nally | Dec 18, 2019 | Astronomy, Cosmology, Deep sky, Galaxies, News
Above: Galaxies NGC 5394 and NGC 5395, around 160 million light-years from Earth, are caught in a slow motion interaction. Image credit: NSF’s National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory / Gemini Observatory / AURA. This image from the Gemini Observatory...
by Jonathan Nally | Dec 16, 2019 | Astronomy, Comets, News
Above: Comet 2I/Borisov with its ejected dust cloud and trail is seen in the centre of this picture, taken with the Hubble Space Telescope. The white object at left is a far-distant background galaxy, the appearance of which is slightly smeared because the telescope...
by Jonathan Nally | Dec 13, 2019 | Amateur astronomy, Astronomy, News, Variable stars
The NSW regional city Parkes, home to the CSIRO radio observatory, will host the National Australian Convention of Amateur Astronomers in 2020. The premier Australian amateur astronomy conference, the National Australian Convention of Amateur Astronomers (or NACAA;...