by Jonathan Nally | Feb 17, 2020 | Astronomy, News, Variable stars
Above: Before and after images of the star Betelgeuse. Astronomers suspect the changes are due to changes in convection activity on the Betelgeuse’s surface or obscuration by clouds of dust surrounding the star. ESO/M. Montargès et al. OBSERVATIONS MADE WITH THE...
by Jonathan Nally | Jan 14, 2020 | Amateur astronomy, Astronomy, Features, News
ECLIPSES, OPPOSITIONS, SPECTACULAR CONJUNCTIONS, a close encounter between Venus and the Pleiades and many more celestial sights await stargazers this year. Here’s our list of events to mark in your calendar. All of them are as seen from mid-latitudes in the Southern...
by Jonathan Nally | Jan 9, 2020 | News, Space missions
NASA’s buoyant robot roams under the sea-ice near Australia’s Casey research station. Photo: NASA/JPL/SETI Institute/Australian Antarctic Division. A PROTOTYPE OF A ROBOT designed to explore underneath the ice crust of Jupiter’s moon Europa, has been tested at...
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...
