Australian Sky & Telescope - February 2019 PDF

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February | March 2019 ISSUE 115, VOL. 15 NO. 2
Contents
REGULARS
Spotting spacetime
5 Spectrum P.12
ripples passing through
6 News notes
11 Discoveries
25 AS&T bookshop
FEATURES
12 Pulsar timing arrays
Astronomers are monitoring dozens
of ‘cosmic timepieces’ for telltale
signs of spacetime ripples passing
through.
By Robert Naeye
18 Meet the neighbours

Astronomers are compiling a census
of the nearest stars to discover what
we do and don’t know about our
stellar neighbours.
By Keith Cooper
26 Space missions in 2019

OBSERVING & EXPLORING
We present a full rundown of all the
major space missions active or about 42 Binocular highlight
to be launched in 2019. The space between star clusters
By Mathew Wedel
28 What came before the Big Tips for seeing the
Bang? P.56
44 Under the stars Horsehead Nebula
Cosmologists are tackling a once out- Meet Canopus, second brightest star
of-the-question idea using out-of- By Fred Schaaf
the-box thinking.
46 Sun, Moon and planets 50 Celestial calendar
By Faye Flam
Venus, Saturn meet in the morning RS Puppis — echoes from a strange star
36 The world’s first female By Jonathan Nally By S.N. Johnson-Roehr
professional astronomer
47 Meteors 51 Targets
Who was the first woman paid to
Catch the Alpha Centaurids show Hop into Lepus, the bunny constellation
study the stars? Was it the famous
By Con Stoitsis By Sue French
Caroline Herschel or the obscure
Christine Kirch? 48 Comets 54 Exploring the Solar System
By Gabriella Bernardi The mysteries of the sungrazers Looking back at Mars and its dust storm
By David Seargent By Sean Walker
40 Space agency finds a home
Australia’s new space agency will be 49 Variable stars 56 Going deep
based in Adelaide. The ‘dog star’ and the dwarf We show you how to see the Horsehead
By Jonathan Nally By Alan Plummer By Howard Banich
4 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE February | March 2019

by Jonathan Nally SPECTRUM
The days of DIY

astronomy
IF THERE’S ANYONE WHO KNOWS a thing or two about amateur
P.70 telescope making, it would have to be Mel Bartels. Famous for his
innovations over the years, Mel just keeps them coming with his new
62.5-cm
scope with a design for a mount that eliminates the annoying ‘Dob’s hole’ effect (as
breakthrough you can see in Jerry Oltion’s Astro Workbench column in this issue, page
design 70). This, combined with a clever new style of Crayford focuser (from
Pierre Lemay) has produced a superb new large-aperture, fairly compact
instrument for serious deep sky work.
THE ASTRONOMY SCENE Seeing Mel’s new scope and all the other marvellous and ingenious
gadgets that Jerry features in his column, got me wondering about how
60 Image processing
We show you a novel technique to
much amateur telescope making still goes on out there. ATMing used
bring out emission nebulosity in your to be the main way in which amateurs acquired their scopes — it wasn’t
astrophotos. until the 1970s that high-quality, mass-produced scopes began becoming
By Timothy Jensen available. And many would argue that in this day and age, why would you
64 Test report bother going to the trouble of building your own when off-the-shelf gear is
Sky-Watcher’s AZ-GTi mount and so affordable and technologically advanced? That’s a fair point, but others
Evostar 72 refractor make for a would argue that there’s nothing quite like putting your knowledge, skills
dynamic duo. and tenacity to the test by undertaking your own project.
By Richard S. Wright, Jr
What do you think? Are you in favour of building your own kit, or are
70 Astronomer’s workbench the glory days of DIY gone forever? Jonathan Nally, Editor
Mel Bartels has done it again, with a
editor@skyandtelescope.com.au
design for a mega amateur scope.
By Jerry Oltion
74 NightLife and Astro Calendar

Events, activities and what’s
THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO ASTRONOMY
happening in the astronomy world
Australian Sky & Telescope is on Facebook. Complementing our website,
75 In profile Facebook helps keep you alerted to astronomy news and information about
A new section of the magazine where Australian Sky & Telescope.
we interview leading amateurs.

EDITORIAL Printed by Webstar
76 Gallery EDITOR Jonathan Nally Australia distribution by Network
Services. New Zealand distribution by
ART DIRECTOR Lee McLachlan
Latest images from our readers CONTRIBUTING EDITORS SKY & TELESCOPE Gordon & Gotch. © 2018-19 F+W
John Drummond, David Ellyard, INTERNATIONAL Media, Inc. and Paragon Media.
Alan Plummer, David Seargent, No part of this publication may be
80 Marketplace Con Stoitsis
EDITOR IN CHIEF Peter Tyson
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SENIOR EDITORS
EMAIL info@skyandtelescope.com.au Alan M. MacRobert, J. Kelly Beatty into a machine-readable form or
81 Index to advertisers EQUIPMENT EDITOR Sean Walker language without the written consent
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ADVERTISING MANAGER Jonathan Nally
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A simple mistake led to an alarming Susan N. Johnson-Roehr Inc. as the Australian edition of Sky &
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ON THE COVER TEL 02 9439 1955 FAX 02 9439 1977 ILLUSTRATOR Leah Tiscione
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NEWS NOTES
The BepiColombo
mission to Mercury
Mission to launches from Europe’s
spaceport in Kourou,
Mercury on its way French Guiana.
THE BEPICOLOMBO SPACECRAFT new. How can the terrestrial planet measurements of the surface. From
launched late last year from French with the biggest iron core have so little its nearly circular orbit, MPO will get
Guiana on an Ariane 5 rocket, iron in its crust? How can its crust have much closer to Mercury’s southern
beginning a seven-year journey to so much sulfur when it’s so close to the hemisphere and obtain much sharper
Mercury. The voyage began perfectly, Sun? Why is its magnetic field shifted images than Messenger could. The
atop towering pillars of flame that lit north of the planet’s centre? orbiter will try to understand the
up the early morning sky and remained The mission comprises two science composition of Mercury’s crust, the
visible until the side boosters burned spacecraft (plus a third craft that nature of its volcanic activity, and
out 2 minutes later, leaving the provides ion propulsion for most of the timing of the planet’s apparent
steady light of the main rocket stage the journey). The Mercury Planetary shrinking. Scientists are particularly
visible as a greenish point in the sky. Orbiter (MPO), built by ESA, will interested in seeing Mercury’s south
BepiColombo’s journey will return it to operate in a nearly circular orbit pole up close for the first time, to
Earth, past Venus twice, and take it by close to the planet. The Mercury confirm whether it has reservoirs of ices
Mercury six times before finally settling Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO), built and organic-rich materials, as the north
in to orbit on December 5, 2025. by JAXA, will fly in an elliptical orbit far pole does.
Getting to Mercury is difficult — so from the planet. BepiColombo has a long way to
difficult that fewer spacecraft have Both probes carry magnetometers go, but it has accomplished the most
visited Mercury than have visited Saturn. to study how Mercury’s magnetic field dangerous part of its mission — the
NASA has previously sent two spacecraft: responds to buffeting from the Sun. launch. Orbit insertion in December
Mariner 10, which flew by three times Both carry instruments to study the 2025 should be a piece of cake by
in 1974 and 1975, and Messenger, which planet’s exosphere, the neutral atoms comparison. By the time the spacecraft
orbited the planet from 2011 to 2015. and ions knocked off Mercury’s surface completes its sixth flyby of Mercury in
BepiColombo, a combined effort of by incoming radiation. MMO also January of that year, it will be traveling
the European Space Agency (ESA) and has a dust counter, something NASA’s slowly enough to be captured naturally,
S. CORVA JA / ESA
the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency Messenger didn’t have. by Mercury’s own gravity, the seventh
(JAXA), will bring flagship-class science MPO has cameras and spectrometers time the planet and spacecraft meet.
to Mercury to answer questions old and to take photos and compositional ■ EMILY LAKDAWALLA

Low-key blast marks possible
birth of neutron star duo
LAST YEAR, A TSUNAMI of gravitational estimate that SN iPTF14gqr released
waves washed over Earth, heralding the only one-fifth of the mass of the Sun
ancient collision of two neutron stars in — most supernovae expel several Suns’
a far-off galaxy. Such collisions appear worth of gas. What’s more, the team S The moments before (left), during (middle),
and after (right) Supernova iPTF14gqr appeared
to be the birthplace of many of the deduced that the star was about 1.5
in the outskirts of a spiral galaxy.
heaviest elements such as gold, platinum times as massive as the Sun shortly
and uranium. Now an unusual, rapidly before the explosion. But for a star to go the time the second star exploded — and
brightening supernova might help boom, its original mass needs to be at became known as SN iPTF14gqr — there
researchers understand just how such least eight times as massive as the Sun. wasn’t much gas left. The explosion
neutron star duos arise in the first place. Something must have stripped the star would also have produced a neutron star,
The supernova, designated iPTF14gqr, of most of its mass before it died. The leaving two neutron stars in a tight orbit.
went off in the outskirts of a galaxy some most likely candidate, the team argues “This is the first example of a
900 million light-years away. Detected in the October 12 issue of the journal supernova that produced a compact binary
in October 2014, this supernova seemed Science, is a companion neutron star. system that is tight enough to eventually
odd right away. Most supernovae take a Here’s how the team thinks the merge and produce gravitational waves,”
few weeks to hit their peak brightness. story played out: Two massive stars De says. Unfortunately, at nearly 1 billion
This one did so in less than 7 days, once orbited each other. One of them light-years away, the high-energy light
suggesting it had only a relative paucity exploded, leaving its core behind as a from any putative neutron stars is much
of debris to clear out of the way. neutron star. This neutron star then too faint to detect.
Kishalay De (Caltech) and colleagues stripped its mate of most of its gas. By ■ CHRISTOPHER CROCKETT
Evidence mounts for mighty Magellanic collision In 2012, researchers offered an

answer. The Magellanic Clouds must
THE PAST DECADE HAS seen have had a close encounter with each
astronomers’ understanding of the other in the recent past — perhaps even
Magellanic Clouds — two dwarf galaxies a direct collision — to pull the bridge’s
near the Milky Way — completely stars and gas away so strongly.
overthrown, resulting in new revelations In the November 1 issue of
SUPER NOVA: SDSS / CA LTECH / K ECK; M AG ELL A NIC CLOUD: DAVIDE DE M A RTIN (ESA / HUBBLE ) / DSS2
about the violent and ongoing formation Astrophysical Journal Letters, Oey and
of our own galaxy. Now, a team led her collaborators present support
by Sally Oey (University of Michigan) for this hypothesis based on stellar
has made a discovery that bears out position and velocity data from the
predictions that these two galaxies Gaia satellite. They discovered that
once collided: A big chunk of the Small many of the stars in the eastward
Magellanic Cloud (SMC) is moving 'wing' of the SMC are moving in
toward the Large Magellanic Cloud concert, a result that can only be
(LMC) and the Magellanic Bridge of gas explained by the LMC’s gravitational
and stars that joins them. force acting on the galaxy globally.
Astronomical wisdom once held that With further study, astronomers
the LMC and SMC had been orbiting might be able to use the observed bulk
the Milky Way for billions of years, but a motion to understand the direct collision
landmark study in 2007 showed that the in even more detail: how long ago it
dwarf galaxies are likely falling toward occurred, at what speed, and at what
the Milky Way for the first time. That angle. The better astronomers understand
realisation introduced a new puzzle: If the past trajectories of these galaxies,
the Magellanic Bridge wasn’t stripped the more precisely they can predict their
S This picture of the Small Magellanic Cloud from the LMC and SMC by the powerful future fates, which will likely see them
is composed of two images from the Digitized gravity of the Milky Way, as previously accumulated into the Milky Way.
Sky Survey 2. suspected, how did it get there? ■ EMILY SANDFORD
www.skyandtelescope.com.au 7
NEWS NOTES
The Kepler era comes to an end Sunset for Dawn

AFTER A NINE-YEAR historic mission, in the Milky Way have small, rocky, SHORT ON FUEL, the end has come
the Kepler space telescope has Earth-sized planets that could for NASA’s Dawn spacecraft, the first
finished its job. Exhausted of fuel and maintain liquid water on their and only mission to visit the dwarf
hobbled with inoperative reaction surfaces. Kepler also showed us that planet Ceres and the asteroid Vesta. It
wheels, Kepler’s exoplanet hunting the most common sort of world is one was the first mission to orbit more than
days are over. not seen in our Solar System — super- one body beyond Earth and the Moon.
“As NASA’s first planet-hunting Earths bigger than Earth but smaller It was NASA’s first deep space mission
mission, Kepler has wildly exceeded than Neptune. Just what these worlds to use ion propulsion. And Dawn was
all our expectations and paved the are like remains to be seen. also the first spacecraft to visit a dwarf
way for our exploration and search for Kepler also revealed miniature planet, beating the New Horizons flyby
life in the Solar System and beyond,” planetary systems, such as the of Pluto by just a few months.
said Thomas Zurbuchen (NASA) in an eight planets in the Kepler-90 Launched in 2007, Dawn eventually
October 30th press release. system orbiting a Sun-like star or arrived at asteroid 4 Vesta on July 16,
Launched on March 6, 2009, Kepler the six worlds whipping around the 2011. Dawn revealed the misshapen
took up station in an Earth-trailing Kepler-42 system, both of which fit all world in dramatic detail, mapping it
heliocentric orbit. The telescope’s their worlds in a much smaller space from pole to pole while probing it from
initial mission was to stare at a patch than our system does and make our core to surface. One key finding was
of sky overlapping the constellations own look sparse in comparison. that Vesta seems to be a remnant of the
Lyra, Draco and Cygnus, looking for The exoplanet-hunting task is now rocky planetesimals from the early days
rhythmic dips in starlight that betray passed to the Transiting Exoplanet of the Solar System. But it turned out
the presence of transiting planets as Survey Satellite (TESS). Launched in that the exploration of Vesta was just a
they passed in front of their suns. early 2018, TESS will cover most of the prelude for the excitement to that was
To this end, Kepler monitored about sky during its initial two-year survey to come.
150,000 stars during its 3.5-year and is expected to add thousands Dawn fired up its ion engines and
primary mission (upping to nearly more worlds to our catalog of known departed Vesta on September 5, 2012,
half a million stars during its entire exoplanets. for a 30-month transit to Ceres,
career) and ultimately turned up Less than three decades ago, no arriving March 6, 2015. On approach
2,899 exoplanet candidates and 2,681 exoplanets were known. Kepler will to Ceres — the largest body in the
confirmed worlds — more than two- now follow Earth in its orbit around asteroid belt — Dawn spotted several
thirds of all planets known in the the Sun, a testament to the pioneering bright patches on the world’s surface.
galaxy. effort to uncover worlds beyond our These proved to be briny salt deposits
The slew of Kepler’s discoveries Solar System. of hydrated magnesium sulfate and
suggests that 20% to 50% of stars ■ DAVID DICKINSON ammonia-rich clays, remnants of water-
ice eruptions from the world’s interior.
Dawn gave us key insights into the
cryovolcanic activity erupting on the
surface of Ceres and a look at an active
dwarf planet.
The 11-year mission came to an
end when the spacecraft missed two
scheduled communications on October
31 and November 1, 2018, leading
mission scientists to conclude that the
spacecraft had finally run out of fuel.
Without steering ability, Dawn can no
longer aim its main communications
antenna back at Earth. The probe will
now remain in orbit around Ceres, in
line with planetary protection protocols
With its exoplanet-hunting mission now over,
the Kepler space telescope (illustrated) trails
guaranteeing Dawn won’t crash into the
Earth in orbit around the Sun. dwarf planet for the next few decades.
N ASA
■ DAVID DICKINSON

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NEWS NOTES
W A computer simulation illustrates the positions and motions (yellow arrows) of stars after a
MERG ER: CO MPOSITION: ESA; SIM UL ATION: KOPPELM A N, VILL A LOBOS A ND HELMI; G A L A X Y IM AG E: N ASA / ESA / HUBBLE CC BY-SA
putative merger between the Milky Way and another smaller galaxy.
3.0 IGO; UNBOUND STA RS: CO MPOSITION: ESA , STA RS POSITIONS A ND TR A JECTORIES: M A RCHE T TI E T A L. 2018, BACKG ROUND
Reporting in the November 1 range of ages.
issue of the journal Nature, Amina Taken together, these quirks set
Helmi (University of Groningen, The these stars apart from those born in the
Netherlands) and colleagues confirm Milky Way, implying that they came
that a previously noted horde of nearby from a cannibalised galaxy roughly
stars in the halo is quite unusual. 600 million times as massive as the
These stars rotate around the galactic Sun — about the same mass as the
centre in the opposite, or retrograde, Small Magellanic Cloud. Simulations
direction compared to other stars in the also confirm that a merger with such
disk. They also have different chemical a galaxy roughly 10 billion years ago
compositions to those in the disk. The could explain the stars’ properties.
strange characteristics suggest that So many are the retrograde stars
these stars aren’t indigenous to the (about 30,000), that they form a huge
Milky Way — rather, they’re probably swarm around the disk for at least
Ancient merger wreckage crumbs from when our galaxy ate a thousands of light-years around the
G A L A XIES N ASA / ESA / HUBBLE / CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

in the Milky Way galactic snack very early in its history. Sun. Helmi’s team estimates that
Helmi and colleagues took a closer roughly 80% of our galaxy’s halo could
WE LIVE IN A BIG disk galaxy, a whirligig look at the retrograde stars’ motions be from this single collision. The merger
pancake that’s enshrouded in a halo of and compositions and noted three would have also puffed up the galactic
old stars. And increasingly, astronomers characteristics. First, the stars move disk that existed at that time, creating
suspect that very early in our cosmic together as a big unit. Second, their the relatively thick disk we have today.
pancake’s history, a collision messed up heavy-element levels suggest they didn’t ■ CAMILLE M. CARLISLE
the serene stellar disk and donated the all form in a single burst but over an • For a video simulation of the merger,
detritus that makes up much of the halo. extended period. Third, the stars have a see https://is.gd/mwmerger.
Some stars may be intergalactic visitors

SOME HIGH-SPEED STARS in the in the Milky Way at all. The team will
Milky Way might actually be escapees report its results in an upcoming issue
from another galaxy. of the Monthly Notices of the Royal
Speedy stars are useful indicators of Astronomical Society.
extreme interactions with supernovae It’s impossible to say where these
and black holes, as well as for probing stars came from with any certainty.
the gravitational field of the galaxy. One possible source is one of our
Combing through data from the galactic neighbours, the Large
European Gaia satellite, which is Magellanic Cloud. If the stars came
mapping the positions and speeds from there, their existence could tell
of over a billion stars in and around us more about the presence of black
the Milky Way, Tomasso Marchetti holes or the history of supernovae in
(Leiden Observatory, The Netherlands) that tiny galaxy. Alternatively, the stars S Position and trajectories of 20 high-speed
and colleagues recently identified 20 could belong to the outer reaches of our stars are shown in this illustration. Seven stars
(red) are leaving our galaxy while the rest
stars that are moving so fast, they are own galactic halo, thrown inward by
(orange) are coming toward the Milky Way,
more than 80% likely to break the gravitational interactions with smaller possibly from another galaxy.
gravitational bonds of our galaxy. galaxies eaten by the Milky Way long
To determine where these 20 stars ago. Additional spectral data for these they are also continuing to explore
originated, the researchers used the stars could help narrow down their Gaia’s data for additional ways of
current orbits to follow their trajectories likely origins by determining their ages identifying high-velocity stars. They
backwards for up to 5 billion years. and chemical compositions. hope to apply their methods on the
Seven of the 20 stars can be traced back Marchetti and colleagues plan complete set of 150 million stars with
to the disk of our galaxy. However, the to follow up with ground-based full 3D-velocity data expected in 2020.
other 13 seem not to have originated observations in the near future, but ■ SUMMER ASH

by David Ellyard DISCOVERIES
A star goes off
The first bright supernova in 400 years both answered and posed questions.
he Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) catastrophically collapses, in a matter of was carried away by neutrinos. (As a side
T is one of the many splendid sights

of our southern sky, even though
you need a dark sky to see it best. A
minutes or less.
Kepler couldn’t even use a primitive
telescope to make his observations,
benefit, analysing these measurements
also gave us more information about
these particles. They were thought to
small galaxy lying not far from the as they were not pressed into service have no mass at all, but now we know
South Pole of the sky, it appear as a for astronomy until Galileo pioneered that if they do have any mass, it is less
faint, fuzzy patch of light to the naked them half a decade later. In contrast, than one 30,000th the mass of an
eye. The LMC is a neighbour of our own astronomers observing SN 1987A had electron. Close enough to nothing.)
galaxy, the Milky Way, and sits some a cupboard full of up-to-the-mark Almost as soon as SN 1987A was
168,000 light years from Earth. observing equipment, able to detect spotted, astronomers suspected that
If you’d been lucky enough to be radiation from the event across the the star which had collapsed was a
looking towards the LMC at the right whole range of electromagnetic radiation blue supergiant, one built on the same
moment on February 23, 1987, you from visible light to gamma rays. principles as our Sun but vastly larger
would have noticed something new — But SN 1987A’s initial flash of and more luminous; both much hotter
a sudden brightening that outshone light was not the first indication that and much younger. Its formal name was
all the other stars in the vicinity. something was going on out there. Two Sanduleak -69°202; the numbers give
You would have been seeing the first or three hours before the first light its position in the sky. Once the light of
supernova bright enough to be visible arrived at Earth, three specially equipped the supernova had faded, that suspicion
to the naked eye since the one that laboratories recorded bursts of neutrinos, was confirmed by the fact that the
appeared in 1604, commonly called uncharged particles associated with suspect star was no longer there. It had
Kepler’s Star (after the legendary the sort of nuclear reactions that go on blown itself to bits.
astronomer Johannes Kepler who inside stars. Neutrinos are very elusive, Something else was missing as
studied it intently). exceedingly reluctant to interact with well — the very small but very heavy
Supernovae are relatively rare events. any ordinary matter, such as the material neutron star that should have been
SN 1987A, as it is formally labelled, is in the detectors. So capturing any at there as a remnant of the collapsed star.
the most recent supernova spotted in all was an achievement. In this case, The Hubble Space Telescope has being
any of the dozen or so galaxies in our only 25 neutrinos from the supernova imaging that region of the sky for more
Local Group. In a typical galaxy of 200 were trapped, but given the distance to than 25 years but has found no trace,
billion stars, supernovae occur about the exploding star and the size of the nor have ground-based astronomers
twice per century, suggesting that others detectors, the findings were consistent using radio telescopes. Perhaps the
have occurred in our Milky Way since with models that suggest that 99% of the neutron star is hidden by dust, or maybe
1604 but have been obscured from our energy released in the collapse of the star it collapsed further to become a black
eyes by interstellar dust. hole. As usual, more
Supernovae happen for questions than answers.
various reasons. In cases
such SN 1987A (known ■ DAVID ELLYARD
as Type II supernovae) a presented SkyWatch on
very large star, maybe a ABC TV. He is the author
hundred times the mass of Who Discovered What
of the Sun, reaches a When, and Who Invented
point where the outward What When.
radiation pressure (from
the internal nuclear
reactions that generate W Light from supernova
its energy) is no longer 1987A reached Earth in
DAVID M A LIN /A AO
February 1987 (left). An

able to fight against the image taken before the
weight of its outer layers, explosion (right) shows the
and the star suddenly and progenitor star.
THE NEXT GRAVITATIONAL-WAVE REVOLUTION by Robert Naeye
THE US-BASED LIGO PROJECT and its European If scientists wanted to build a LIGO-like
compatriot, Virgo, will forever be hailed for opening up the
field of gravitational-wave astronomy. LIGO and Virgo are instrument to catch these low-frequency
tuned to a relatively high-frequency band of the gravitational- spacetime distortions, they would need
wave spectrum, giving them the ability to hear chirps coming
from the death spirals of neutron stars and relatively low-
to construct galaxy-size detectors.
mass black holes.
But despite their success, both instruments are deaf to the black holes approach each other. If scientists wanted to
greatest of cosmic cataclysms: the inspiral and merger of two build a LIGO-like instrument to catch these low-frequency
supermassive black holes. In this sense, gravitational-wave spacetime distortions, they would need to construct galaxy-
science right now can be likened to the era when astronomers size detectors.
could study only visible light. Fortunately, there’s a much cheaper alternative. In the
Fortunately, radio astronomers will soon be opening a late 1970s, Soviet astrophysicist Mikhail Vasilievich Sazhin
new window in the gravitational-wave spectrum, enabling and American physicist Steven Detweiler conceived the idea
scientists to catch the collisions of much larger objects. Using of timing pulsars. Pulsars are Nature’s most precise clocks,
pulsars scattered across the galaxy, teams based in the US, neutron stars that spin with near-perfect regularity, beaming
Europe and Australia have been patiently collecting data for radio pulses our way. And those that spin hundreds of times
about a decade to look for ripples from supermassive black per second, with rotation periods of 1 to 30 milliseconds,
holes. The international community is rife with optimism are the best clocks of all. Radio astronomers have discovered
that the first detections will be made in the next few years. nearly 300 such millisecond pulsars, spread across the sky at
“If the universe holds no surprises for us, we should be distances of thousands of light-years.
detecting gravitational waves relatively soon,” says radio Gravitational waves from inspiralling supermassive black
astronomer Joseph Lazio (Jet Propulsion Laboratory). hole binaries radiate outward at light speed, stretching and
squeezing spacetime over cosmological distances. As these
Employing nature’s best clocks waves ripple through our galaxy, they subtly shift Earth’s
LIGO and Virgo each detect gravitational waves by measuring position with respect to the millisecond pulsars, so that the
the minuscule difference a passing wave creates in the length pulsars appear like buoys bobbing on a turbulent sea. The
of each site’s two arms. The facilities use an infrared laser regular beats from some pulsars will arrive slightly early and
as a yardstick, bouncing it off mirrors in the arms multiple others will arrive slightly late. By timing millisecond pulsars
times. The beam-bouncing effectively makes the arms more in different directions over many years, radio astronomers
than 1,100 kilometres long, and the arm lengths and mirror should be able to detect these irregularities and which
reflectivities together determine which wavelengths can direction the waves are coming from. But the effect is so tiny
be detected: roughly 60 to 15,000 km, corresponding to that an individual pulsar’s signal might shift by only about 10
frequencies of 5 kHz to 20 Hz. This is the ‘sweet spot’ for nanoseconds over decades of observation.
catching waves from the final inspiral and mergers of low-
mass binaries, which contain objects with about one solar
mass to a few hundred solar masses.
But what about binaries consisting of black holes with
millions or even billions of solar masses? Virtually every
large galaxy has at least one monster black hole lurking in
its core, and when large galaxies coalesce, their respective
black holes should gravitationally sink to the centre of the
combined galaxy, lock onto each other, and orbit a common
centre of gravity.
At first, the holes draw closer by interacting with stars
through a process called dynamical friction, a kind of
gravitational braking. Once the black holes are about a light- In the background
year apart, their encounters with the stars that cross their Three teams have taken up this challenge. The North
paths rob them of angular momentum and help their orbit American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves
shrink further. Eventually, they’ll venture within a fraction (NANOGrav) times pulsars using three US radio telescopes;
of a light-year of each other, at which point the loss of energy the European Pulsar Timing Array (EPTA) uses five telescopes
via gravitational-wave emission will drive them together. distributed across Europe; and the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array
These gravitational waves will have wavelengths on the (PPTA) employs the venerable Parkes Telescope in New South
order of a few to tens of light-years, growing shorter as the Wales (see map on page 16).

NICOLLE R. FULLER / SCIENCE PHOTO LIBR A RY
MAKING WAVES This artist’s concept

shows two black holes en route to
merging. Their inspiral creates ripples in
the fabric of spacetime that propagate out
from their location at the speed of light.
Astronomers are watching dozens

of cosmic timepieces for signs of
spacetime ripples passing through.
THE NEXT GRAVITATIONAL-WAVE REVOLUTION
All three projects started collecting pulsar timing data at sources probably won’t be their first detection.
least a decade ago, and all have relatively similar capabilities Instead, it’ll be the combined gravitational-wave signal
and sensitivities. An array’s frequency range depends on how of all the inspiralling supermassive black hole binaries
long it’s been operational; currently, the arrays span nanohertz over time, called the stochastic background. The stochastic
to millihertz wavelengths, with a sweet spot between 3 and background is like a cacophony of voices in a football
10 nHz, says Alberto Sesana (University of Birmingham, UK). stadium, where it’s impossible to distinguish any single
NANOGrav and EPTA observe many of the same Northern conversation. The contributing binaries will typically have
Hemisphere pulsars, whereas PPTA concentrates on those visible black holes containing 100 million to 10 billion solar masses,
from the Southern Hemisphere. Combined, they currently with separations of just a few thousandths of a light-year, and
watch roughly 75 pulsars, adding several new ones each year. orbital periods measured in years to decades.
NANOGrav, EPTA and PPTA are on the lookout for two Teasing out this background signal is an exceedingly
different kinds of sources. They can all catch the rumbles of difficult task, because it consists of the superposition of
individual black hole binaries within several hundred million gravitational waves of different strengths and wavelengths
light-years. But NANOGrav team member Scott Ransom coursing through our corner of the galaxy from all directions.
(National Radio Astronomy Observatory) says individual The signal looks very different than waves from a specific
T HOW IT WORKS Gravitational waves ripple out from an inspiralling pair of supermassive black holes, slightly stretching and squeezing the
spatial dimensions that are perpendicular to the waves’ direction of motion (A, in 3D then with 2D cross sections). When these waves pass Earth
and nearby pulsars, they change the distance between each pulsar and Earth (B, as seen looking down on the crests in A). The white arrows
in the main graphic indicate how much the distance changes for each pulsar, determined by the angle with respect to the wave’s direction of
motion. As a pulsar’s distance oscillates, the arrival times of its signals change (see facing page). Because the pulsars lie at different distances
from both Earth and the waves’ source (white lines), different parts of the wave hit each pulsar at any given time. This difference means that each
pulsar’s timing shift probes a distinct slice of the gravitational wave pattern (C). By combining the changes in arrival times for many pulsars in
different parts of the sky, astronomers should be able to determine where the gravitational wav om and what created them.
A C
LE AH TISCIONE / S&T
Gravitational Direction of
Direction of propagation wave propagation Pulsars probe different parts of wave

(a) Ongoing individual source
predicted arrival time (ns)

Pulse arrival time minus
60
binary, which have a unique shape determined by the system’s
characteristics, including its distance (see facing page). 40
In order to find the background signal, astronomers need 20
a lot of pulsar pairs, Sesana explains. When a gravitational 0
wave passes, it stretches space in one direction and squeezes -20
it perpendicular to that direction. “So if two pulsars are -40
observed at a 90° angle, the pulse will arrive later from one -60
pulsar and earlier from the other,” he says. By making many
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500
such correlations between pulsar pairs, and also seeing Days since observing start
signals from pulsars close together on the sky being affected
the same way, the PTA teams will eventually be able to tease
out the stochastic background signal. (b) Stochastic background
predicted arrival time (ns)

20
Adding to the complexity, team members have to
disentangle subtle gravitational-wave signals from myriad 10
sources of noise. For example, despite the fact that millisecond
0
pulsars beat with a precise regularity similar to humanity’s
best atomic clocks, individual pulsars exhibit slight jitters that -10
must be accounted for. Electrons in interstellar space also
-20
slightly delay the arrival of low-frequency radio waves.
Another source of noise stems from the fact that 0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500
astronomers’ reference point for pulsar timing is not Earth’s Days since observing start
position but the Solar System’s centre of mass, called the
barycentre. The barycentre’s exact location has to be known predicted arrival time (ns)
(c) One-time event
to incredibly high precision for this work, because an error of
20
just a few dozen metres changes a pulsar’s timing by several
nanoseconds. Slight errors in the barycentre’s position can 10
thus partially mimic the stochastic background’s signal. “Our
0
knowledge of the planetary motions in the Solar System is now
effectively a limiting factor for us, which is quite astonishing,” -10
says Ransom (see ‘The Solar System barycentre,’ page 17).
Astronomers debate whether they’re already seeing hints -20
of the stochastic background in their data, and one or more 0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500
of the PTAs will probably detect it within the next five years. Days since observing start
But the real payoff will come after scientists watch the signal
build up over time. By disentangling all the complexities in S EXAMPLES OF SOURCES Different gravitational-wave sources
the signal, scientists will learn about the distribution of black will create distinct signals in pulsar data, and each pulsar gives a
slightly different view of the signal. Shown here are three simulated
hole masses and the eccentricity of binary orbits. Perhaps
examples using the periods of three real pulsars (three colours):
more important, astrophysicists should be able to discern a an ongoing signal from a pair of billion-solar-mass black holes
great deal about the rate of black hole mergers as a function lying about 140 million light-years away (a); a background signal
of redshift, which in turn will be a proxy for how the galaxy combining many sources (b); and the signal from a single event,
merger rate has changed over cosmic history. In fact, the such as a black hole merger, passing Earth on day 1,500 (c). The
graphs show what the data look like after astronomers remove the
failure to detect the background by now seems to be ruling
effects of each pulsar’s spin and other things that affect the signal
out the most optimistic models in which the collision of two
LE AH TISCIONE / S&T, SOURCE: SA R A H BURK E-SPOL AOR
along its path from the pulsar to Earth.

large galaxies always produces a black hole merger.
Detecting individual sources

Detecting one or more individual black hole binaries remains nHz sources within 730 million light-years of Earth. These
the ultimate goal of those who use pulsar timing arrays. “It inspiralling black holes will be detectable for a long time in
would be like detecting a continuous wave, or tone,” JPL’s human terms. “A typical binary will spend about 25 million
Lazio says. “Much like if you are standing close to somebody years in the PTA band, which is in stark contrast to LIGO
at a party, you can hear that person’s voice.” sources!” she says.
Based on infrared survey data and cosmological How long a binary is detectable depends on its mass,
simulations, Chiara Mingarelli (Flatiron Institute) and Mingarelli explains. More massive binaries produce stronger
colleagues estimate that there should be several dozen (and thus more easily detectable) gravitational waves. But
THE NEXT GRAVITATIONAL-WAVE REVOLUTION
Westerbork
Lovell
CHIME Effelsberg
Nançay
VLA Sardinia
Green Bank
FAST
Arecibo
EPTA
NANOGrav Parkes
PPTA MeerKAT
New members
S WORLDWIDE EFFORT Astronomers use 12 radio observatories to track roughly 75

millisecond pulsars. Of these facilities, three — CHIME in Canada, FAST in China, and MeerKAT
in South Africa — are new participants; the others have been involved for at least 10 years.
more powerful waves drive a faster inspiral rate, so the to analyse data from most of the observed pulsars,
systems are visible for shorter time periods. For example, more including from facilities in both hemispheres. Having
massive galaxies have more massive black holes, so a black more observations means shorter time gaps in data, which
hole inspiral in a galaxy such as the gigantic elliptical M87 increases sensitivity to shorter-wavelength gravitational
would emit detectable gravitational waves for 4 million years. waves. All of this works to increase sensitivity to both the
But a humbler black hole pair in a smaller galaxy, such as the stochastic background and individual binaries.
Sombrero (M104), would offer a 160-million-year window. The But progress has been slow for a variety of reasons, from
odds that a very massive binary is sending out gravitational planning across time zones and work cultures to accounting
waves during the time that PTAs are observing is thus lower. for each telescope’s individual quirks. There’s also the all-too-
Unless we’re really lucky, it will probably take 10 to
15 years to build up enough data to see deep enough into
space to detect an individual binary. Theorists expect the
gravitational waveform from a single binary to be a very
simple sinusoid, and because the binary system will likely
have an orbital period of several decades, the signal will
change very little over many years. 2025
The longer baseline could make electromagnetic follow-up
2035
easier. If the inspiralling and merging black holes are embedded 2050
in disks of gas — and recent work suggests that this could be
true for supermassive binaries, unlike the smaller ones that 2040 2000
LIGO and Virgo detect — then they would also produce light.
“If a loud individual source is detected, PTAs will give its sky 2005 2015 Vernal
localisation, opening the possibility to identify the host galaxy equinox
2030
and carry out multimessenger observations of the system,
pretty much as it happened with the LIGO neutron star binary Sun 2010
GW170817,” Sesana says. “The difference is that with PTAs,
everything builds up slowly over the course of the years, and
you don’t hit the jackpot in a snap.” 2045
Going global
Adding to the growing optimism is the fact that scientists
Now 2020
from all three teams are now combining their data sets to
form an even more powerful network: the International
Pulsar Timing Array (IPTA). The IPTA enables scientists

human tension of each team wanting for itself the glory of
making the first confirmed detection.
Unless we’re really lucky, it will probably take
M A P: G REGG DINDER M A N / S&T; BA RYCEN TER: L A RRY MCNISH / CA LG A RY CEN TER OF THE ROYA L ASTRONO MICA L SOCIE T Y OF CA N A DA
“Gradually we are breaking down those barriers and 10 to 15 years to build up enough data to
learning how to successfully work together and push science detect an individual binary.
forward,” says Michael Kramer (Max Planck Institute for
Radio Astronomy, Germany).
And the IPTA will only get better with the recent addition pulsar timing arrays, on the other hand, will be circling each
of three new instruments: the Five-hundred-metre Aperture other for another 25 million years. Statistically speaking,
Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST) in China, the MeerKAT 200,000 years is not much of a window to catch the binary’s
Radio Telescope in South Africa, and the Canadian Hydrogen nanohertz gravitational waves.
Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) array in Canada. And looking further afield, ESA is planning to launch the
Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) in the 2030s.
Looking ahead LISA will consist of three spacecraft orbiting the Sun in
In their quest to advance the field, scientists have devised an equilateral-triangle formation, each craft separated by
additional methods for detecting gravitational waves. 2.5 million kilometres. LISA is specifically tuned to catch the
Astronomers will look for signs of gravitational waves in data spacetime ripples from merging black holes with masses of
taken by the European Space Agency’s (ESA’s) Gaia satellite. roughly 10,000 to 10 million solar masses. ESA’s recent LISA
From its perch in space 1.5 million km beyond Earth, Gaia is Pathfinder mission exceeded its performance goals, proving
making extremely precise measurements of the positions and LISA’s technological feasibility.
motions of about 1 billion stars. Subtle shifts over many years Taken together, these projects — ground-based
will indicate that Earth is bobbing on passing gravitational interferometers, pulsar timing arrays, Gaia, and LISA —
waves, changing its position with respect to the stars. promise to usher in a revolutionary era of gravitational-
“The drawback here is that Gaia’s data set will only be as wave astronomy. By hearing gravitational rumbles across a
long as the mission, which is expected to be at most 10 years,” broad spectrum, scientists will piece together a story of the
Mingarelli says. “This limits the detection capabilities to universe’s most extreme objects, in a way that they could
binaries with gravitational-wave periods of 5 years or less, not obtain by any other means.
which is very restrictive.” A pair of billion-solar-mass black
holes with this period has “only” another 200,000 years ROBERT NAEYE was editor in chief of AS&T’s US edition
or so before it merges, she explains; those detectable with from 2008 to 2014.
The Solar System barycentre

At first glance, gravitational-wave bodies) calculated by JPL based on its ephemeris, and the pulsar data
detection would seem to have very little the positions, velocities and masses of are actually helping to improve our
to do with planetary science. But when the planets. But the PTA teams came knowledge of the barycentre. “We have
it comes to precise timing of radio to realise that the JPL ephemeris is been able to figure out a way to mostly
pulses from millisecond pulsars, the not precise enough for pulsar timing, deal with the errors in the Solar System
more stationary the reference point, the where changes to the barycentre of a ephemeris, albeit at a small cost to
easier. That’s why all the pulsar timing few hundred metres in light travel time our gravitational-wave sensitivity,”
arrays (PTAs) use the Solar System’s add up to hundreds of nanoseconds. says NANOGrav team member Scott
centre of mass (the barycentre) rather Such errors can partially mimic the Ransom (NRAO). The Juno mission will
than Earth, which orbits the barycentre effect of low-frequency gravitational help further, he adds, by nailing down
at a speed of about 108,000 kph. waves passing through our Solar the orbit and mass of Jupiter. Because
The barycentre is always located System, making it a limiting factor in the it’s so massive, the giant planet has a
inside or near the Sun, but it moves teams’ ability to detect the stochastic big effect on the location of the Solar
around as the planets orbit our star. For background. System’s centre of mass, including in
years, the PTAs used an ephemeris (the PTA radio astronomers are now its indirect gravitational effects on the
table of coordinates, etc, for celestial working closely with JPL to refine other outer planets.
W BARYCENTRE The Sun and planets technically orbit their mutual centre of mass, called the solar system barycentre. The barycentre’s
location moves as the planets follow their elliptical orbits around the Sun. Sometimes it’s inside the Sun (diameter marked by yellow
circle), other times (including now) it lies outside the photosphere. The positive x-axis points in the direction of the vernal equinox.
THE NEAREST STARS by Keith Cooper

Astronomers are compiling a census
Meet the of the nearest stars to discover

what we know — and what we don’t —
about our stellar neighbours.
Neighbours
f history had turned out a little differently, Todd Henry the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. Most of
I might have become a leading light in the search for

extraterrestrial intelligence. Instead, for the last quarter of
a century he’s been leading the charge to learn all that we can
RECONS’s work has since been performed with that telescope.
In 2018, the RECONS team released their latest census of
everything currently known within 10 pc — every star, every
about the nearest stars. brown dwarf and every planet. Split among 317 different star
Henry graduated from Cornell University in the 1980s, systems (including our own), they and other astronomers
where one of his advisors had been none other than Carl have found 378 stars and white dwarfs, 50 brown dwarfs and
Sagan. With such inspiration, it’s little surprise that after more than 50 planets. There have been surprises, though,
completing his PhD he opted to join NASA’s SETI project, from missing brown dwarfs to the sheer wealth of small stars,
which was to be a huge 10-year quest to search for signals and vital information about the secrets of star formation.
from extraterrestrial civilisations. Yet just a year after
observations began, the rug was pulled out from under the Stars of all kinds
project as Congress cancelled its funding. Our nearest stars are a motley bunch. Spread randomly across
Still, the questions that SETI posed remained with Henry. space, our neighbours show no discernible clustering, with an
If life exists on other worlds, where are those worlds? The average distance between star systems of 3 to 4 light-years. The
closest stars would seem to be a reasonable place to start. fact that our closest star, Proxima Centauri, is 4.2 light-years
However, our stellar neighbours just didn’t seem to away, might mean that we’re a tad more remote than average.
interest most astronomers. “The nearby stars just haven’t While star systems generally keep a polite distance from
been sexy for all that long,” says Henry (Georgia State one another, about a quarter of systems are multiples —
University). To remedy this, in 1994 he formed RECONS, the doubles and triples (or more) of closely orbiting stars or
Research Consortium On Nearby Stars, with the primary goal
of mapping and characterising all the stars within 10 parsecs
X WHAT IS A PARSEC? Astronomers’ distance
(ie. 32.6 light-years), and later extending that to 25 and 100 unit of choice is the parsec, which is based
pc (81.5 and 326 light-years, respectively). on parallax. Parallax is the shift in an object’s
Obtaining funding was difficult at first. Henry had to position against the background scene when Apparent
shift = 2p
constantly emphasise that the nearest stars are worth studying, viewed from two different locations. Nearby stars
have measurable parallaxes due to Earth’s motion
particularly since no one else was really looking at them. By
around the Sun, which astronomers can use to
2003, though, his team was able to take over the 0.9-metre at calculate the stars’ distances. A parsec is the
CENSUS: TERRI DUBÉ / S&T; PA RSEC: LE AH TISCIONE / S&T
distance at which the difference between a

WX THE CENSUS star’s apparent location as seen from Earth
As of mid-2017, would be 1 arcsecond different than its
astronomers had apparent location as seen from the Sun
21 50 (an arcsecond is 1/3,600°). Another way to
tallied 428 stars, 284 43 Parallax
White Brown
white dwarfs and dwarfs dwarfs
M stars K stars think about it is that the parsec is how far angle ( p)
brown dwarfs within away you’d have to be for the distance
10 parsecs of our between the Sun and Earth to span Distance
Solar System. Each 1 arcsecond. One parsec is 3.26 to star
dot represents a light-years.
star and is sized
and colour-coded 1 a.u.
by type. The tally 19 7 4
includes the Sun. G stars F stars A stars
THE NEAREST STARS
VEGA The A-type as M dwarfs or red dwarfs. These are the 1%

star Alpha Lyrae lies smallest, coolest and faintest stars, with 2 systems with
25 light-years away. a surface temperature less than 4000K
and masses from half a solar mass
down to just 7.5% of the Sun’s mass.
When RECONS began, it was thought 1%
that M dwarfs might account for half 3 systems with
of all the stars in the galaxy. However,
V EG A: A K IR A FUJII; M ULTIPLICIT Y A ND R ATIO INFOG R A PHICS: TERRI DUBÉ / S&T ; NGC 1333: X-R AY: N ASA / CXC / SAO / S. WOLK E T A L., OPTICA L: DSS & NOAO / AUR A / NSF, INFR A RED: N ASA / JPL- CA LTECH; SIRIUS: A K IR A FUJII
thanks in part to the work RECONS
has done, we now know that they are
even more common, making up three- 4%
quarters of all stars. 14 systems with
“Three out of four is an awful lot
of stars,” says Henry. “That’s a bit of a
surprise.”
brown dwarfs. Thus, while at least half of the census stars are There are also 21 ‘dead’ stars, the
in multiple systems, most systems are not multiples. cooling stellar cores named white 21%
The list of our stellar neighbours illustrates perfectly the dwarfs, with the closest being Sirius B, 66 systems with
initial mass function (IMF), which describes the frequency 8.6 light-years away.
with which stars of different masses form. The IMF predicts
that the most massive stars are much rarer than lower-mass A shortage of failed stars
stars. It therefore comes as no surprise to find that most of The other key result relates to brown
our neighbours are fairly modest stars, with our Sun actually dwarfs. Smaller than red dwarfs but
standing out as one of the more impressive. larger than gas giant planets, brown
Within 10 parsecs (pc) there are no O- or B-type stars, dwarfs are the awkward in-betweeners,
which are the hottest, brightest and most massive stars on the not quite massive enough to generate
main sequence. The next class down is the A-type stars, with the required temperatures and pressures
surface temperatures between 7600 and 11,500 kelvin. There to ignite the nuclear fusion of hydrogen 73%
are four of these nearby, all of which amateur astronomers within their cores. 232 systems with
know well: Altair, Sirius, Vega and Fomalhaut. Since discovering the first of these
Next are the F-type stars, a little cooler than the A-types failed stars in the 1990s, astronomers
but a little warmer than the Sun, and there are seven of have suspected that brown dwarfs form
these, including Procyon in Canis Minor. The Sun belongs the same way that stars do, condensing
to the G-type stars and, again, there are more of these than from fragmenting clouds of molecular
the F-types, including our star, Alpha Centauri A, Tau Ceti gas. In that case, one might expect them
and 16 others. Cooler than the Sun are the K-type stars; these to follow the IMF trend and be found
outnumber all the A-, F-, and G-type stars put together. They even more frequently than red dwarfs.
include Alpha Centauri B, both members of 61 Cygni, Epsilon But that belief was not data-driven,
Eridani and 39 others. Henry explains. “In the early days
However, the most intriguing finding over the last 24 years people would get very excited about
of RECONS is the ubiquity of M-type stars, often referred to brown dwarfs and say there are more
brown dwarfs than there are stars,” he
Ratio of brown dwarfs to stars says. “And I thought, ‘Based on what?’”
Henry’s skepticism has since been
borne out. The RECONS data show that
there are 8 times more stars within
10 pc than there are brown dwarfs.
Yet there appears to be a disparity
between the number of brown dwarfs
in the local neighbourhood and those
farther afield. Astronomers are now
1:2 to 1:5 1:8 routinely detecting them in young star
SONYC star-forming RECONS solar clusters, with the Substellar Objects
regions neighbourhood in Nearby Young Clusters (SONYC)

= 1 system
W SEEING DOUBLE (OR TRIPLE, OR . . .) Of
the 317 star systems in the solar neighbourhood,
5 components 85 have more than one component (ie. a star or a
brown dwarf). That’s a multiplicity fraction of 27%.
team, led by Alexander Scholz (University

4 components of St. Andrews, UK), at the forefront of
these searches. SONYC’s studies of the
star-forming regions NGC 1333 in Perseus
and RCW 38 in Vela, as well as of the Rho
Ophiuchus cloud complex, have turned up
3 components a brown dwarf-to-star ratio of between 0.2
and 0.5. In other words, for every brown
dwarf in this region, there are two to five
stars. The number of brown dwarfs could be
higher if some of the stars host brown dwarf
companions that have yet to be detected.
2 components Extrapolating from this, Scholz’s group
calculates that there could be as many as
100 billion brown dwarfs inhabiting the
Milky Way Galaxy. Yet these numbers fail to S NGC 1333 This composite image combines X-ray (pink), infrared
add up in the Sun’s neighbourhood, where (red), and optical data (red, green, blue) of the cluster NGC 1333,
the ratio of brown dwarfs to stars is just populated with stars that are less than 2 million years old. The X-ray
0.13, or about 1 to 8. data reveal 95 young stars, 41 of which had not been identified in
infrared because there was no glow from a surrounding disk.
The mystery behind this dearth of nearby
brown dwarfs deeply puzzles Sergio Dieterich
(Carnegie Institution for Science), who is
also a member of the RECONS consortium.
1 component “Trying to understand why this happens is
something I lose sleep on,” he says.
In an effort to reconcile the observations,
Dieterich is modelling the cooling rates
of brown dwarfs to figure out if there
could be more brown dwarfs in the Sun’s
neighbourhood that remain undetected
because they are too cold to emit at the
observed wavelengths. Brown dwarfs spend
their entire lives cooling after they form, and
those that RECONS and SONYC see have
temperatures in the 1500K to 3000K range,
which means they must be fairly young.
However, NASA’s Wide-field Infrared
Survey Explorer (WISE) was optimised to
find cool objects. The coldest brown dwarf
yet discovered is WISE 0855−0714, which has
a surface temperature of some 250K (−23°C).
Yet WISE’s 2012 survey may support the
RECONS findings, by detecting on average
just one brown dwarf for every six stars in SIRIUS At apparent
the solar neighbourhood. magnitude −1.46, Alpha
Canis Majoris is the
If there are many, much older brown
brightest star in the sky
dwarfs that have cooled to become too faint and lies 8.6 light-years
for even WISE to see, maybe Scholz is correct from Earth.
and there are more brown dwarfs out there.
THE NEAREST STARS
“This is possible, but the theorists would really be wrong by 0.16

a large stretch,” says Dieterich. Brown dwarfs should not
be able to cool fast enough to create that huge, invisible
reservoir. However, he admits, “there is very tentative 0.14
Radius (solar radii)

evidence that there may exist more very cool brown dwarfs
than what the WISE results indicate.”
0.12
The dividing line
Just beyond the limit of the 10 pc survey is a seemingly
unassuming star, named 2MASS J0523−1403 — let’s call it 0.10
J0523 for short — that could turn out to be one of the most
important red dwarfs yet discovered. J0523
0.08
Lying 40 light-years away, J0523 is the smallest and dimmest
of the nearby stars, with a surface temperature of about 2100K 3000 2500 2000 1500
and a radius just 8.6% solar. This star marks a turning point Surface temperature (kelvin)
in a diagram comparing the radii and temperatures of red and
S THE SMALLEST STAR? Plotting a collection of nearby red and
brown dwarfs. As you look at smaller and smaller stars on the brown dwarfs by their radii and surface temperatures reveals a turn:
plot, the temperatures go down, until you reach J0523. Suddenly, the stars stop shrinking. The RECONS team thinks the
“There is then a sudden jump to higher radii as the objects smallest star in their sample, informally called J0523, might mark the
become cooler and less luminous,” says Dieterich. Brown limit of roughly how small a star can be. Objects to the right of it are
young brown dwarfs, still warm and puffy from their formation.
dwarfs glow with the heat of their contraction, with smaller
brown dwarfs warmer than larger ones.
3 of every 4 Furthermore, to be this warm the brown
stars are Trappist-1 System Solar System
dwarfs must still be fairly young and
red dwarfs
therefore puffy, making them larger than
b
the smallest stars. The result is a clear c
G R A PH: LE A H TISCIONE / S&T, SOURCE SERGIO DIE TERICH; TR A PPIST-1: A M A NDA SMITH / INSTIT U TE OF ASTRONO M Y, UNIV. OF CA MBRIDG E
d
disconnect on the diagram. “I believe that e
f
g Mercury
2MASS J0523−1403 is representative of the h
smallest possible stars, and that everything
STAR
cooler than it must be a brown dwarf.”
Venus
If Dieterich is right, then RECONS has
identified the boundary between full-fledged stars and brown
dwarfs. Not everyone agrees; his results have produced “a Earth
chorus of complaints” from theorists, he says, because some
stellar models predict that there should be even cooler stars
Mars
before we enter the realm of the brown dwarfs. He’s working
on figuring out where the theories might be going wrong.
Planet popularity
In some ways, just as SETI motivated Todd Henry to start
looking at the nearest stars, the search for extraterrestrial
SUN Jupiter
life is also encouraging researchers to look at the stars that
are closest to us. “Because the exoplanet game has gotten so
popular, the nearby stars are back in vogue, in particular the
small red dwarfs,” says Henry.
NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope has taught us that, on
Saturn
average, there is at least one planet for every star. But only 28 SX TRAPPIST-1 The
of the closest 317 known star systems (including the Sun’s) Trappist-1 system contains
are known to have planets — that’s less than 9%. Recently seven planets orbiting a red
discovered planetary systems, such as those belonging to the dwarf. Several of the planets Uranus
M dwarfs Ross 128, Trappist-1 and LHS 1140 (the latter two at might be habitable. This
graphic shows the Trappist-1
12 pc), could be just the tip of the iceberg, says Henry. “There exoplanets, their star, and the
are likely hundreds more solar systems to find among our Solar System’s major planets
Neptune
nearest neighbouring systems.” with sizes scaled to the Sun’s.

Inner Solar System
r
te
h
s
pi
rt
ar
Ju
Ea
M
Asteroid Belt
ib
an
NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope has taught us
id
Er
Inner Epsilon
n
lo
that, on average, there is at least one planet for Eridani System
si
Ep
every star. But only 28 of the closest 317 known Inner Asteroid Belt
star systems (including the Sun’s) are known to
have planets — that’s less than 9%.
Solar System
That will now be the task of NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet
e
at er
un
s
n
t
nu
pi
ur
pt
Asteroid Belt
Ju
i b ra
e
Survey Satellite (TESS), which launched in April 2018 and is
N
S
et
et
going to focus on the 200,000 nearest stars. That’s important
an
an
an
Kuiper Belt
pl
pl
id
Er
Epsilon Eridani System
ed
ed
because, as TESS’s principal investigator George Ricker
os
os
lo
Inner Asteroid Belt
op
op
si
Ep
(Massachusetts Institute of Technology) points out, they’re
Pr
Pr
Outer Asteroid Belt
close enough for instruments such as the upcoming James
Comet Belt
Webb Space Telescope to perform follow-up studies to look at
atmospheric compositions.
“There’s some pretty demanding but conclusive
observations that can be made with the Webb telescope” on Rogues gallery
the TESS targets, he says. “But if you were to only have the Of the 378 stars in the RECONS 10-parsec census, which
Kepler objects, it would take a 65-metre telescope in space!” ones stand out? Here are five of our most interesting
TESS should find several dozen new Earth-size rocky stellar neighbours:
exoplanets, many of them within 50 pc of our Solar System.
Epsilon Eridani Todd Henry flags Epsilon Eridani as
However, it has already been beaten in the race to discover
being a particularly interesting K-type star. Just 10.5
a planet around the nearest star to the Sun, the red dwarf
light-years away, it is a young replica of what our own
Proxima Centauri (Alpha Cen C).
Solar System may have looked like when it was less than
It took more than 20 years following the discovery of the
a billion years old. It’s known to have at least one giant
first exoplanets for astronomers to identify a planet orbiting
planet as well as two dust belts and a comet belt, which
Proxima Cen. The world, Proxima Cen b, was discovered in
could be home to asteroids or comet-like icy bodies.
2016 by astronomers led by Guillem Anglada-Escudé (Queen
Mary University of London). Now they are embarking on Epsilon Indi Epsilon Indi is actually a triple system,
the Red Dots campaign to search for planets around not just 12 light-years away, with a K-type star orbited by a binary
Proxima but also two other nearby M dwarfs, Barnard’s Star system of brown dwarfs, as well as a giant planet on a
and Ross 154. The three stars were chosen because they can wide orbit.
be observed together on the same nights. In the future, the SCR 1845-6357 This binary system 12.6 light-years away
campaign will look at other nearby M dwarfs, such as Wolf 359. comprises a red dwarf with about 8% the mass of the
The Alpha Cen system is a prime example of how much Sun and a brown dwarf with 50 times the mass of Jupiter
we still don’t know about the nearest stars. “Have you and a temperature of about 675°C. Todd Henry says the
ever looked at the fundamental measurements we have for system is one of his favourites, because astronomers can
Alpha Centauri A or B?” asks Tabetha Boyajian (Louisiana use it to work out how these different objects evolve.
State University). “For Alpha Centauri A, the literature lists
Sirius The famous Dog Star might be the brightest star
spectral types ranging from F8 to G5, and temperatures
in the sky, but it also hosts a white dwarf, the closest to
range from 5519 to 5939 kelvin. Magnitudes are all over the
us at 8.6 light-years. The white dwarf is the remnant of a
place, too. It’s just sad!”
star that was five times more massive than the Sun, while
Sirius itself is twice as massive as the Sun.
Looking farther afield
There’s still much work for RECONS to do. The second Ross 128 At 11 light-years away, this red dwarf star is the
data release from the European Space Agency’s astrometric 11th-closest system to the Solar System. It was considered
satellite, Gaia, provided a huge amount of data to churn a fairly unremarkable star with only the odd flare to speak
through. “It will take us quite a bit more time to sort through of, until astronomers discovered a potentially habitable
the 1,722 objects reported to be within 10 parsecs,” says planet orbiting it in 2017.
Henry, who reckons that three-quarters of them will turn
N ASA / JPL- CA LTECH
out to be false positives. That’s a surprising number, but S EPSILON ERIDANI Only 800 million years old, Epsilon Eri has
two dusty belts and an outer cold belt, reminiscent of the belts in
the objects are exceptionally faint, leading to high levels our Solar System. Astronomers have discovered one Jupiter-mass
of uncertainty in the distance measurements, he explains planet and suspect there might be two more farther out that carve
— at least one of the ‘nearby’ objects has already proved to the edges of the outer belts.
THE NEAREST STARS
350 Systems Within 10 Parsecs W BUILDING THE CENSUS In 1995, the Yale Parallax Catalog contained
fewer than 200 stars within 10 pc of Earth. That number jumped slightly in
14
1997 with the Hipparcos mission data, and since 2002 the count has risen
1
Number of star systems
300 by at least one star each year. Red points mark years in which RECONS
added the number of systems indicated with red digits.
2 1 these stars, which can affect their activity and any planets’
250 19 habitability. The upcoming Large Synoptic Survey Telescope,
6 which will scrutinise the southern sky from Chile, will be
1 able to help here by watching the same stars for many years. A
200 separate RECONS project will explore the orange K stars, which
are in the class of stars between our Sun and the red dwarfs.
Ultimately, learning about our nearest stars also helps
150 to put our Solar System in context. We often refer to our
1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 2020 Sun as average, because it’s partway between smaller
stars and larger stars. Yet compared to all the stars in its
be a galaxy. Once the team subtracts the 378 stars already neighbourhood, it’s remarkable: Its temperature, luminosity,
known, Gaia might add just a few objects at the boundary, he and mass put it in the 90th percentile — far hotter, brighter,
estimates. and heftier than the more common little stars. In the end,
After the Gaia data have been double-checked, Henry will it’s all just a matter of perspective.
turn his attention back to the wide 25 and 100 pc surveys.
“We have probably identified about 90% of the nearest 500 KEITH COOPER is the editor of both Astronomy Now
stars, but only about 60% of the nearest 5,000 stars,” he says. magazine and Astrobiology Magazine (astrobio.net). His book
Mapping the stars is only the beginning. Astronomers The Contact Paradox: Challenging Assumptions in the Search
still do not know much about the magnetic cycles of some of for Extraterrestrial Intelligence will be published in October.
ROSS 128b This artist’s

concept shows a potentially
GR APH: LE AH TISCIONE / S&T, SOURCE T. J. HENRY E T A L. / ASTR ONOMICAL JOUR NAL 2018; ROSS 128: ESO / M. KOR NMESSER
habitable exoplanet that lies
11 light-years away — one
of the closest such worlds
known.

ASTRONOMY 2019 YEARBOOK
Every astronomer needs the Astronomy 2019
yearbook. Australian-produced, it is packed full
of essential information to plan your observing
sessions. Included is a complete guide to what’s
visible in the night sky, including Moon phases,
planets, comets, eclipses and meteor showers, plus
star maps and a month-by-month viewing guide.
$29.95 plus postage & handling
2019 AUSTRALASIAN
SKY GUIDE
An ideal yearbook for beginners,
the easy-to-read 2019
Australasian Sky Guide provides
a month-by-month guide to what
can be seen with the naked eye,
along with lots of interesting facts
and figures, detailed descriptions
of special astronomical events,
and planetary data.
Essential
astronomy
ASTRONOMY 2019 CALENDAR
Featuring amazing celestial photography
from the annual David Malin Awards, the
reading
Astronomy 2019 Calendar provides a guide
to what’s visible in the sky, including lunar These Australian-produced titles are must-
phases, planetary positions, eclipses,
lunar occultations, conjunctions and haves observing guides for all astronomy
meteor showers, plus monthly star maps
(for 25° to 45° south latitude). Size is
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23x33 cm, opening to 46x33 cm. An
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INFOGRAPHIC
Astt r i lt
Moon Inner Solar System

IN ORBIT
Artemis
Chang’e 5 T1
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter
ON SURFACE
Chang’e 3
MOON-EARTH L2 POINT
Queqiao (with Longjiang-2) 101955 Bennu
Osiris-REX
Mars
Earth-like Venus IN ORBIT
Solar Orbit Akatsuki Mars Express
Kepler Mars Odyssey
Spitzer Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
Stereo A MAVEN
Sun MOM (Mangalyaan)
Trace Gas Orbiter
ON SURFACE
Opportunity
Here’s our digest of active missions Curiosity
in 2019. Included are astrophysics, Mercury Insight
planetary, solar, space weather
and stellar projects; we omit those
that primarily observe Earth. Planet
locations are for January 1; mission Parker Scheduled Arrivals
statuses are current (to the best of Solar
Probe New Horizons (2014 MU69)
our knowledge) as of late 2018. Those 162173 Ryugu
orbiting Earth are classified by primary Hayabusa 2
research topic, which is subjective. (All
International Space Station projects
are lumped under ‘ISS’.) Also included
are planned launches for the year. Late 2018 launches
The big news of 2019 was New BepiColombo, launched October (to Mercury)
Horizons’ flyby of 2014 MU69 on New Chang’e 4, launched December 8 (to Moon)
Year’s day. Also, two private missions SpaceIL lander, launch due December (to Moon)
(the unnamed SpaceIL lander and
ALINA) hope to touch down on the 2019 scheduled launches
Moon. On a sadder note, the Kepler
ALINA (to Moon)
spacecraft has run out of fuel. And
Chandrayaan 2 (to Moon)
when we went to press, it was unclear Chang’e 5 (to Moon)
if the Opportunity rover had survived Cheops (exoplanets, Earth orbit)
the Martian dust storm. Solar Orbiter (to Sun)
—Camille M. Carlisle Spektr-RG (X-rays, to L 2 )
Not to scale

Earth-Sun L 2 point Earth-orbiting spacecraft
Gaia
ASTROPHYSICS PLANETARY SPACE WEATHER
AGILE Integral IBEX Geotail
Asteria ISS Hisaki GOES
Astrosat Lomonosov NEOSSAT MMS
Chandra NUSTAR NEOWISE THEMIS
DAMPE (Wukong) RadioAstron (Spektr-R) Van Allen Probes
SOLAR
Fermi Swift
Hinode STELLAR
HaloSat TESS
Earth-Sun L1 point Hubble Tiangong 2 Station
IRIS BRITE
ACE SOHO PROBA 2 MOST
HXMT (Huiyan) XMM-Newton
DSCOVR WIND SDO
Outer Solar System
Uranus
Jupiter Neptune
Juno Saturn
G R EGG D IN D E R M A N / S&T
K New
2014 MU69 Horizons
Not to scale Voyager 2
Voyager 1
COSMIC REVERIES by Faye Flam
PITR IS / ISTO CK / G E T T Y IM AG ES
BIG
What
Came
Before
the
BANG?
Cosmologists are tackling a once-verboten
question with out-of-the-box thinking.
COSMIC REVERIES
IT’S NATURAL TO WANT TO KNOW what happened before Redefining the Big Bang
the Big Bang. For years, cosmologists answered that it was What we do know from observation is that on large scales,
unknown, unknowable, or that there was nothing before the the galaxies sprinkled through the visible universe are
Big Bang, not even time. As you extrapolate our expanding charging away from one another. The universe is expanding,
universe backwards, you eventually reach a point of infinite and if you extrapolate back in time, it looks like everything
density where the known laws of physics break down. The Big was once a dense, trillion-degree soup of disembodied
Bang theory doesn’t rule out the possibility that there was particles. That’s the part of the Big Bang theory that remains
some pre-existing universe from which ours sprang, but if well-established. When it was first devised, the theory made
such a thing existed, it was beyond the reach of science. several sharp predictions, among them that the universe
But then something changed. Now, serious cosmological would contain a specific ratio of hydrogen, helium and
theories posit that the Big Bang happened within a pre- lithium, and that radiation from the Big Bang would be
detectable today in the form of a pervasive cosmic microwave
background. Both of those were spectacularly confirmed.
But by the 1970s, problems appeared that made it clear
At first, there was a general agreement that the theory had to be modified. For one thing, the Big Bang
the Big Bang happened first, and then a tiny failed to explain the relative homogeneity of the universe. On
fraction of a second later, inflation began. But very large scales, galaxies are distributed through the sky the
same way in all directions, as if they’d been stirred through
now many cosmologists refer to inflation as the heavens. But under the original Big Bang theory, it’s
something that happened before the Big Bang. physically impossible for them to have mixed together within
the finite age of the universe. There hasn’t been enough time.
In 1981, Guth hit on an adjustment to the Big Bang
existing space, universe or network of universes. Of course, that appeared to take care of the problem — a quick
nothing could have happened in our observable universe burst of extremely fast expansion that would precede the
before it existed, but scientists today are able to conceive of normal, more leisurely expansion of the universe. (Alexei
events ‘before’ the Big Bang by widening their perspective. Starobinsky in the Soviet Union came up with a similar idea
And for some, the push to uncover our deepest cosmic independently.) Guth dubbed his idea inflation, but unlike
origins is tied up with another grand quest — to understand what was happening to the currency at the time, cosmological
the nature of time, and why it keeps propelling us so inflation wouldn’t have diluted the cosmos. As other theorists
relentlessly into the future.
I noticed the change of heart more than a year ago, ?
Temp
when, after a lecture, I asked pioneer cosmologist Alan Guth Time
0 ot Big Bang phase begins (kelv
H in)
(Massachusetts Institute of Technology) what happened –35
10 sec 10 27
Atomic nuclei form
before the Big Bang. He didn’t dismiss the question. Instead, 100 sec 10 9
he said that he’s working on it. CMB spectrum fixed
1 month 10 7
Guth reiterated something I’d heard him say in previous Radiat
ion balances matter
10,000 yrs 20,000
lectures — that the Big Bang theory doesn’t tell us “what CMB ph
otons released
380,000 yrs 3,000
banged, why it banged, or what happened before it banged”.
He also suggested I speak with physicist Sean Carroll
(California Institute of Technology). Carroll said the idea
that the Big Bang was the beginning of time is a plausible
hypothesis, but not the one he thinks best fits with the
universe as we observe it.
So what did come before? There are almost as many
theories as there are theorists, but they fall into a few broad
categories. Some postulate a sea of rapidly expanding space Present
that gives rise to new universes like bubbles in a pot of 13.8 billion years after
the Big Bang phase
boiling water. Others favour a bland expanse of empty space
that occasionally gives birth to baby universes full of energy S BIG BANG COSMOLOGY Cosmologists agree that the modern
and matter. In one scenario, the Big Bang was more of a observable universe arose from an extremely hot, dense state. As
things expanded and cooled, protons, neutrons and then atomic nuclei
Big Bounce, the comeback of a contracting universe. And
formed. Eventually, the nuclei joined with electrons to make atoms,
although these cosmic visions might sound more psychedelic and the universe became transparent, freeing the photons that we now
than scientific, the faint imprints of what came before might detect as the cosmic microwave background. But what came before
not be as unobservable as we once thought. this hot, dense Big Bang state is debated.

COSMIC MICROWAVE
BACKGROUND
The Planck spacecraft
mapped the relict
radiation from the Big
Bang phase with an
angular resolution of
5 arcminutes, or 1/12°.
The small changes in
temperature correspond
to density variations
that became the seeds
of cosmic structure.
building on Guth’s suggestion soon proposed, a peculiar kind universe, and not to any notion of an absolute beginning.
of energy that creates a repulsive force drove this exponential This terminology can help separate the part of cosmology
expansion. Instead of thinning out, the density of this energy that’s backed with strong evidence — the hot Big Bang and
remained the same. And so as space grew, the total amount what came afterwards — from the more speculative notion
of this energy swelled to enormous proportions and was of inflation. And inflation wasn’t much of a bang. Tegmark
converted, eventually, to ordinary matter and radiation. As describes it as a cold little swoosh.
weird as it sounds, a sub-microscopic patch of space became Another problem with the old scenario, fitting inflation
our vast observable universe. in after the Big Bang, is that it was hard to explain how
Inflation seems to defy the law of conservation of energy this inflationary phase could come to a neat and tidy end.
— Guth himself famously quipped that it’s the ultimate free “There’s this side effect that once you get it going, it’s very
lunch — but it’s all perfectly compatible with the rules laid hard to stop everywhere at once,” says Aguirre. If you want
out in Einstein’s general relativity. Energy can be positive or to avoid making any assumptions about a conspiracy to stop
negative. The gravitational energy that fills space is considered inflation, you end up with the prospect that it would end in
negative, while the repulsive force driving inflation is some places, but it would keep going in others. Since inflation
considered positive. So you can start out with zero energy is an ultra-fast expansion of space itself, the still-inflating
and get a whole lot of both positive and negative energy, says parts would grow huge, dwarfing what we thought was the
cosmologist Anthony Aguirre (University of California, Santa universe. And that monstrously large, still-inflating part
Cruz). Because these two add up to zero, the conservation law would continue to spawn new, independent universes like
isn’t violated. bubbles in a foam.
At first, there was general agreement that the Big Bang From a perspective outside of our bubble, or ‘pocket
happened first, and then a tiny fraction of a second later, universe’ as some call it, this inflating space was busy giving
inflation began. Another fraction of a second later inflation rise to other bubble universes long before ours came into being
ended, starting the hot, dense phase of the universe that in an ever growing multiverse. You just have to consider time in
expanded into our universe of space, stars, and upwards of a broader frame, says Aguirre. “To see the mixture of inflating
2 trillion galaxies. and non-inflating regions at a given time, one must use a
But now many cosmologists refer to inflation as something different definition of time that includes both events inside the
that happened before the Big Bang. “If we take inflation pocket and outside the pocket at the same time,” he says.
seriously, then we need to start correcting people claiming But how did inflation begin? Cosmologist Andrei Linde
that inflation happened shortly after our Big Bang, because (Stanford University), one of the first people to recognise
it happened before it, creating it,” wrote MIT physicist Max the possibility of a multiverse, has proposed that inflation
Tegmark in his 2014 book, Our Mathematical Universe: My happens naturally in a wide range of situations — it’s a
Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality.
ESA / PL A NCK COLL A BOR ATION
At issue is what we mean by ‘Big Bang’. There is some

disagreement over what, exactly, the term refers to these days, The laws of physics are symmetrical
says Matthew Johnson (York University and the Perimeter forwards and backwards, and yet, we can
Institute for Theoretical Physics, Canada). Many agree with
Tegmark that ‘Big Bang’ should refer only to the hot, dense
stir milk into coffee and scramble eggs,
state of matter that expanded and cooled into our observable but can’t un-stir or unscramble them.
COSMIC REVERIES
Inflation scenario Bounce scenario
?
Inflationary expansion Current expansion Slow contraction Bounce Current expansion
S INFLATION OR BOUNCE? To explain why the observable universe is geometrically flat and its contents well mixed, astronomers think it began
almost infinitely compact, then grew in a brief, exponential spurt called inflation before continuing to expand more slowly. However, it’s unclear what
came before inflation. One alternative idea is that instead of inflating, the universe existed earlier in a contracting state, then bounced.
surprisingly common outcome of elementary particle such a scenario in which the Big Bang was really a collision of
theories. In Linde’s theory of chaotic inflation, patches of two existing universes floating in a higher-dimensional space.
inflating space can emerge from an existing universe — The idea took the notion of higher dimensions from string
one that’s much less orderly than our universe, a sort of theory, which predicts the existence of 11 dimensions —
hodgepodge of regions dense and sparse. seven spatial ones beyond our familiar three of space and one
of time. While string theory posits that the extra dimensions
Bouncing universes to baby universes are curled up in a way that makes them impossible to observe,
Despite such radical variations on the theme, inflation some physicists have proposed that one or more of these
remains the mainstream view in cosmology. It fits with new dimensions stretch out, so that our universe might float
observational evidence, much of it from that same leftover within a higher-dimensional space the way a sheet of paper
radiation that helped confirm the original Big Bang theory. might float through a three-dimensional room.
Over recent decades, scientists have studied this cosmic One of the inventors of this scenario, Paul Steinhardt
microwave background in ever-finer detail from ground- (Princeton University), says that in the past decade he and
based detectors and from the perch of a series of increasingly his collaborators have streamlined the bouncing universe
complex satellites. idea so that they no longer need the collision or the extra
According to the theory, if inflation happened, then tiny dimensions. All that’s required is an existing universe, which
density bumps in the early universe — inevitable thanks to contracts slowly until it ‘bounces’ and starts expanding. This,
the laws of quantum mechanics — would have grown large he says, could happen once or in cycles.
during the growth spurt and left an imprint of hot and cold The contraction of an existing universe can solve all the
spots in the cosmic microwave background. That imprint puzzles that inflation fixes, Steinhardt argues. It smooths out
would survive as inflation ended and the hot Big Bang variations and gives rise to the same large-scale uniformity
started, with the denser regions seeding the formation of and cosmic structure, all without requiring any more
galaxies. So far, observations show a pattern of hot and cold assumptions than inflation does. The cause of the contraction
spots that matches those predictions. isn’t well understood, but neither is the cause of inflation.
Still, other theorists found that they could explain these And the bouncing scenario has the advantage of not
same observations with a very different scenario — a series predicting an infinite number of universes, he adds.
of ‘bouncing’ phases of contraction and expansion. Back in Caltech’s Sean Carroll favours another possible prequel
2001, a collaboration of physicists and cosmologists proposed to the Big Bang. He came to thinking about the origin of the
universe while trying to answer a question about everyday
life: Why do we have an apparent arrow of time? The laws of
ENTROPY physics are symmetrical forwards and backwards, and yet, we
We usually shorthand the concept of entropy to ‘disorder’ or can stir milk into coffee and scramble eggs, but can’t un-stir
‘randomness’. More specifically, it’s related to the number or unscramble them. Time streams along indifferently into
of microscopic ways that a macroscopic system can be in the future, toward disorder, death and decay.
a particular state — the higher the number, the greater the As Carroll explains in his 2010 book, From Eternity to
entropy. For example, a shiny new car has a relatively small Here, scientists of the 1800s finally made some serious
number of ways that its molecules can be arranged such headway on this ancient problem when they discovered the
that the car still qualifies as shiny and new. But there’s a far second law of thermodynamics. A property called entropy,
greater number of ways that the car can look old — myriad which is something like disorder, increases relentlessly and
possibilities for dents, rust spots and so forth. The ‘old’ state irreversibly, even if temporary pockets of order can crop up
thus has a higher entropy than the ‘new’ state. here and there.

COSMIC REVERIES
If entropy has been increasing for all time, then it must bounds of experiment — the paradoxes of the Big Bang
have been very low at the origin of the universe. Things don’t as originally formulated forced them to enter seemingly
naturally acquire low entropy, Carroll says. He realised that unobservable realms.
neither the Big Bang nor inflation offered an explanation. So New hope for empiricism came in 2014, when it appeared
he had to consider what came even earlier. that a telescope called BICEP2, located at the South Pole, had
Since the natural state of things is high entropy, he picked up a polarisation pattern in the cosmic microwaves.
wondered if a universe could be born from the highest- This pattern would have ruled out the collision theory and
entropy-possible state of things. While it might seem favored some versions of inflation over others. But it turned
counterintuitive, theories of quantum gravity point to empty out the observers had misinterpreted their signal — what they
space (with its formless vacuum energy) as the ultimate and saw had originated from mundane dust in our own galaxy.
final equilibrium state of a once lively universe. That’s because Then, in early September 2018, Xingang Chen, Avi Loeb
empty space has more ways to be disorderly than a universe and Zhong-Zhi Xianyu (Harvard), announced another possible
with structure, or even one filled with a dense, soup-like test: a faint signal that could rule out either all the inflation-
matter (see ‘Entropy,’ facing page). Such a place would be very based scenarios or the contraction-then-bounce one.
boring, most of the time. But the uncertainty principle of The test rests on the premise that there was a fraction
quantum mechanics allows interesting things to happen. of a second during which the space that would become our
Just as radioactive elements emit particles in a random universe existed before it became a hot, dense soup of particles
way, Carroll says, there’s a probability that this empty — the so-called hot Big Bang phase. At this stage, space was
space can give birth to the occasional baby universe. Such a permeated by high-energy fields that oscillated at regular time
newborn universe can pinch off to form a new and separate intervals. The oscillations should have left different patterns
region of space and time. This doesn’t violate the second law, in the density variations that gave rise to cosmic structure,
he says. “The entropy of the baby universe is small, but it’s a depending on whether space was expanding exponentially,
X B MODES If inflation happened,

then the resulting ripples in
spacetime should have left
polarisation patterns called B
modes (three examples shown) in
the cosmic microwave background.
Conversely, a contraction and
bounce would not leave such
patterns.
new addition to the entropy of the universe as a whole, which as in inflation, or contracting. And this, Chen says, might
is therefore still increasing.” be observed in the hot and cold regions of the microwave
Others conjecture different mechanisms for generating background, or in the distribution of galaxies across the sky.
an arrow of time — increasing complexity, for example, or He and his colleagues posted the idea on arXiv.org, a site where
gravity. These ideas assume that time is what’s called an not-yet-published scientific papers go up for public review.
emergent property — existing only under certain conditions, If cosmologists can determine whether in this instant
just as temperature and pressure as we experience them don’t space was contracting or expanding, the result will point
exist independent of matter. But some, like physicist Lee to vastly different pictures of a much larger, or even
Smolin (Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, Canada), infinite, pre-existing physical reality. Thus, although these
argue that time is a fundamental facet of reality that cosmological theories might seem fanciful and far removed
transcends the laws of physics. from observations, many scientists are not content to let
them stay that way. As long as people keep thinking of tests
Looking for fingerprints that might work, these scenarios remain tethered to the great
Inventing interesting, plausible theories, however, has expansion of scientific knowledge.
become a lot easier than testing them with observations.
A N TO N Y L E WIS
The abundance of untested ideas has led to accusations FAYE FLAM is a columnist for Bloomberg Opinion. She
that cosmology has left the path of empirical science. But writes on science, medicine and the environment. Find more
cosmologists aver that they didn’t set out to transgress the about her work at fayeflamwriter.com.

PIONEER by Gabriella Bernardi
The world’s first female
C
Who was the first woman
paid to study the stars? E
CAROLINE HERSCHEL is probably the most famous with a pendulum. From Galileo
female astronomer of the early modern era. In 1772, her h onwards, the pendulum had
celebrated brother William, discoverer of Uranus, brou ught been used in Europe for
her to England, where she helped him in his activities, timekeeping. Astronomers
first as a singer and then as an astronomer. Although tthis usually used a seconds
little woman (a disease in her youth limited her growt h to pendulum, which had a period
about 4 feet 3 inches) had to work under the supervision of two seconds (one second
of her renowned brother, she was gradually able to purrsue
D peer swing). While tracking the
an independent astronomical career sprinkled with sevveral penddulum’s motion was probably a
important successes. She discovered 14 deep sky objectts, game for
f Christine, it was actually a
including galaxies and open clusters that William later B help to
o her family. She was the first
included in his catalogue, as well as eight comets; the first
fi daughter of two astronomers, and at
of these comets, discovered on the night of August 1, 1786,
1 the age of 10 she, toget her with her brother and sister,
is now designated C/1786 P1 Herschel. was instructed in the family business.
In the Herschel era, the discovery of a comet was A Christine’s mother, M
Maria Margarethe Winkelmann,
reputed to be so important that it led to another historrical gave birth to her in 16966 in Guben, Germany. Christine
milestone. In the year following Caroline’s first comet had been preceded by a brother,
b Christfried, in 1694,
discovery, King George III recognised her astronomicall and would be followed b by a sister, Margaretha, in 1703.
work (as an assistant to her brother) and assigned her a (There were seven childrren in the family, but we only
salary of 50 pounds per year. This made Caroline Herschel have information about Christine, Christfried and
the first salaried woman astronomer, at least in moderrn Margaretha.) Their fatheer, Gottfried Kirch, was one of the
SIL AS ELLSWORTH COLEM A N, THE ELEMENTS OF PHYSICS (19 0 6) / PUBLIC DO M AIN

history. Almost 50 years later, near the end of her life, she most famous German astronomers of the 18th century. He
and Mary Somerville became the first female memberss of was famous for the first discovery of a comet made with a
the Royal Astronomical Society. telescope, in 1680, and ffor the detection of the variability
Given the enormous difficulties that women faced at a
the time, Herschel built an impressive career, and her W THE PENDULUM GAME E Little is known about the exact
importance should not be underestimated, even if it timing mechanism used in tthe Kirch household, but the clock was
probably a seconds pendulum with an escapement anchor, like
turns out that she was not the first professional woman n
the one shown here (E). A thhread and nut on the bottom of the
astronomer. In fact, primacy should be awarded to another pendulum bob allowed the e user to adjust the rate of the clock. The
European astronomer. In 1787 Caroline Herschel pendulum rod passed through a fork (A) and transferred its
became the first woman in the United Kingdom to be motion to an upper rod (B), which turned on a horizontal
paid as an astronomer, but the second in the world. axis (C). The curv
ved escapement anchor was attached
to the axis, and when the pendulum was in motion,
The honour of first had already been earned by the
the teeth of the escapement wheel (D) connected with
German observer, Christine Kirch. the anchor’s limbs. This press of tooth-on-anchor
was transmitted to the pendulum to reduce the angle
The family tree of its motion, which meant that it required less energy
Anecdotal evidence tells us that in her childhood, to swing. The Kirch h children made a game of counting
pendulum swings to ke eep track of time while observing.
Christine used to mark the time, or time intervals,

of Chi Cygni, one of three variable stars known at the time. And Gottfried Kirch was awarded the important appointment
with Winkelmann’s assistance, he managed the Observatory of of Kalenderpatent eight years after his marriage to
the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin. Winkelmann, his second wife. Despite the difference in age
So, Christine belonged to a notable yet somewhat peculiar (Winkelmann was the younger by 30 years), their shared
family. Her mother was born in Panitzsch, Saxony, in 1670 to a passion for astronomy nurtured family activity in this field.
Lutheran pastor who believed in equal education for both sexes It was common at the time for women trained in the sciences
and who made a personal effort to make sure his daughter to marry a scientist in order to continue her own work. After
received comprehensive instruction. He encouraged her the wedding, Gottfried directed Winkelmann-Kirch’s studies
interest in astronomy from a very young age, and later she had much as he had done for his three sisters. Between 1700
the opportunity to study with and, finally, become an assistant and 1710, the year of Gottfried’s death, their household,
to, the peasant astronomer Christoph Arnold of Sommerfeld. including apprentices, domestic help, friends, and eventually
Arnold worked in Leipzig, where he observed the Great Comet children, held the monopoly on Prussian calendars.
of 1686 with Gottfried Kirch. Winkelmann met Kirch, who After Gottfried’s death, Winkelmann-Kirch carried on
would soon become her husband, while she was acting as with her observations in spite of various obstacles. Despite
Arnold’s observing assistant. the fact her husband held the position of Kalenderpatent,
Gottfried Kirch was born during the Thirty Years’ War, the she had always taken care of the preparation of the
son of a tailor. He lived a quite restless childhood and probably calendar. However, the Academy of Sciences denied her
didn’t get a degree, but he had good academic contacts. For request when she asked that she and her son be appointed
example, Erhard Weigel, professor of mathematics at the assistant astronomers in charge of producing calendars.
University of Jena from 1653 to 1699, recommended him Despite the open support of its president, the physicist
to the Polish astronomer Johannes Hevelius. Thanks to this and philosopher Gottfried Leibniz, the Academy wished
endorsement, Kirch worked in Danzig, at Hevelius’s well- to avoid the precedent of a woman at a public institution,
equipped private observatory, for a short time in 1674. Before and rejected her application. Ironically, it was nonetheless
reaching tenure as full astronomer in Berlin in 1700, Kirch necessary to ask her to continue the same work in an
supported himself with teaching and the production of unofficial capacity.
books of observations and calculations, but also through the In October 1712 Winkelmann-Kirch was admitted as an
preparation of calendars. The latter is a key point in this story. astronomer to the private observatory of Baron Bernhard
Friedrich von Krosigk in Berlin, where she and Gottfried
Kalenderpatent had worked while the Academy observatory was under
Calendar production was a major responsibility for
astronomers in the late 17th to early 18th century. In addition T ROYAL COMMAND Frederick III, Prince-elector of Brandenburg,
created the official post of Kalenderpatent with this edict, issued on
to including information about feast days (religious holidays),
May 10, 1700. The edict, which served as the founding charter for the
calendars were replete with information on celestial objects, Electoral Brandenburg Society of Sciences (soon to be renamed the
including lunar phases and positions of major stars and Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences), also called for the construction
planets. Gottfried Kirch was the widest-read calendar maker of an astronomical observatory.
of his generation, publishing up to 13 calendars at a time,
including eventually the official state calendar.
The task of producing the state calendar was tied to an
appointment called a Kalenderpatent, a position that had
been expressly created by Frederick III, Prince-elector of
Brandenburg, with an edict issued on May 10, 1700. The act
followed the decision of German Protestant states to introduce
a new and improved calendar beginning in 1700; the calendar,
which was to be calculated by qualified astronomers, would be
identical in practice to the Catholic Gregorian calendar, with
the exception of the date of Easter. This edict thus introduced
a monopoly for calendar production in the Electorate of
Brandenburg, and later in Prussia, and allowed for the
imposition of a ‘calendar tax,’ the proceeds of which were used
to pay the astronomers and other members the Royal Prussian
Academy of Sciences in Berlin, which was founded on July
PUBLIC DOMAIN
11th of the same year. Not coincidentally, Frederick III also

promised the creation of an observatory in Berlin, which was
then inaugurated on January 19, 1711.
PIONEER
S OBSERVING ON HIGH Designed by architect Martin Grünberg, the five-story

SFURTHER DEVELOPMENTS The Berlin Observatory tower of the Berlin Observatory was erected over the north wing of the royal stables.
was renovated under Johann Bode. The top two stories The second floor of the tower was used by the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences
of the tower were combined and given over to observing. for its meetings, while the third floor was reserved for observing activities. Gottfried
The observatory remained in use until the new Berlin Kirch never had a chance to work at the new observatory, as he died six months
Observatory was constructed in the 1830s. before its formal dedication.
DR AWING: JOHANN G A BRIEL DOPPELMAYR, ATL AS COELESTIS (1742) / PUBLIC DO M AIN; M A P: J. M. F. SCHMIDT, HISTOR ISCHER ATL AS VON BER LIN (1835) / PUBLIC DO M AIN
S OUTSIDE THE WALLS The Berlin Observatory was constructed at the very edge of the city on what is known today as Dorotheenstrasse in the
Mitte district. Marked here in orange, the region was colloquially referred to as ‘the farmyard’ (Am Bauhof) or ‘the back alley’ (Hinter Gasse) in the
early 1700s. The observatory was added to the block of royal stables, highlighted here in blue, which had been built between 1677 and 1688.

construction. Here, she observed daily as ‘master’ astronomer Coming into her own
and trained Christine and Christfried as assistants. She From a very young age and for most of her life, Christine
published planetary and lunar ephemerides under her worked in the shadow of her father, mother and then older
own name and continued her work on the preparation of brother and other assistants. Her training and education
calendars for the cities of Wrocław (the German Breslau), started in childhood, when she helped her family with the
Nuremberg and Dresden, as well as for Hungary. When ‘pendulum game’; later she was introduced to the production
the Baron died in 1714, she moved to Danzig to reorganise of calendars. She began by helping Winkelmann-Kirch,
and use the observatory of the well-known (but deceased) and then Christfried, making observations and doing
astronomer Johannes Hevelius. calculations for planetary ephemerides, despite not receiving
In 1716 Winkelmann-Kirch was invited to become the a regular salary. (Margarethe also worked at the observatory
astronomer at the court of the Tsar of Russia, Peter the Great, throughout her life, recording observations of Comet 1743
but she declined the offer so she could return to the Berlin C1, for example; however, less is known about her.) But in
Observatory, where Christfried had been appointed observer. 1740 the tide began to turn. Christine started receiving
Since the Academy was concerned about Christfried’s occasional (and small) donations from the Academy. But
qualifications (he was allegedly weak in astronomical theory), why? Simply because Christfried had died of a heart attack on
having Winkelmann-Kirch return to the observatory as an March 9 of that year. With Winkelmann-Kirch 20 years gone,
unofficial assistant was a necessity. However, when guests and the Academy deprived of its main astronomer, the state
visited the observatory, Winkelmann-Kirch was to make became more dependent on the professional help of Christine
herself scarce (in fact, she was reprimanded by the Academy for producing calendars.
for engaging with visitors and being too visible on public And the production of calendars was more important
occasions). So, as precious as she was to Christfried’s work, than ever. Between 1740 and 1742, Frederick the Great, King
she was required to fade into the background. of Prussia, conquered the populous province of Silesia, a
Winkelmann-Kirch was forced out of the observatory region of Central Europe that today belongs almost entirely
(though she was expected to continue to provide her son to Poland. This was good news for the Academy in Berlin: It
meals) in 1717, and died in 1720 at the age of 50. It was then could significantly increase its income, which depended on its
her daughters Christine and Margaretha, or the “Kirchin,” monopoly on the calendars of Prussia. This should have been
began to serve as shadow assistants to their brother. For good news for Christine as well, as she became responsible
years, they helped with observations, doing the astronomical for preparation of the Silesian calendar. However, her work
calculations for planetary ephemerides, and compiling the apparently wasn’t deemed important enough to grant her
annual calendars issued by the Academy. more than ‘pocket money’ from the prestigious institution.
During this period, the structure of the work at the Eventually, her hard work paid off, however. At the age
Observatory remained essentially the same as it had been of 77, she was given an honour equivalent to ‘Emeritus’
under Gottfried Kirch. In addition to the preparation of the by the Academy, which expressed its explicit gratitude for
calendar, celestial objects were tracked for scientific and her calendar work in a letter. Around this same time, she
astrological purposes, with observations recorded in both introduced the astronomer Johann Bode both to calendar
communal and personal diaries. Observing in shifts, the making and to the scientific community of Berlin. The first
family ensured that the night sky was under continual study. edition of the almanac Berliner Astronomische Jahrbuch,
The house logs include notes on observations made during the produced by Bode with Christine’s help, appeared in 1774
transit of Mercury in November 1723, for instance, as well as (with data for 1776). In 1776 the Academy finally assigned
those made during the total solar eclipse of May 1733. And, Christine a salary of 400 thalers (the German silver coin).
following a technique first suggested by Galileo a century The salary came without a binding obligation to produce
before and put in practice by Giovanni Domenico Cassini in calendars or observe; rather, it was recompense — an obvious
France, the differences in longitude between Berlin, Paris and back payment — for her many years of hard work. In this
St Petersburg were determined using the eclipses of Jupiter’s way, Christine Kirch preceded by 11 years the record of her
LEOPOLD LUDWIG M ÜLLER (1824) / PUBLIC D OM AIN
satellites and then inscribed in the family diary. colleague Caroline Herschel as the first female professional
Christfried was admitted as a foreign member to the astronomer.
French Academy of Sciences in 1723 and promoted from
the position of observer to that of regular astronomer at the GABRIELLA BERNARDI holds degrees in Physics and
Berlin Observatory in 1728. After his death he was elected Scientific Communication. After working on the Rosetta
to the Royal Society of London. The “Kirchin,” however, in mission at Alenia Spazio in Turin, she decided to devote her
spite of several decades’ unceasing work as assistants, like energies to science, and especially astronomy. She is currently
their mother, continued to miss official recognition until a freelance journalist and science writer with two books to her
Christine, near the end of her career, finally received some credit, one about women astronomers of the past and one on
much-deserved credit. Giovanni Domenico Cassini.
SPACE BASE by Jonathan Nally
Adelaide set for lift-off

South Australia becomes home to the new Australian Space Agency.
fter a hard-fought campaign by South Australian Premier, Steven “Australia’s science, research and
A various state capitals, Adelaide has

emerged victorious in the race to
become home to Australia’s new official
Marshall, said the investment would
drive entrepreneurship and innovation.
“South Australia is the ideal location
technology sectors are key in improving
the competitiveness of Australian
businesses… We are committed to
space agency. Announcing the decision for the Australian Space Agency with a growing Australia’s space sector, and
on December 12, Prime Minister Scott range of local space industry businesses our government is also investing
Morrison said that “Australia’s space already established here as well as $260 million to develop world leading
industry is set to hit new heights”. a rapidly growing defence industry satellite capabilities, and to significantly
“This Agency is going to open doors sector,” the Premier said. “Establishing increase GPS accuracy in our cities and
for local businesses and Australian the headquarters of the Australian regional areas.”
access to the US$345 billion global Space Agency in South Australia will Inaugural head of the Agency, Dr
space industry,” the Prime Minister launch our space and defence sectors to Megan Clarke, said that the new base
said. “Our government’s $41 million the next level.” in Adelaide will provide “an exciting
investment into the Agency will act as a Federal Minister for Industry, Science location for the Agency to deliver on
launching pad to triple Australia’s space and Technology, Karen Andrews, said our mandate to transform and grow
economy to $12 billion and create up to Adelaide was selected to host the Agency the Australian space industry to inspire
20,000 jobs by 2030.” after putting forward the strongest case. and improve the lives of all Australians
The Australian Space Agency will be “South Australia is already home — underpinned by strong national and
located at the tech hub at Lot Fourteen to more than 60 organisations and international engagement”.
ESA /ATG MEDIAL A B
on the old Royal Adelaide Hospital site. 800 employees in the space sector and “We’re engaging with companies
Set to open by mid-2019, the space this decision builds on the very strong nationwide, and have already signed
headquarters will employ 20 full-time technology and defence presence in the Strategic Statements of Intent and
equivalent staff. state,” Minister Andrews said. Cooperation with three industry

collect data from myriad sensors on the ground.
“We have an amazing space culture here: the South
Australian Space Innovation Centre (SASIC) has been
an excellent hub for the more than 70 space-related
organisations here, and has been a huge advocate for the work
we’ve been doing — without them we wouldn’t have been able
to launch four satellites in just four weeks!” she said.
In other space news, CSIRO has signed an agreement with
the European Space Agency (ESA) to take over maintenance
and operational support for ESA’s space tracking station at
New Norcia, 130 kilometres north of Perth. New Norcia
provides tracking, communication and data download
services for ESA’s deep space missions, as well as support for
other space agencies under resource-sharing agreements.
“The facility at New Norcia has been in operation
since 2003 and now, for the first time, an Australian
organisation will provide critical maintenance and
operational support at the station,” Minister Andrews said.
“Through its management of NASA’s Canberra Deep Space
Communication Complex, as well as Australia’s leading radio
astronomy facilities, CSIRO has rich experience operating
large, complex infrastructure for spacecraft tracking and
astronomy research.”
S Fleet Space Technologies’ CEO, Flavia Tata Nardini, holding a model

of one of Fleet’s satellites.
partners, all with investments in South Australia, including

Airbus, Sitael and Nova Systems,” she said. “Fleet Space
Technologies and Myriota, both South-Australian start-ups,
have launched satellites and a payload that can help our
farmers and other industries use space to monitor sensor
networks to improve the productivity of their businesses.”
Dr Clarke said that prior to the announcement there had
been five months of activity such as releasing the Agency’s
charter, supporting the passage of legislation and the
signing of memoranda of understanding with international
counterparts. She added that the Agency will continue to
engage with stakeholders around the nation to “discuss how
we can collectively grow our space industry”.
Dr Clarke said that “we’re already getting the support from
around the world and from industry. We’ve got a pipeline
over the next three years of over a billion [dollars] of capital
being invested into the space industry. Half a billion of that
is inbound capital coming in from industry and from other
space agencies around the world.”
FLEE T SPACE TECHNOLOGIES
Flavia Tata Nardini, CEO and co-founder of Fleet Space

Technologies, said she is excited that South Australia has
been selected as the home of the Australian Space Agency.
Fleet Space Technologies is deploying a constellation of
small satellites that will provide an Internet of Things
communications network in the sky, which will connect and
BINOCULAR HIGHLIGHT by Mathew Wedel
USING THE
χ
STAR CHART
TAURUS
5° bi no
cu
l ar WHEN
72 υ Late January 1 a.m.
v ie
τ
w
Early February Midnight
g
κ 12
κ
NE
56
HD 28226 Late February 11 p.m.
51
Early March 10 p.m.
HD 27742 ω2
HD 27639 / HD 27640
These are daylight saving times.
ε Subtract one hour if daylight
saving is not applicable.
Hyades
HOW: Go outside within an hour
α
Aldebaran or so of a time listed above. Hold
γ
the map out in front of you and
turn it around so the label for the
VIRGO
direction you’re facing (such as
west or northeast) is right-side up.
The curved edge represents the
Between the clusters horizon, and the stars above it on
γ
the map now match the stars in
front of you in the sky. The centre
Facing East
I P
assume that like most binocular observers, you’ve probably looked
I
of the map is the zenith, the point
L
at the Pleiades and Hyades many times in recent months. I often in the sky directly overhead.
C
E
zip between the two nearby clusters to compare them. In doing so,
for a long time I passed over a rich and beautiful star field that lies FOR EXAMPLE: Turn the
Spica
14
α
between them.
h
map around so the label “Facing
About 5° north of the Hyades, a scattering of 4th- to 6th-magnitude NE” is right-side up. About halfway
stars is spread southwest to northeast over about 4°. Many of the stars from there to the map’s centre is
fall into pairs that are coincidentally aligned southwest to northeast as the bright star Procyon. Go out
well. Collectively they make an elongated dagger shape, like a swordfish and look northeast halfway from
or a vintage rocket ship. Omega2 (ω) Tauri forms the nose, 51 and 56 horizontal to straight up.
Tauri constitute the northern border, and HD 27639 and HD 27742
π
There’s Procyon!
form the southern edge. From HD 27742, a nice chain of faint stars
C
runs north to Kappa1 (κ) and Kappa2 Tauri. With a separation of NOTE: The map is plotted for
about 345″, Kappa Tauri makes a fine binocular double. From Kappa, 35° south latitude (for example,
look for a tall shark tail formed by Upsilon (υ) Tauri and 72 Tauri to the Sydney, Buenos Aires, Cape
north, and HD 28226 to the south. Town). If you’re far north of there,
Most of these are main sequence and subgiant stars that lie stars in the northern part of the
between 100 and 500 light-years away. Like the members of the sky will be higher and stars in the
Hyades and Pleiades, they’re our neighbours in the Orion Spur of south lower. Far south of 35° the
the Milky Way. The exception is HD 27639, an M-class red giant that reverse is true.
Fa
lies 2,300 light-years away. HD 27639 forms a tight binary with HD

cin
27640. Their separation is only 1.9″, which makes them a challenge

even for telescopes. If you revisit this area with a scope, have a close –1
look at that star chain between HD 27742 and Kappa Tauri, and see ONLINE 0
if you can spot the 11th-magnitude star that sits exactly halfway You can get a real-time sky chart
1
between Kappa1 and Kappa2 Tauri. for your location at
2
skychart.skyandtelescope.com/
3 Star
■ MATT WEDEL wonders what else he’s missed in the areas near his skychart.php
4 magnitudes
favourite objects.

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U
CHAMA
S
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η
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r
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α D ll β
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47 T H
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Double star
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Diffuse nebula
–60° Globular cluster
Planetary nebula
Facing South
UNDER THE STARS by Fred Schaaf
The second star

The second brightest star in our skies
is a very intriguing object.
SOUTHERN STAR Canopus is the bright star to the

left of the Large Magellanic Cloud. More luminous
Sirius is in the top left-hand corner of the image.
his month’s topic is a star that Canopus is a full 36° farther south with an absolute magnitude of –5.7
T that shines more than half

a magnitude brighter than
Arcturus. It’s even well within a
than Sirius, but it’s only 5¼° farther
west. Canopus comes to its 9:00pm
culmination (arrival on the sky’s
and a luminosity of 15,000 times that
of the Sun. It’s probably a rare F-type
supergiant (the spectrum is usually
magnitude of matching the peerlessly central meridian) in mid-February, given as F0Ib; but note that some
bright Sirius. just five days ahead of Sirius. From the sources classify it as F0II and A9II,
But that only scratches the surface of rather populous 35°S line of latitude placing it in the bright giant category).
what’s unusual and even unique about on Earth (which passes near Sydney, Based on its luminosity, its mass is
this particular object. We’re talking Buenos Aires and Cape Town) Sirius estimated to be 8 to 10 times that of
about potentially the closest supergiant shines about 20° north of the zenith the Sun, which is borderline for it to go
to us; the only very bright star named and Canopus about 20° south of the supernova. Its ultimate fate may be to
after a possibly historic figure; the only zenith in February. What a wonderful end up like Sirius B: a more massive-
object beyond our Solar System that our opportunity for comparison. than-average — and possibly even a rare
classic interplanetary spacecraft used Our cousins at mid-northern neon-oxygen — white dwarf.
for navigational guidance; and the only latitudes can’t make the direct It’s only fitting that the ‘second star’
star we know that has four separate comparison between Sirius and gets a second column. So in our next
runs (three in our distant past, one in Canopus because the latter is either we’ll discuss the colour of Canopus,
our distant future) as the brightest star forever below their horizon or low in the origin of its name, the reason for it
in Earth’s night sky. their southern sky where atmospheric being the unique navigational star for
The star I’m talking about, of course, extinction is great. From places like interplanetary spacecraft — and more.
G. HÜDEPOHL (ATACA MAPHOTO.COM)/ESO
is Canopus. southern Florida and southernmost And we’ll also cover the remnants of
In our skies, perhaps Canopus should Texas, Canopus climbs no higher than Canopus’s original constellation, Argo.
be called ‘the second star’. I say this, about 10° or 12° — where even on a
of course, because Canopus is second very clear night it’s dimmed by about FRED SCHAAF first learned about the
only to Sirius in apparent brightness. a magnitude and therefore looks only phenomena of atmospheric optics from
This is quite noticeable to us southern about as bright as Procyon. the Dover Publications edition of Marcel
observers because the two stars are Canopus is believed to lie about Minnaert’s classic The Nature of Light
fairly close together in the sky. It’s true 310 light-years from Earth and shines and Color in the Open Air.

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SUN, MOON & PLANETS by Jonathan Nally
Venus and Saturn meet

in the morning
The planetary duo will dance among the stars in the pre-dawn sky.
ars is our only easy-to-see is dominating the morning sky to the the end of March, with the Pleiades star
M evening planet during February

and March, while the morning
sky will be the domain of Venus, Jupiter
east at the moment — shining brightly,
it will be impossible to miss. Watch
for some close approaches with some
cluster in Taurus. The Uranus meet up
will be easily visible in the field of view
of typical binoculars. If you can get a
and Saturn — all of them in a line — other celestial bodies. On February 1 view through a telescope, even better:
and, at the end of March, Mercury. the thin crescent Moon and Venus will have a look at the colour difference of
Starting with Mercury (about be very close together and will make for the two planets — Mars being a ruddy
magnitude –1 and 5.5˝ wide, mid- quite a spectacular sight. Then, Saturn sort of colour, while most people say
February), the tiny planet hugs the and Venus will be close from February the Uranus looks greenish or sort of
western evening horizon during 17 to 20 — they’ll be closest on the aquamarine. Uranus has a smaller
February and will be very hard to spot, 19th at about 1° separation, forming a apparent diameter than Mars, while the
rising only a few degrees into the sky. marvellous sight for early risers. Then Red Planet itself appears much smaller
The first half of March won’t be any there’ll be another close get together now than it did when it made its close
better as the planet heads for inferior with the crescent Moon on March 3. approach to Earth last year.
conjunction (between Earth and the Mars (1.3, 5˝ at the end of February) Jupiter (–2.0, 36˝ at the start
Sun) on the 15th. Thereafter it will is our evening planet at the moment, of March) is the second-brightest
reappear above the eastern pre-dawn in the north-east after sunset. Look for luminary in the eastern morning sky,
horizon in the last week of March, the Moon nearby on February 10 and higher above the horizon than, and
followed by a period of good observing March 11, and for two special meetings about two magnitudes fainter than,
conditions during April. — with Uranus on February 12 and 13 Venus. It’s always fun to point Jupiter
Venus (–4.2, 17.2˝ mid-February) (they’ll be about 1° apart) and then, at out to non-astronomers, particularly
S Left: Three planets gather in the morning sky. Middle: Mars is in the evening sky. Right: Venus and Saturn swap places.

by Con Stoitsis METEORS
if you can give them a view through

binoculars (can they spot the Galilean
moons?) or a telescope (cloud bands
anyone?). And the viewing will only
Alpha points the way
get better for the King of the Planets An easy-to-see shower for February.
as the months pass, and it is heading
toward opposition on June 11. In the
meantime, take a look for the Moon great way to start 2019 is to most of the night clear for observing
nearby on February 28 and March 27.
Saturn (0.6, 15.5˝), heading for
opposition on July 10, begins February
A catch the Alpha Centaurids. This
shower can produce very bright
meteors, the occasional fireball and
in dark skies. The radiant, near the
‘Pointer’ star Alpha Centauri of course,
is almost circumpolar at this time of
low in the east as the dawn glow begins persistent trains (in some cases lasting year, and is very well placed from late
to make its presence felt. The Ringed for minutes), but numbers are usually evening onwards.
Planet will rise earlier each morning low. In 1974 and 1980, rates as high as
as the weeks pass, until it does so at 30 meteors per hour were recorded, but ■ CON STOITSIS is director of the
around midnight by the end of March for 2019 the predicted zenithal hourly Astronomical Society of Victoria’s comet
(depending upon your daylight savings rate is anywhere between 6 and 25. and meteor sections. Follow him on
status). As mentioned above, Saturn In previous years many observers have Twitter @vivstoitsis
and Venus will be close together from reported bright meteors, and
February 17 to 20. And look for the half a dozen fireballs were
Moon close by on February 2–3 and also reported in the days
March 2. The telescopic view will reveal before and after peak. The
the magnificence of the planet’s rings, average magnitude is 1.7, and
35˝ wide and tilted at 24 degrees. colours are mixed (although
Our planet will reach the (southern) yellow and orange are
autumnal equinox on March 21. On common). Alpha Centaurid
this day, the hours of daylight and meteoroids enter the
night-time are effectively equal, and atmosphere at a speed of 56
that means we’re officially heading kilometres per second, which
towards winter and longer, darker makes them of medium
nights for stargazing. speed as these things go.
Looking further ahead to April, we The Alpha Centaurids
can expect better viewing conditions are active from January 28
for Mercury (as noted above), a lunar to February 21, with the
occultation of Saturn (with several maximum this year falling
more to come later in the year) and lots on February 8. On this
of conjunctions between planets and date there will be a waxing
the Moon. gibbous Moon, leaving
SKY PHENOMENA LUNAR PHENOMENA

FEBRUARY MARCH FEBRUARY MARCH
1 Venus and Moon very close 2 Saturn 0.5° south of Moon New Moon …… 4th, 21.04 UT New Moon …… 6th, 16.04 UT
2 Saturn 6° south of Moon 3 Venus 1° north of Moon First Quarter …… 12th, 22.26 UT First Quarter …… 14th, 10.27 UT
10 Mars 8° north of Moon 10 Uranus 4° north of Moon Full Moon …… 19th, 15.53 UT Full Moon …… 21st, 01.43 UT
10 Uranus 9° north of Moon 11 Mars 6° north of Moon Last Quarter …… 26th, 11.28 UT Last Quarter …… 28th, 04.10 UT
14 Uranus 1° south of Mars 13 Aldebaran 2° south of Moon Apogee …… 5th, 09h UT, 406,555 km Apogee …… 4th, 11h UT, 406,391 km
14 Aldebaran 1.5° south of Moon 15 Mercuy at inferior conjunction Perigee …… 19th, 09h UT, 356,761 km Perigee …… 19, 20h UT, 359,377 km
17 Pollux 7° north of Moon 16 Pollus 7° north of Moon
18 Saturn 1° south of Venus 19 Regulus 8° south of Moon
19 Regulus 3° south of Moon 21 Equinox
26 Antares 8° south of Moon 22 Spica 8° south of Moon
27 Mercury, greatest elong. (18° east) 26 Antares 9° south of Moon
27 Jupiter 2° south of Moon 27 Jupiter 5° south of Moon
29 Saturn 5° east of Moon
COMETS by David Seargent
Comet C/2011 W3 (Lovejoy),

a sungrazer, was discovered
by Aussie Terry Lovejoy on
November 27, 2011. This
image was taken less than
four weeks later, on December
22, at the European Southern
Observatory’s Paranal site.
Mysteries of the sungrazers

Historical records are helping to overcome mistaken cometary identities.
lthough February and March well-known astronomer David Gill who chronicle for 214 BC — ironically, a
A 2019 do not hold any promise

for comets within the visual
range of small telescopes (at the time
observed it from South Africa.
Following extensive investigations
of this fascinating group of comets
rather obscure object!
In addition to the well-established
February/March sungrazers mentioned
of writing), these months have in times by Professor Z. Sekanina, it is now above, a bright comet observed in
past seen some of the brightest comets thought that both of these 19th century March 1668 and another in late
ever recorded — members of (or, in comets — together with the majority February and early March of 1702 may
some instances, suspected members of) of the myriad tiny sungrazers found also have belonged to the group.
the famous Kreutz group of sungrazing in images from the SOHO space-based
objects. solar observatory since the mid-1990s Tales from the sea
Long ago, in February 1106, a comet — were fragments of the comet of 1106 Then there is the mysterious account
blazed in full daylight “one foot and following a series of (unobserved) of a long-tailed comet in the evening
a half” from the Sun and a few days disruptions after its very close skies of February 1666. The story behind
later extended a magnificent tail across encounter with the Sun. this report is interesting. It comes
the sky. Nearer our own time, a great Several other large members of the from Robert Knox, a sea captain, who,
Kreutz sungrazer again became visible group have been seen at various times of together with his father of the same
in full daylight during the closing the year, the most recent having been the name, ran aground in Ceylon (Sri
days of February 1843 and, during the spectacular ‘Christmas Comet’ C/2011 Lanka) on November 19, 1659 and were
following month, its brilliant tail of W3 (Lovejoy) discovered by Aussie Terry taken captive by the King of Kandy
up to 50 degrees in length graced the Lovejoy, and of which many readers will to be held at the monarch’s pleasure
evening skies. Then, in February 1880, no doubt have fond memories. They are (apparently indefinitely). The captives
yet another great comet (following an all thought to have originated with the were, however, allowed considerable
ESO/GUILL AU ME BL A NCH A RD
orbit almost identical to that of 1843) disruption of a large comet sometime freedom and, after 19 years, Knox and
became visible after sunset. Although in the past, although not all of them one of the captured members of the
not as brilliant as the 1843 one, C/1880 relate directly to the one seen in 1106. crew escaped, arriving back in England
C1 (as it is now officially known) seems Sekanina’s research suggests that the in 1680 (Knox senior having died some
to have possessed an even longer tail — progenitor of the group might have been years earlier). Back in England, Knox
some 75 degrees long according to the a comet noted briefly in a single Chinese set about writing of his adventures and

by Alan Plummer VARIABLE STARS
it was in the pages of this book that

he describes “a comet or stream in the
West, the head end under the Horizon”
and compared its appearance with that
The dog and
Spot HL Canis Majoris
of December 1680. The latter was a
sungrazer, and displayed the typical
appearance of a sungrazer, although
the dwarf in outburst
it was not related to the Kreutz group.
Knox notes that the comet of 1666 irius, the ‘dog star’ in Canis primary drawing mass from a lower-
lasted “about the space of one month”.
This report, apparently standing on
its own, has long been controversial.
S Major, is one of the most
underrated telescopic showpieces
of the sky, shining the purest brightest
mass secondary through an accretion
disk. The optical radiation originates
in the disk; both the quiescent 14th
For a long time the ‘accepted’ version white. When observing this issue’s magnitude (in HL CMa’s case) and
was that Knox had mistaken the year target variable star, however, it is a in outburst. As such systems go, HL
and that the object he observed was luminous obstacle to be overcome. CMa has a rather high accretion rate,
actually that of 1668. If that were true, The variable star in question, HL working out to 10 billion tonnes of gas
however, he must have been mistaken Canis Majoris, is only 8 arcminutes per second impacting the white dwarf.
about the month as well as the year, south of Sirius and some 800 light- The physics of accretion disks are not
as the later comet appeared in March years further away. Because of this well understood, and this system is a
whereas Knox clearly states that the proximity to its famous neighbour, the member of a very small class of objects
one he saw was in February. HL CMa remained undiscovered until whose light curve shows a remarkable
There are two further reasons for 1980 and even then was noticed first phenomenon… outburst standstills. The
doubting that Knox was mistaken. In at X-ray wavelengths by the Einstein first four months of 2018 saw HL CMa
his account, he mentions that the sight X-ray Observatory, after which it was stuck at 12th magnitude.
of the comet “did much daunt both located visually on pre-existing survey You’ll need high magnification for
King and People, having but a year photographs. As well as being an X-ray the resulting small field of view, and
or two before felt the sad event of a source, HL CMa turns out to be one recent published papers do in fact use
Blazing Star in this Rebellion which I of the brightest and most active dwarf visual observations submitted to the
have now related”. The “Blazing Star” novae in the sky, outbursting up to 11th AAVSO (aavso.org) database. ‘Fainter
to which he is here referring was the magnitude every 15 to 20 days. than’ estimates are useful also, so if you
comet of 1664. That he recalls this as Dwarf novae are strongly interacting can only see to 13th magnitude, that’s
“one or two years” and not “three or binary stars comprising a white dwarf still good data.
four years” previously surely favours the
earlier date.
Moreover, it seems that Knox’s ■ ALAN PLUMMER
record may not, after all, have been the observes from the
only one. A catalogue of Korean comet Blue Mountains west
and nova observations compiled by R. of Sydney, and can
Sekiguchi in 1917 records a “comet … be contacted at alan.
seen in the winter of the seventh year of plummer@variable
Hyonjong,” which translates to the first starssouth.org
months of 1666. Although we cannot be
certain, in view of the scant information W HL Canis Majoris
provided by this record, it is reasonable is located at 6h 45m
to think that this was the same 17.21s, –16° 51' 34.6"
object seen by Knox. We may, I think, (epoch J2000). This
chart (courtesy of the
cautiously add the comet of February AAVSO) shows the
1666 to the list of suspected members of star just 8 arcminutes
the Kreutz group of sungrazers. south of Sirius. Visual
magnitudes shown with
decimal points omitted
■ DAVID SEARGENT is the discoverer
to avoid confusion
of comet 1978 XV. His book on comets, with faint stars — so
Snowballs in the Furnace, is available 104 denotes a 10.4
from Amazon.com magnitude star.
OBSERVING by S. N. Johnson-Roehr
Echoes from a variable star

RS Puppis continues to delight astronomers more than 120 years after its true nature was discovered.
n these summer nights, Puppis variability is directly proportional. nebula and determined the distance
O wheels high above the southern

horizon. Divorced from the
larger constellation Argo Navis by
The longer a Cepheid’s period, the
more luminous it is. RS Pup turns out
to have one of the longest periods of
to be close to 6,500 light-years.
Geometric analyses based on Hubble
Space Telescope data shaved about 300
the pen of Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille any Cepheid in our galaxy, so it’s also light-years off that number in 2014. A
during his voyage of 1750–1754, Puppis one of the most luminous Cepheids geometric parallax measurement based
represents the ship’s stern, floating aft discovered. on the Gaia Data Release 2 dropped the
of Canis Major. The constellation holds Although Cepheids are famous distance to about 5,600 light-years.
some intriguing stellar sights, one of for their utility in measuring galactic It’s fun to think about RS Pup
them being the variable star RS Puppis. distances (using the period-luminosity ‘getting closer,’ but its distance doesn’t
RS Puppis is easy to find and remains relation, astronomers can determine make any practical difference for
relatively bright throughout its period a Cepheid’s absolute magnitude, and backyard observing. But because the
of variability. A line extended from from that, along with its apparent star’s period is long, it’s useful to watch
Delta (δ) CMa through the tip of the magnitude, calculate the distance), it over the course of a couple months.
Big Dog’s tail, Eta (η) CMa, across there remains some uncertainty about This is an easier task for those who live
Puppis leads to the star’s general the distance to RS Pup. In 1961, Bengt in the Southern Hemisphere, but it’s
location. Begin your star-hop from Westerlund (Uppsala Southern Station) not out of the question for observers in
Zeta Pup, moving 3° north-northeast discovered that the star is embedded the north. In February, the star transits
from the star to the open cluster NGC in a reflection nebula, parts of which close to midnight.
2546. From this scattering of stars exhibit a variation in brightness If observing variable stars is just
continue about 2° north-northeast to related to the star’s pulsation period. your thing, consider participating
find a delicate stellar arc that curves In 2008, astronomers using the in an observing campaign led by the
northward to RS Pup. European Southern Observatory’s New American Association of Variable Star
RS Pup’s variability was detected in Technology Telescope geometrically Observers (AAVSO); visit aavso.org/
1897 by Ms. Reitsma, an observatory analysed these ‘light echoes’ in the observers for more information.
assistant at the University of
Groningen, during her examination of _ w
Cape Photographic Durchmusterung
(CPD) plates from 1888 and 1890. The
–34°
star’s variability was confirmed visually RS
3
Star magnitudes
in 1897–1898 by Alexander W. Roberts,
PYXIS 4
observing from Lovedale Observatory, `
5
South Africa, and R. T. A. Innes,
6
observing from the Royal Observatory, –36° 7
Cape of Good Hope. From this, David 8
Gill, His Majesty’s Astronomer at the q AT
Cape of Good Hope, concluded that
the star’s brightness varied from 6.8 2546
to 7.9. His numbers are very close to –38°
AS
today’s estimations: Over a period of
41.3 days, RS Puppis dims gradually to
magnitude 7.67 before rapidly rising to PUPPIS
magnitude 6.52. c
The shape of RS Pup’s light curve –40° AP
GO
reveals that it’s a Cepheid variable; the 8h 40m 8h 30m 8h 20m 8h 10m 8h 00m
relationship between its luminosity
(intrinsic brightness) and period of S The variable star RS Puppis lies 5¾º north-northeast of the 2.3-magnitude star Zeta Puppis.

by Sue French TARGETS
W Johann Bayer’s 1603 celestial atlas

Uranometria contains 51 star charts engraved
by Alexander Mair, a German artist who,
like Bayer, lived in Augsburg. Mair based
his charts on woodcuts carved by Jacob de
Gheyn for Hugo Grotius’s edition of Aratus,
published in Leiden in 1600.
R Leporis is a carbon star, or more

specifically, a cool red giant with
carbon molecules in its atmosphere.
This carbon soot scatters what little
blue light the star’s photosphere emits,
so only ruddy hues make their way to
the observer’s eye. Most carbon stars
are variable, and R Lep pulsates with
a period of about 445 days and an
overall magnitude range of 5.5 to 11.7.
It’s all about the ears A carbon star looks less red to your eye
when it’s bright. While visiting Hind’s
Crimson Star, compare it with Hind’s
A few short hops lead from a carbon star to a planetary nebula “beautifully white star,” 14.6′ (one
and a pair of interacting galaxies. minute of right ascension) west.
Now we’ll move on to the planetary
nebula IC 418, which sits at the sharp
n a warm summer’s evening He wrote, “At that time it was of the most end of a 1.9° long, eastward-pointing
O rich with brilliant stars, dim

Lepus, the Hare, shyly crouches
near Orion, hoping to be overlooked
intense crimson, resembling a blood-drop
on the black ground of the sky”. In a
letter he penned to William Henry Smyth
isosceles triangle that it forms with
two of Lepus’ ear stars — Lambda
(λ) and Nu (ν). Amateur astronomer
by the mighty hunter. Among the stars in 1850, Hind avers, “This is by far the Vic Menard nicknamed IC 418 the
used to place the Hare’s image in the most deeply-coloured of any that I have Raspberry, which refers to the unusual
sky, four of the faintest mark his ears yet seen, and in striking contrast with colour some observers see in this
as seen on our image of Lepus from a beautifully white star preceding it one nebula. Through my 130-mm refractor
Johann Bayer’s unprecedented 1603 minute.” at 23×, I see the bright central star
atlas, Uranometria. They are ι, κ, λ and
ν, and around them lie the deep sky
Star magnitudes
4
wonders for this month’s sky tour. As 1888
1889 5
lagomorph lovers are fond of saying, it’s ι
–12° ν 6
all about the ears. 64 7
The jumping-off point for our foray IC 418
λ 8
LEPUS DR AWING: E TH-BIBLIOTHEK ZüRICH / A LTE UND SELTENE DRUCK E
is Kappa (κ) Leporis, which itself is

worth a look along the way. Kappa is a
1954 8
double system composed of two white –14° ERIDANUS
stars. Their magnitude difference and 1957
LEPUS R
close quarters beg high magnification
for a good look, somewhere around
200×, depending largely on your
–16° μ
viewing conditions. The fainter star sits 60
59
north of its primary.
58
About three-fifths of the way from
Kappa Leporis to 60 Eridani we encounter
R Leporis, also known as Hind’s Crimson –18° α
Star. Its striking colour was first noted
by John Russell Hind, who came across it 5h 30m 5h 20m 5h 10m 5h 00m 4h 50m
while comet-sweeping in October 1845.
TARGETS
wearing a thin, pinkish-red fringe. At and rakishly leans north-northwest. Hubble Space Telescope image resemble
63× there is less colour, but the nebula Averted vision (the practice of directing patterns that can be drawn with a
is more obvious. My 25-cm reflector at your gaze a bit to one side of a dim child’s toy marketed as Spirograph.
70× displays a hue that I’d call dusty object so that its light will fall on a You can play with a similar pattern-
rose. At 118× IC 418 is small, oval, more sensitive area of your eye’s retina) generator online at http://nathanfriend.
and annular. It’s still garbed in some makes the nebula seem considerably io/inspirograph/. Strictly speaking,
indistinct shade of red, but when I use brighter. the Hubble image doesn’t show true
higher powers the colour starts to look Professional astronomers dubbed colours, but rather maps light emitted
bluish grey or is lost altogether. The IC 418 the Spirograph Nebula, because by different elements. Red represents
oval annulus is better seen at 220× the interwoven filaments seen on its singly ionised nitrogen (N II), which
dominates the relatively cool outer
region of the nebula, and blue shows
doubly ionised oxygen (O III), which
Rabbit ears reigns in the hot interior of the nebula.
Hydrogen-alpha (Hα) emission is
Object Type Mag(v) Size/Sep RA Dec. mapped as green, and it modifies
Kappa (κ) Lep Double star 4.4, 6.8 2.2″ 5h 13.2m –12° 56′ the hues seen where red gives way to
blue. In reality, both the nitrogen and
R Lep Variable star 5.5–11.7 — 4h 59.6m –14° 48′ hydrogen lines singled out by their
IC 418 Planetary Nebula 9.3 14″ × 12″ 5h 27.5m –12° 42′ filters are nearly identical shades of
red, while the chosen oxygen line glows
NGC 1888 Interacting galaxy 11.9 3.0′ × 0.8′ 5h 22.6m –11° 30′ as green.
NGC 1889 Interacting galaxy 13.1 0.7′ × 0.5′ 5h 22.6m –11° 30′ Many galaxies inhabit Lepus, and an
interacting pair made up of NGC 1888
NGC 1954 Galaxy 11.8 4.2′ × 2.2′ 5h 32.8m –14° 04′ and NGC 1889 resides 1° northeast of
NGC 1957 Galaxy 13.9 1.2′ × 1.2′ 5h 32.9m –14° 08′ Nu Leporis. I can just spot the brighter
galaxy, NGC 1888, through my 130-
Iota (ι) Lep Double star 4.5, 9.9 12.0″ 5h 12.3m –11° 52′ mm scope at 48×. At 102×, the galaxy
appears slender and about 1½′ long
Angular sizes and separations are from recent catalogues. Visually, an object’s size is often smaller than the
catalogued value and varies according to the aperture and magnification of the viewing instrument. Right north-northwest to south-southeast.
ascension and declination are for equinox 2000.0. It grows slightly brighter toward the
centre. The 25-cm scope shows this
SK E TCH: U WE G L A HN; SPIROG R A PH NEBUL A: N ASA / HUBBLE HERITAG E TE A M (STSCI / AUR A); K EN T BIGGS
strip of light surrounded by a faint, thin
halo. Little NGC 1889 finally makes
T This Hubble Space Telescope image of IC its appearance through the 25-cm at
418, captured with the Wide Field Planetary
Camera 2, shows emission from ionised nitrogen
220×. Its faint roundish spot harbours
(mapped to red), hydrogen (green) and ionised a starlike nucleus and nuzzles the larger
oxygen (blue). galaxy’s east-northeastern flank near its
core. This close-knit pair lie about 110
million light-years away from us.
Sweeping southeast from Lambda,
S Through most backyard you’ll come to a 5th-magnitude star
scopes, teasing out the that slightly outshines Nu, yet was
oval shape or a hint of never granted a Greek-letter Bayer
colour can be considered
designation. Instead it’s known as 8
an observing victory with
IC 418. It takes aperture
Leporis, according to its Flamsteed
and patience to reveal number. As popular as Flamsteed
the annularity: when numbers are, they weren’t actually
viewed through a 50-cm used in Flamsteed’s catalogue or atlas,
f/4.5 Newtonian reflector,
which were published after his death.
the ring of nebulosity
surrounding IC 418’s
To see where they came from, let’s
central star is more wind back the clock. As president of
apparent. the Royal Society, Isaac Newton felt
that the Astronomer Royal, Flamsteed,

was needlessly slow when it came to follow them most of the way to the separation from it. Boosting the power
the publication of his star catalogue. galaxy by climbing up the staple’s back to 308×, I see NGC 1957’s tiny brighter
Having a manuscript of the work, and down its eastern leg. Through the heart. These two galaxies also seem to
Newton encouraged Edmond Halley 130-mm refractor at 48×, NGC 1954 be related to each other and dwell about
to edit it, and this unapproved edition shares the field of view with the orange 140 million light-years away from us.
was published in 1712. Flamsteed was star at the point of the staple’s leg. At Let’s finish with the only ear star
incensed, and he managed to procure that magnification, the galaxy is a very we’ve not yet employed, Iota (ι) Leporis,
and burn most of the copies — but those faint, oval glow with a 10th-magnitude a double whose components you can
that survived include a column where star off its northwestern tip. At 117× split through any telescope at low to
Flamsteed’s stars are numbered. How a faint star adorns the galaxy’s edge, medium magnifications. The brighter
strange that numbers known worldwide north-northwest of center. The 25-cm star sparkles diamond white, but its
today spring from the spurious edition reflector at 220× draws out a second companion to north-northwest is
that Flamsteed reviled! star, west-northwest of the first and much dimmer, making its yellow hue a
With that historical detour behind beyond the pallid face of the galaxy. challenge to detect. Can you?
us, let’s use 8 Leporis to help us find our Within the galaxy a small, brighter Although our sky tour has been
next galaxy, NGC 1954, which lies 2.3° core hosts a starlike nucleus. The field all about the ears, it can’t truly be
east of the star. A roughly staple-shaped of view also acquires a bonus galaxy, appreciated until the eyes have it.
group of twenty 7th- to 9th-magnitude NGC 1957. Its little round form sits off
stars fills much of the space between the opposite end of NGC 1954 as the SUE FRENCH welcomes your
8 Lac and NGC 1954, and you can 10th-magnitude star and at the same comments at scfrench@nycap.rr.com.
Deep sky images reveal the probable

interaction between NGC 1954 and NGC
1957. A faint trail of bridging material
connects NGC 1954’s southern arm to its
neighbour.
IC 2132
NGC 1954
NGC 1957
EXPLORING THE SOLAR SYSTEM by Sean Walker
Mars at Opposition
2016 2018
A dusty apparition
Mars was bustling with activity during the close opposition of 2018.
ars continues to grace the
M
S Mars normally sports high-contrast albedo features and white clouds near opposition (left),
evening skies in February, long but the global dust storm that erupted in late May 2018 (right) obscured many of the familiar
features around Sinus Meridiani, seen at centre in both of these Hubble Space Telescope images.
past its perihelic opposition
last July, but drawing nearer the
horizon night by night. Although the tend to kick up during the summer But on the positive side, these storms
Red Planet has shrunk to a diminutive months in the planet’s Southern paradoxically can make hard-to-
7.4 arcseconds diameter, at the time Hemisphere. At the time, the planet had discern features easily visible for a
of writing it was still showing off lots just experienced equinox days before, short time. For example, as the storm
of detail through the eyepiece. That with the north entering autumn while poured into the great canyon system
wasn’t the case in the months before its south began its long spring. Seasons of Valles Marineris, it rendered this
its closest approach in 15 years. As the on Mars last roughly twice as long as we normally invisible feature cutting
planet was poised to put on a great experience them here on Earth. across Aurorae Sinus visible with
show for observers at opposition with a Within days, the storm moved even small telescopes. Amateurs with
respectable disk size of 24.3 arcseconds, south and spread out, obscuring most telescope apertures as small as 15 cm
its atmosphere had other plans, at least of Sinus Meridiani, Oxia Palus and were able to clearly resolve the dust-
for a while. Margaritifer Sinus. Dust storms are choked valleys as conditions permitted
When the planet was transitioning a double-edged sword, at least from in early June.
from a morning to an evening target an observer’s perspective. While it’s For several weeks, the storm grew
in the last days of May, observers exciting to spot these unpredictable to global proportions, completely
N ASA / ESA / STSCI
spotted a yellowish dust storm over the changes through a telescope, they encircling the planet in the north, while
dark albedo feature Mare Acidalium. can often grow strong enough to some albedo features remained visible
While Martian dust storms are not an encircle the entire planet, rendering in the south, particularly in the region
uncommon occurrence, they most often it a featureless, salmon-hued ball. of Mare Cimmerium. Glimpses of

Syrtis Major were had throughout storm of 1956, which erased the
late June and into early July. The W This image large, dark feature known as Thoth-
South Polar Cap, hidden from view shows a small but Nepenthes.
by its seasonal polar hood of fog bright dust storm Some minor global changes have
and clouds in May, became visible captured on the been recorded following the storm.
morning of May 31
by the start of July, though it too A general reduction in contrast
by John Boudreau
was streaked by dust, producing using a 36-cm Dall- implies that some light dust remains
a dimmed appearance compared Kirkham reflector. suspended in the upper atmosphere.
to its usual brilliant white. The Additionally, the thin white clouds of
Tharsis volcanoes, including water vapour that treated observers
Olympus Mons, each stood out as each apparition over the past 15
readily discernible dark spots from years have been completely absent so
the monochromatic surroundings far in the latter half of 2018.
below them. The storm was unusual in several
By early July, most observers respects compared to events of the
W Dust filled the
had written off the planet’s 2018 gigantic canyon
past. As mentioned earlier, it started
opposition, steeling themselves system Valles in a region that, while known for
for disappointing views of a bright Marineris on the producing small regional storms
but bland, unadorned ball. But morning of June throughout the past decade, had not
fortunately, things quickly began to 13, enabling Darren generated a storm of this magnitude
Ellemor to record
turn around. this enigmatic
to date. Additionally, the storm grew
In mid-July, reports of a clearing feature with just a quickly and spread mostly across
atmosphere began spreading 15-cm Schmidt- the northern hemisphere but never
throughout the observing Cassegrain. completely obscured the entire
community. While the planet planet. While classified as a global
displayed a distinctly reduced dust storm, it didn’t become quite
contrast overall, familiar albedo as opaque as the last big storm that
features, including Solis Lacus W By the time scuttled the tail-end of the 2001
and the small albedo extensions of opposition, apparition.
from Mare Cimmerium known as the dust was And just a little more than two
noticeably settling months after erupting into view, it
Gomer Sinus, were readily visible.
out of the Martian
Planetary imager Damian Peach atmosphere.
was mostly gone. The planet seemed
noted “a dark albedo feature across This produced to give observers a reprieve, with
Phasis-Daedalia [part of Solis low-contrast but good views of major albedo markings
Lacus] which was not visible before recognisable returning just following opposition.
albedo features. Mars is one of the most
the storm (though has appeared
This image by
following dust events in the past).” Anthony Wesley
interesting planets from an
Both Peach and French amateur is very similar to observational standpoint. As the
Christophe Pellier spotted several the view at the most Earthlike planet, it displays
small storms within Solis Lacus eyepiece. weather similar to ours. And it’s the
in the last week of the month as only terrestrial planet besides Earth
opposition approached, though on which amateurs can easily see
fortunately none of these lasted the surface and recognise known
more than a day or two. W In early August, features. For many of us, tracking
BOT TO M IM AG E OF M A RS: DA MIA N PE ACH / CHILESCOPE
Following opposition on observers began to the development of regional dust

recognise changes
July 27 and closest approach a in the planet’s
storms, for example, or watching
few days later, the Red Planet’s albedo features. for water vapour clouds along the
atmosphere slowly continued to The dark marking planet’s limb and clinging to the
clear, producing detailed (though in the Solis Lacus slopes of the Tharsis volcanoes
low-contrast) views for dedicated region in this makes the planet particularly
image is a feature
and casual planetary observers sometimes seen
attractive. So from that point of
alike. Additional subtle changes of after a large dust view, the 2018 apparition wasn’t a
albedo features have been observed, storm, as noted in complete write-off for observers — in
but none as drastic as those that the text. fact, it stands out as one of the more
occurred following the great dust exciting ones in recent memory.
GOING DEEP by Howard Banich
NE
Fleming’s
semicircular indentation
Can you see the Horsehead Nebula? It’s all about contrast and scale.
got pretty excited the first time I saw the Horsehead Nebula.
I
S ICONIC NEBULA The Horsehead Nebula is silhouetted against the
Here are my notes from the early morning of October brightest part of the emission nebula IC 434, which stretches horizontally
(south) through the centre of the photo from the bright star Alnitak (Zeta
13, 1991, which was also the first night I had my then-
Orionis, left centre), the easternmost star of Orion’s Belt. The naked-eye
new 50-cm f/5 Obsession Dobsonian under a dark and star Sigma Orionis is just out of view at top. The Flame Nebula, NGC 2024,
transparent sky. is east of (below) Alnitak, and the much smaller NGC 2023 is due south
! Horsehead — (right) of the Flame and northeast (below and left) of the Horsehead.
. . . I carefully pinpointed its exact location with Uranometria
and at 53× centred the field in the eyepiece. Then with the I was with a small group of observers at this dark sky site,
16-mm at 182× and the O III filter I looked — nothing. Rats. which later became the base for a regular star party. The
Let’s try the UHC — I looked — wait a minute, wait a minute — entire night was astounding, but seeing the Horsehead for the
a little more averted vision, then after all these 23 years I saw it first time positively blew me away.
with my own eyes . . . Little did I know I didn’t need a 50-cm telescope to see
It was quite a bit larger (and fainter) than I expected (which is the Horsehead Nebula, and that I could have seen it with my
what most people say, I hear). It was more like a darker notch 20-cm scope decades earlier if I’d been under a good enough
taken out of the sky rather than a silhouette against a bright sky. But as a kid I didn’t even know it was possible to see the
nebula. Although that may sound rather contradictory, that was Horsehead visually.
my impression. After looking at it in Chuck Dethloff’s 24-inch Today it’s one of the most famous deep sky objects and
and an h-beta filter (which showed it very clearly) he loaned after M42 probably the second most sought-after object in
me the filter (which was a 2-inch) and I tried it on my 55-mm Orion. However, the Horsehead is nearly impossible to see
M ASIL IM AG IN G T E A M
Plossl at 53× — wow! Very obvious now with the filter and the from even mildly light-polluted skies, frustrating far too
wider field of view. many observers for far too long. But it’s surprisingly easy to
This was the most satisfying view of anything I’ve ever looked see under truly dark and transparent conditions — and with a
at. This was magical. smaller telescope than you may imagine.

NE
Discovery borrowing Chuck’s hydrogen-beta
Photographed in 1888 with a 20-cm filter increased contrast immensely
astrograph at the Harvard College and produced a much more satisfying
Observatory (HCO) in Cambridge, image. On the other hand, if you’re
Massachusetts, the discovery plate, ever under a pristine dark sky with
B2312, was examined by Williamina Orion near the meridian, try to see
Fleming of the HCO, who published the Horsehead without a filter and you
her description of the photo in 1890. In may be pleasantly surprised. On these
Volume 18 of the Annals of the Harvard rare nights I’ve thought it looked like a
College Observatory, she mentioned a knight, the chess piece.
“semicircular indentation” that we If you’ve never seen the Horsehead
now call the Horsehead Nebula: visually, there are two confounding
factors to overcome. The first is to S THE HORSE’S HEAD APPEARS A cropped
A large nebulosity extending nearly get yourself under a truly dark and scan of plate B2312, the discovery image of the
Horsehead Nebula (at centre) from the Harvard
south from ζ Orionis for about 60′. transparent sky. Without a quality dark
College Observatory, has also had the colours
More intense and well marked on the sky you have almost no chance to see it reversed for better contrast. Taken with the 20-
following side, with a semicircular visually no matter how large or fine a cm Bache doublet refractor in 1888, this plate
indentation 5′ in diameter 30′ of ζ. telescope you’re looking through. Even was examined by Williamina Fleming in 1890
the hydrogen-beta filter won’t help much. when she discovered the Horsehead Nebula.
The Horsehead is included in E. E. Barnard’s
Although the discovery was initially The second factor is expectation,
1919 catalogue of dark nebulae as B33. We
credited to the HCO’s Director Edward and being aware of this is just as now know the Horsehead is the closest nebula
Pickering in the 1895 edition of the important as the observing conditions. pillar sculpted by photoionisation, and that
Index Catalog (IC), in Volume 60 of its We’ve all seen wide-field photographs protostars are forming within it.
Annals in 1908 the HCO correctly listed of the Horsehead and its environs (like
Fleming as discoverer of the Horsehead. those in this article) showing it as a A big telescope isn’t required to
The nebula was catalogued as B33 rather small object in relation to its see the Horsehead. I’ve been able to
by E. E. Barnard in 1919. The “large spectacular surroundings. Because of see it quite well through scopes down
nebulosity,” now known as IC 434, photos like these, there’s a good chance to a 114-mm Newtonian from the
was originally discovered by William you’ll expect the Horsehead to appear unspoiled skies of Steens Mountain in
Herschel in 1786. smaller through your eyepiece than southeast Oregon, illustrating that a
it actually appears, and to have more top-notch sky is more important than
Visual detection contrast with its background. If so, the size of the telescope.
IC 434 provides the slightly brighter your eye might skip over its much larger
background against which the apparent size and subtle contrast. Details
Horsehead is silhouetted. Without this To calibrate your expectations, the In her plate notes from 1890,
background it would be invisible to Horsehead is approximately the same Williamina Fleming mentioned that
visual observers, so it’s IC 434 that’s apparent size as M27, the Dumbbell IC 434 is “more intense and well
crucial to detect — if you can’t see IC Nebula, and has even less contrast marked on the following (east) side,”
434 you won’t see the Horsehead. than the Pillars of Creation in M16. but visually it doesn’t have a sharp
An important tool for visually eastern edge, even though it does
observing IC 434 is a hydrogen-beta fade more gradually westward. The
0° M78 δ
nebula filter. Sometimes referred to sharpest boundary is created by the
IC 432 IC 431
as the ‘Horsehead Filter,’ it increases Horsehead Nebula itself, which helps
CEN TER FOR ASTROPH YSICS / H A RVA RD & SMITHSONIA N
1
Star magnitudes
2024
the contrast between IC 434, the ζ ε 2 tremendously with its detectability.
background sky and the Horsehead. If
–2° η 3 Even so, on most nights the Horsehead
2023 σ IC 434
you have one, use it. If you don’t, get 4 will appear as a dark, fuzzy-edged
IC 435 B33 5
one. It’s useful on more than just the scoop into IC 434 that’s only slightly
–4° ORION 6
Horsehead, of course, but its nickname 7 darker than its surroundings. IC 434
is deserved because it can make this M43 is quite faint even with the help of a
famously difficult object a great deal –6°
M42 hydrogen-beta filter.
easier to see. ι τ We see IC 434 because of the O-type
Although I was able to detect star Sigma (σ) Orionis. Its intense
υ Rigel β
the Horsehead using an Ultra-High –8° ultraviolet light causes IC 434 to glow
5h 40m 5h 30m 5h 20m
Contrast filter with my 50-cm, by a process called photoionisation,
GOING DEEP
W THE HORSE’S HEAD SKETCHED The

author’s drawing of the Horsehead Nebula and
its surroundings combined many fields of view
to produce this composite sketch. A little more
than 4.5 hours of sketching time over several
nights using a 70-cm f/4 Newtonian went
into this drawing, which is based on views
using magnifications of 131× to 253× and a
1990s-era Lumicon hydrogen-beta filter. Note
how the top edges of the Horsehead’s profile
have the greatest contrast. One of the more
spectacular objects in this 3°-wide field of
view, and certainly the brightest, is the double
star Alnitak, Zeta Orionis, the easternmost star
of Orion’s Belt — note that its double nature is
not at all evident in the previous photos. The A
component is the brightest O star in the sky.
from the true centre of the nebula.

NE
If NGC 2023 is an obvious glow
without a nebula filter, you have a good
chance of seeing the Horsehead. If you
which produces its characteristic red a challenge because it blends ever so can’t see NGC 2023, then you’ll need
glow seen in colour photos. We see the gently into the sky background in all to wait for a darker and/or a more
Horsehead as a dark nebula, but on its directions. It takes careful examination transparent night.
opposite side it’s also photoionised by of the field of view to determine where By far the most obvious bright nebula
Sigma. We see a tiny bit of that glow it disappears, and I’ve been surprised in the area is NGC 2024, the Flame
around the top edge of the Horsehead’s how far I’ve been able to trace it. Subtle Nebula. Also discovered by Herschel, it’s
silhouette, which enhances its east-west striations in the area west of just east of brilliant Alnitak, or Zeta (ζ)
contrast. Seeing this thin bright edge the Horsehead can also be detected. Orionis, the easternmost star of Orion’s
is a challenge, but it is possible. On the Belt. The Flame can be washed out by
best nights you might be able to see the Spectacular surroundings the glare of Alnitak so place the star
faintly glowing equine outline of the Just northeast of the Horsehead Nebula just outside the field of view. The Flame
horse’s mane, head and brow, as well as is NGC 2023, a compact reflection is an H II star-forming region, energised
the top of the muzzle. It’s an exciting nebula surrounding the 7.8-magnitude by nearby Alnitak. Streaks of dark
observation and demonstrates that the star HD 37903. Discovered by William nebulosity divide it into three distinct
Horsehead is an extension of IC 434 Herschel in 1785, on the best nights you parts that create its flamelike shape.
that’s silhouetted against itself. may be able to see a fairly sharp edge on Although it shows well without a
More difficult to see is the bottom NGC 2023’s northwestern edge, which nebula filter, I prefer the view using
(eastern) edge of the Horsehead’s highlights how far off HD 37903 lies a DGM Optics Narrow Pass Band
muzzle. It’s much less distinct than
the top, and whether you can see
any contrast between IC 434 and the The Horsehead and its nebulae
bottom of the muzzle will determine
if you see a dark nebula shaped like a Object Type of Nebula Size RA Dec.
horse’s head in profile or something B33 Dark 6′ × 4′ 05h 40.9m –02° 28′
more like Fleming’s “semicircular IC 434 Emission 60′ × 10′ 05h 41.0m –02° 24′
indentation.”
NGC 2023 Emission + Reflection 10′ × 10′ 05h 41.6m –02° 16′
Even more challenging is a very
slightly lighter area in the neck that NGC 2024 Emission 30′ × 30′ 05h 41.9m –01° 51′
extends east-west and highlights the IC 431 Reflection 5′ × 3′ 05h 40.3m –01° 27′
Horsehead’s mane. Detecting this area IC 432 Reflection 8′ × 4′ 05h 40.9m –01° 29′
requires a pristine sky and superior
IC 435 Reflection 4′ × 3′ 05h 43.0m –02° 19′
observing skills. I have yet to identify
HOWA RD BA NICH
Angular sizes and separations are from recent catalogues. Visually, an object’s size is often smaller
it unambiguously, but it’s been seen by than the catalogued value and varies according to the aperture and magnification of the viewing
other observers. instrument. Right ascension and declination are for equinox 2000.0.
Tracing the full extent of IC 434 is

Sigma Orionis
IC 434 B33
filter because it gives a nice balance of The Horsehead Nebula
nebular detail and stars.
The Flame hides a star cluster made IC 431
up of some 800 newly formed stars and Zeta Orionis
(Alnitak)
protostars, ages 0.2 to 1.5 million years IC 434
old, with the newest clustering toward
its centre. Discovered by near-infrared IC 434
IC 432
observations, the vast majority of
these stars seem to have circumstellar
discs. We can’t see this cluster at visual
NGC 2023
wavelengths, but it’s fascinating to 0.5 degree circle
know it’s in there.
The Flame is approximately the NGC 2024
(The Flame Nebula)
same distance away as IC 434, the IC 435 NE
Horsehead, M42 and all the other
nebulae in this region — about 1,400
light-years — because they’re all part S THE HORSEHEAD AND COMPANIONS This labelled version of the author’s sketch helps
set the scale of the Horsehead with its surroundings. The ½° circle centred on the Horsehead
of the Orion Molecular Cloud. We can
is about the same apparent size as the full Moon, and the Horsehead itself is nearly the same
think of them as being the brightest apparent size as the Dumbbell Nebula. The hydrogen-beta filter tends to produce its highest
parts of the same nebula. The main contrast views when used with an eyepiece that gives a 4-mm to 7-mm exit pupil, so try to use
difference is that their illuminating eyepieces that fall in this range.
stars energise them to different degrees
and from different angles. Alnitak. At magnitude 1.8, it’s actually be placed outside the field of view
IC 431, IC 432 and IC 435 are a close visual double star, with its A and when trying to observe the Horsehead
smaller, fainter versions of NGC 2023 B components shining at magnitude through a wide-field instrument. Even
— stars surrounded by faint reflection 1.9 and 3.7, respectively, and separated so, it’s possible to see both at the same
nebulosity — and bracket the Flame by about 3″. They’re a beautiful sight time if you keep the Horsehead Nebula
Nebula to its southeast and northwest. when the seeing is steady enough to in the sweet spot of your averted
They’re fun to track down if you can split them cleanly. A third, unseen star vision, then move Alnitak into the field
tear yourself away from the more was discovered spectroscopically. The of view.
famous and obvious sights in the area. A component is the brightest O star This corner of Orion would be
The multiple star Sigma Orionis that’s in the sky, with the other two stars irresistible even without the Horsehead
energising IC 434 shines at magnitude belonging to spectral type B. Nebula, but there’s no doubt this most
3.8 and is surrounded by a loose cluster All this starry brilliance should famous of the dark nebulae is the main
of low mass and brown dwarf stars. It’s attraction. Its shape
also part of the Orion OB 1 b stellar really can look like
association, which includes all three of the profile of a horse’s
the Orion’s Belt stars. head, and even
Of course, by far the most obvious though I sometimes
and spectacular object in this area is think of the chess
piece, there’s no more
X THE HORSE’S HEAD UP CLOSE This aptly named object in
European Southern Observatory image of the sky.
the Horsehead Nebula was obtained with the
8.2-metre Kueyen telescope, one of the four HOWARD BANICH
SK E TCH: HOWA RD BANICH; CLOSE UP: ESO
Very Large Telescope units at Cerro Paranal

and Chuck Dethloff,
in the Atacama Desert, Chile. Note the bright
edge along the top of the horse’s mane, head,
friends who’ve
brow and muzzle, all of which can be detected observed together
by visual observers. The more diffuse area since 1991, still get
along the bottom of the muzzle can also be excited about a great
seen but is much more difficult because of
view of the Horsehead
lower contrast. The most challenging area is
the ever-so-slightly less dark area interior to
Nebula. Howard
the mane. The orientation is the same as in the can be reached at
other images. hbanich@gmail.com.
IMAGE PROCESSING by Timothy Jensen
DEEP COLOUR Adding narrowband image

data, particularly data recorded through a
hydrogen-alpha (Hα) filter can add faint details
and rich colour to images taken under less-
than-ideal skies. The author took this example
of the emission nebulosity IC 434 surrounding
the Horsehead Nebula using a one-shot colour
camera to record colour and Hα that were
combined in ImagesPlus.
Giving nebulae a
BOOST
Here’s a novel technique to bring out emission nebulosity in your astrophotos.
AMONG THE MOST PHOTOGRAPHED OBJECTS in the this is an excellent filter for highlighting details in faint
night sky are emission nebulae. These expansive fields of nebulosity. It’s most effective when paired with monochrome
eye-catching red and magenta nebulosity, with occasional cameras, since it passes only a very small portion (often
flourishes of orange, make for beautiful celestial portraits. between 3 and 7 nm) of the deep-red region of the spectrum,
However, getting those rich colours isn’t always easy, so images recorded through this filter with a colour camera
particularly if you live and shoot from light-polluted locations. (such as a DSLR) appear as a washed-out red.
While one-shot colour cameras like DSLRs or mirrorless However, it is still possible to use these monochrome images
cameras can capture the entire spectrum of visible light, often captured with Hα filters to enhance an ordinary colour image
their utility is compromised by light pollution and skyglow. obtained using a one-shot colour camera. The trick is to blend
One way around this limitation is to image through the Hα image into a colour photograph to bring out the nebula
narrowband or other specialised filters to increase the contrast while at the same time maintaining a natural colour balance.
in the images. Ultra High Contrast (UHC) filters sold by One common practice is to replace the luminance channel
various manufacturers are a type of combined narrow- with a Hα image in a colour photo. However, this can lead to
bandpass filter. They work by passing specific wavelengths of an odd colour bias that will require much work to correct. A
light, commonly found in nebulae, while blocking unwanted better solution is to blend the Hα data into the red channel of
ALL IMAG ES COURTESY OF THE AU THOR
wavelengths from most sources of skyglow. Oceanside Photo an RGB colour image. Care must be taken, since the Hα data
and Telescope’s new Triad filter works in a similar fashion. can overpower the broadband red image. Additionally, ionised
Individual narrowband filters allow only a fraction of the hydrogen doesn’t just emit light in the red. It also produces
visible spectrum to be seen by the camera. Most commonly emission at 486 nm (the blue/green hydrogen-beta line), and
used is the hydrogen-alpha (Hα) filter that blocks all another, weaker emission at 434 nm (blue). So if we take our
wavelengths except those surrounding ionised hydrogen Hα data and mix a little into the green and blue channels as
emitting light at 656.3 nanometres. Since hydrogen emission well as the red, we can achieve a much more natural colour
is typically the most common light from emission nebulae, balance with a lot of detail in the nebula.

This sounds complicated, but
fortunately, most astro-imaging
software includes tools to do this. I
prefer ImagesPlus (mlunsold.com), which
makes this sort of work very easy to do.
Here’s how I incorporate the technique
into my image-processing workflow.
Start with the stars

Begin by collecting your colour data, as
well as the narrowband or UHC-filtered
images. It doesn’t matter if your camera W COLOUR STRETCH
Begin by stretching the
is a DSLR or monochrome deep sky
stacked colour image with an
camera, as the process for combining emphasis on preserving the
the narrowband and colour images is colours and profiles of the
the same, though let’s assume you are stars using the ArcSinH tool.
using a colour camera. Process both
sets of images to bring out the most
detail you can without enhancing noise.
When processing the colour photo,
don’t worry too much about enhancing
the nebula. Concentrate instead on
bringing out the stars in the picture.
The goal is to make stars appear as
natural as possible without imparting a
bloated or washed-out look to them, nor
a colour bias; you should see a good deal
of blue, yellow and orange stars in the
stretched result. W ALIGNMENT After
I prefer to use the ArcSinH tool to stretching the individual
colour and narrowband
stretch my images, found in the pull-
images, both pictures
down menu (Stretch > ArcSinH). When should be aligned. Be sure
this tool opens, start by changing the to click Translate + Scale
Scale Function from None to nth Root + Rotate and choose 3
X^n in the top-right of the window. alignment points.
In the middle section, move the BkGd
Weight and Power sliders to bring out
the stars in the image. Try to avoid the
temptation to enhance the nebula at
this point, as that will occur later with
the addition of the narrowband data.
Use the red, green and blue sliders
in the Decompress Colour section at
the bottom of the ArcSinH window to
help preserve the star colours during the
stretching process. Some imagers prefer
to use a sun-like star (known as a G2V
star) as a colour reference and adjust
the colours until that star appears
neutral white without becoming saturated. While this is S STAR MASK After alignment, the stars in the narrowband image
need to be masked out so that they don’t affect their appearance
excellent advice, it’s sometimes hard to find a G2V reference
in the final colour image. Some bright stars, particularly ones
star in an image. The ArcSinH function is a very powerful embedded within bright nebulae, can be removed from the mask
tool, and small adjustments with the sliders can have a strong before applying the tool, so the result shouldn’t contain any odd
impact on the image. holes that could create artifacts in the final image.
IMAGE PROCESSING
When you’re satisfied with the stars in your image, click Sharpen > Multiresolution Smooth/Sharpen in the pull-down
the Apply button on the bottom right, and then save the menu. Moving the sliders to the left will smooth the image,
image as a 16-bit TIFF file. though I recommend starting with the Finest slider first.
Again, you can apply this to different intensity ranges within
Nebulae boost the picture by clicking the Set View Using Image Currently
When working on your narrowband image to combine with Displayed button between each correction.
your colour version, you can ignore the stars and make
the nebula pop as much as you like before noise becomes Preparing to merge
particularly noticeable. If you shot your Hα images with Before you combine the narrowband and colour images, you’ll
a one-shot colour camera, you’ll want to convert it to a first have to align the two. This is accomplished in ImagesPlus
greyscale image in order to mix it with the individual red, by opening Image Set Operations > Align Files > Align files -
green and blue channels of your colour image. To do this, Translate, Scale, Rotate, and then select the two files to align.
open your Hα image in ImagesPlus and select Colour > Split When the window opens, click on the options for On Each
Luminance from the pull-down menu. Image, Translate + Scale + Rotate, and change the Number of
I prefer to begin to enhance the narrowband image using Points to 3. In the Alignment Feature Selection, first choose
the ArcSinH tool, and then apply more adjustments with the the Common Point or Star option, and then click on a fainter
Micro Curves tool (Stretch > Micro Curves). This tool permits star that appears in both images. Next, select Common
you to apply various degrees of enhancement to different Angle Defining Point or Star, and click on a different star
brightness ranges by using the Min and Max check boxes to in each image, followed by Additional Scale Defining Point
set the working range for the tool. Simply click the check box or Star and select your third star. When all three stars are
and then click on an area of your image to set the intensity chosen, the Align button becomes active. Click it, and in a
limit. To apply multiple iterations of Micro Curves, you need few moments, ImagesPlus will save aligned copies of the two
to press the button labeled Set View Using Image Currently registered pictures.
Displayed after each adjustment (the blue eye button). Now that the two images are aligned, you’ll need to
Otherwise, the next correction with the tool simply replaces remove the stars from the Hα image using the Feature Mask
the previous one. tool, which appears as a blue
Once your narrowband image is stretched to your liking, ‘+’ icon found along the left
you can perform noise reduction by selecting Smooth side of the screen. You’ll need
T CHANNEL SPLIT In order T NARROWBAND BOOST Adding

to combine the hydrogen- the Hα to each colour channel
alpha image with each colour (with the most going to the red
channel at varying degrees, image) is performed with the Blend
the colour image has to be Mode, Opacity and Mask tool. Be
split into individual red, green sure to change the Blend Mode to
and blue monochrome images. Lighten, and lower the opacity so
ImagesPlus displays these by that the narrowband image doesn’t
their respective colour. oversaturate areas in the image.

to experiment with the Star, Threshold and Masked Area
sliders to get the right mix of star removal without adding
artifacts to the image. For some very bright stars, it may be
best to leave them in the image. Do this in the Special Star/
Area Processing section at the bottom of the window. Check
the select box and the Include button, and then click on the
stars you want to keep in the image, and increase the selected
area using the Radius slider. If you find that removing a star
leaves too big a hole, you can try increasing the Radius slider
setting for that star. Once you have an image you are happy
with, hit Apply and save the result as a new TIFF file.
Adding hydrogen-alpha
Now that both images are ready, open the colour shot and
S FINAL COMBINATION Many targets within the Milky Way can
split it into its individual channels by choosing Colours > benefit from adding narrowband data to a normal colour image. This
Split Colours from the pull-down menu, and choose RGB. picture of the Rosette Nebula (NGC 2244 in Monoceros) takes on new
In a moment, you’ll be presented with the three colour life with the addition of several hours of Hα data.
channels, and each will be a colour corresponding to its
particular channel (eg. red will appear red). Convert these click OK. In a moment, all of the open images that you have
images to greyscale using the Colours > Interpret - Mix will appear in the Combine Images window.
Colours command with the Grey button selected. You only need to combine the starless Hα and the red
To blend in the Hα image, choose Special Functions > channel images at the moment, so remove the blue and green
Combine Images Using > Blend Mode, Opacity, and Masks images from the list by clicking on their file names, and press
tool from the pull-down menu. When selected, the Combine Delete Image at the bottom left. Make sure the Hα image
Images window opens, as well as a smaller Combine Images is on the top of the stack with the red channel image below
Setup window; input the name of your combined red and it using the up or down arrows. Now, with the Hα image
narrowband image in the Combination File Name area (for selected, set the Blend Mode to Lighten and lower the Opacity
example, red+Hα) then slider to about 0.70. Click the Combination button in the
Display: section to preview how your combined red and Hα
T FINAL COMBINATION will appear. You can adjust the Opacity setting until you get
When the narrowband image the effect you like. Press flatten and then save the image. Your
is combined with each colour enhanced red channel is ready. Repeat this process on the
channel, they can be re-combined
using the Combine LRGB, LCMY,
green and blue images, with an opacity setting of around 0.3
HSL tool. Additional colour for the green and 0.25 for the blue.
balance adjustments can be made Once the three enhanced colour channels are ready,
using the sliders for each channel recombine them into a colour image using Colour > Combine
before clicking Apply. LRGB, LCMY, HSL. In this window, assign the appropriate
image to its colour channel by clicking on the desired colour
button and then the corresponding image. Now hit the Apply
button, and your enhanced colour image will appear. Use the
Crop tool to trim off any non-overlapping areas around the
edge of the frame, and be sure to save your result.
This processing technique can help you create stunning,
highly detailed images of nebulae even under less-than
ideal skies. And don’t be afraid to experiment with other
narrowband wavelengths. Some nebulae have large
contributions from other ionised elements, particularly
doubly ionised oxygen (O III), which is found in the blue-
green region of the spectrum at both 495.9 and 500.7
nanometres. These narrowband enhancements can often
turn an ordinary image into an eye-popping portrait.
TIMOTHY JENSEN images the night sky from his rural

backyard observatory.
AS&T TEST REPORT by Richard S. Wright, Jr.
W The Sky-Watcher Evostar 72 APO Refractor

combined with the AZ-GTi Go To mount is an
excellent grab-and-go observing package.
Sky-Watcher AZ-GTi
US price: $379
Evostar 72 APO Refractor

US price: $465
skywatcheraustralia.com.au
What we like
Ultra-portable combination
Intuitive mobile apps
Reasonable colour performance
for a budget APO
What we don’t like

Requires two devices on iOS for
planetarium app control
Equatorial mode not completely
thought out
Sky-Watcher (US$555), and one with a 127-mm f/12

Maksutov-Cassegrain (US$725). For
AZ-GTi and this review, however, I paired the mount

with Sky-Watcher’s new Evostar 72
APO Refractor. This affordable 72-mm
Evostar 72 ED doublet has a focal length of 420

mm, producing an f/ratio of f/5.8. It’s
potentially a very nice grab-and-go
refractor combination.
The Evostar 72 comes with tube
rings and a Vixen-style dovetail plate, as
well as an aluminium-sided carry case.
This duo brings new meaning to the old saying While it includes a mounting bracket
that good things come in small packages. for a finder scope, none is supplied, nor
any eyepiece, nor a 90° star diagonal.
I’M A FAN OF Sky-Watcher’s Star Enter the Sky-Watcher AZ-GTi I borrowed the mount and scope
Adventurer mount, a small, portable mount. It’s small and lightweight, from Sky-Watcher USA at the Texas Star
sky-tracker designed primarily for use weighing just 4 kg including its Party. They had been used as demos at
with DSLR cameras and lenses. For surprisingly sturdy tripod. The mount several astronomy gatherings. When
its stated purpose, it works great. But runs on 12 volts DC and can be I opened the box, I initially thought I
some of the advertising shows it with powered by eight AA batteries housed in forgot to grab the hand controller, but it
a small telescope attached, and I’ve the mount body or by an external DC turned out the mount doesn’t come with
found this configuration to be less than power source. one even though the AZ-GTi includes
A LL PHOTOS BY THE AU THOR
optimal. Immersed in the world of large The AZ-GTi is rated to carry a a port for Sky-Watcher’s SynScan hand
mounts and high-end imaging, I often 5 kg payload, which is sufficient for controllers. Instead, the AZ-GTi creates
find myself yearning for a small Go To a small telescope. You can buy the a Wi-Fi hotspot, and you connect to it
mount that can hold a small telescope mount separately, but there are two with a free app that is available for both
for visual use but is also small enough packages that include optics: one with iOS and Android devices.
to fit in airline carry-on compartments. a 102-mm f/13 Maksutov-Cassegrain The SynScan app works with any

Sky-Watcher Wi-Fi mount, including First light extremely wide field at 7.6×, essentially
the AZ-GTi. There is also a free ‘PRO’ After spending some time familiarising eliminating the need for a finder scope.
version of the SynScan app that can myself with the Wi-Fi control and With this combination, Jupiter really
control the company’s equatorial SynScan app, I took the mount to an looked like a bright star, but I could tell
mounts. This is notable because open space in my surburb. The entire what it was from the bright Galilean
there is an experimental firmware setup was easy to carry a couple of moons close by the planet. I centred
update for the AZ-GTi that enables blocks down the street. Jupiter in the field with the slow-motion
you to put it on the company’s Star I levelled the mount, aligned it controls in the app and synced on it.
Adventurer equatorial wedge to operate pointing north according to the I then popped in a 13-mm Tele Vue
in equatorial mode. I tried it out and compass app on my iPhone, and then Type 5 Nagler, producing 32×. Jupiter
it does work, and it at least cracks selected the one-star alignment routine. was a big blob that quickly snapped into
open the door for longer exposure A list of bright stars, visible planets focus using the Evostar’s dual-speed
astrophotography with the mount. and the Moon were given as alignment 10:1 Crayford-style focuser. The gas
But this mode seems an afterthought choices, including Jupiter, which was giant’s ruddy Northern and Southern
rather than a planned feature, as the well-placed in the south. I selected the Equatorial Belts were easy to see,
form factor could use a little finessing gas giant, and the scope slewed around though not much else was as I cursed
to function properly. To get it to work, I to the bright planet dutifully, though I myself for not bringing one of my
had to replace the counterweight shaft, could tell just sighting down the tube higher power eyepieces.
and I had to replace some of the bulky of the scope that it was off quite a As a veteran user of Go To mounts,
knobs on the wedge borrowed from my bit, probably due to the compass app I’d long ago learned not to expect much
Star Adventurer mount as they were too pointing to magnetic pole rather than accuracy from a single-star alignment
close to the body of the unit to turn by the celestial pole several degrees away. I with an alt-azimuth mount, but just for
hand. The SynScan Pro app seamlessly then loosened the altitude and azimuth fun I decided to slew to my favourite
detected the firmware upgrade, and the clamps and just moved the scope to globular cluster M13 to see how far I
mount was easy to use in either mode. where Jupiter was located. With most was off. I knew when I looked through
Controlling the mount with the app mounts, this would immediately ruin the eyepiece it would not be there,
is simple and intuitive. Third-party the alignment routine. But the AZ-GTi and I was right. Dreading the hunting
planetarium apps can also control the has internal encoders that detect the game, before popping in the even wider
mount by connecting to the SynScan movement of the axes when you do this, eyepiece I decided to move just a little
app or directly to the optional hand and it knows how much you’ve moved bit around, and on my first jog, in came
controller. A quirk for users with iOS the scope, as if it was done with the the faint, fuzzy, round object that was
devices is you need two separate devices hand controller. unmistakably M13. In my light-polluted
to accomplish this, because iOS apps do I was using a 55-mm Tele Vue skies with only a 72-mm optic, the scope
not run in the background. Plössl eyepiece, which produces an didn’t resolve any stars in the cluster,
S Left: Although the scope includes a saddle plate for attaching a finderscope, users may need to purchase one separately. However, a 55-mm
eyepiece produces a low-magnification view (7.6×) with the scope that may eliminate its need for visual observers. Right: The Evostar 72 includes
a 2-inch, dual-speed Crayford-style focuser with two set screws to secure a star diagonal (purchased separately).
AS&T TEST REPORT
with a wider range of eyepieces on hand I honestly did not expect much from this
to better gauge the Evostar’s optical combination, and while Jupiter was a bit
performance. A bright Moon was soft, I was really quite surprised by how
out, so that, along with several bright usable this combination actually was.
planets, was easy prey. Again, I pointed The Great Red Spot was well defined,
north and was on Jupiter in less than and the edges of the equatorial belts as
five minutes from the time I stepped well as some of the narrower bands were
out my front door (I’d previously put dissolving into a wavy pattern of clouds,
the scope outside to acclimate to the the details of which were tantalisingly
temperature). just out of reach but still perceptible.
At 32×, Jupiter was just grand again. There’s something to be said for a small
Although a bit small, any observer scope that cools off quickly and doesn’t
would still be able to spot the main need to be collimated.
equatorial belts, moons and even Vibrations caused by bumping the
the Great Red Spot, which in recent tripod took less than two seconds to
S Although the Evostar 72 can cover years has appeared a deep orange hue. dampen out. Some of this is due to the
detectors smaller than APS-C format with Positioning the bright planet in the tripod mechanics, some to the fact that
minimal aberrations, a field-flattener is
middle of the field exhibited no colour it’s a small scope on top; case in point,
recommended for optimal performance for
full-field correction on detectors as large as fringing that I could discern. When the two work well together.
24×36 mm. Additional adapters are necessary the planet was placed near the edge I moved on to Saturn, and found
to properly space your camera’s detector from of the field, it sported a distinct green the butterscotch-toned ringed planet
the corrector for best performance. fringe on the edge. Stepping up the looked a good bit better than Jupiter at
magnification to 84× with a 5-mm all magnifications I tried. I attribute
but it was there, and it reminded me of Tele Vue Nagler, Jupiter was a good bit this to the fact that Saturn isn’t as
the first time I’d ever found this object larger, still glorious and crisp. Finally, I bright, and it was also a little higher
with my 60-mm department-store decided to put the 72-mm scope really in the sky. Even at the edge of the field,
scope decades earlier. Notably, this was to the test with a 2.5-mm Nagler that Saturn did not exhibit the green fringe
certainly much easier than that had been produced a magnification of 168×. that Jupiter had. The Cassini Division
way back then. Focusing was surprisingly easy on such was visible at all magnifications as well,
For my next evening out with the a light mount, with vibrations damping and I could easily identify the planet’s
system, I set up in my own driveway out within a second or two. largest moon, Titan.
TLeft: The 72-mm doublet objective includes an ED element for superior colour correction. Middle: Sky-Watcher’s AZ-GTi Go To mount includes
‘Freedom Find’ auxiliary encoders that precisely track movements on both axes regardless of whether you move the mount using the app controls or
the optional SynScan hand controller, or you loosen the clutches (arrowed) and move the scope manually. Right: The AZ-GTi includes ports to connect
an optional SynScan hand controller, an external DC power supply and a SNAP port that connects directly to most DSLR and Mirrorless cameras.

My next target was the Moon, which X X The SynScan
exhibited the green fringe when placed single or multi-star
off-centre in the field much like Jupiter, alignment routines are
simple. Point the mount
but only on the bright limb. Along the north, select a bright
cratered terminator I could not see star, the Moon or a
anything but sharp, clear lunar craters. bright planet, and slew
I moved the bright limb to the centre of to it. Then manually
the field of view, and there was a faint centre the target. Click
the check mark, then
purple edge that I could not see at all on do the same for your
Jupiter or Saturn. second alignment
At 168×, the Moon held up quite a object.
bit better than the planets. Along the
terminator, there was no discernible X Sky-Watcher’s
colouring, and I felt I was simply in free SynScan app
for Android and iOS
orbit, flying over the Moon in my own
devices is extremely
personal spaceship. easy to use. It
Later at my dark sky site, I had the includes several
opportunity to try this combination out alignment routines,
visually on some fainter targets. This a basic catalogue
of named stars, several dozen double stars, and T The AZ-GTi’s collapsible
time I performed a two-star alignment
several deep sky object catalogues. The mount aluminium tripod extends to a
using Mars and Vega. Vega in the centre can also be controlled with other planetarium maximum height of 108 cm. The
of the field was a brilliant, sparkling apps, though they need to connect through the extension pier is recommended
diamond. Out at the edges of the field, SynScan app. for use with long OTAs.
I could clearly see the star being pulled
apart and flaring into a triangle-shaped body (US$49) as well as an adapter
pattern of green, blue and red light. to connect my CCD camera to the
Testing the Go To performance of the flattener. Note that with the reducer/
alignment, I then slewed to the Double flattener, the scope is operating at a
Cluster. The pair was well-centred focal length of 357-mm, producing a
and well resolved at 32× with both focal ratio of just under f/5.
clusters comfortably fitting in the field My first test was to shoot the Moon
of view. The stars were tiny pinpricks with and without the reducer with a
of light surrounded by inky black sky, Canon 5D Mark III DSLR. In the centre
and when I slewed around I didn’t see of the field, the Moon was sharp and
any colour changes at the edges, or well-defined in both cases, with no
even any change of shape for the stars. colour fringing evident photographically.
The colour and flaring are really only Even without the field-flattener, the
noticeable on the brightest targets. Evostar 72 can likely be used for objects
near the centre of the field of view.
Imaging performance Sky-Watcher states all Evostar
The AZ-GTi mount isn’t intended as a refractors will satisfactorily cover an
deep sky imaging platform, so to test APS-C-sized sensor or smaller without
the Evostar 72 doublet’s suitability for the use of a field-flattener. I put a full-
astrophotography, I put the scope on my frame DSLR on it just to see how large
Paramount MYT and tried it from my the usable field is, and I took a test
own backyard. shot of M31 from my backyard. The
While the human eye can be very image shown in this article is a single
accommodating to field curvature, calibrated and stretched frame that
any doublet refractor will need a field shows just how wide the field of view is.
flattener to produce round stars across I’ve superimposed a rectangle showing
most cameras these days. I used Sky- the size of an APS-C sensor’s coverage;
Watcher’s own 0.85× flattener/reducer it’s still plenty to capture all of M31.
(US$249), plus I needed an additional Naturally, the stars at the edges
adapter to thread this to the Evostar of the full-frame image are a good
AS&T TEST REPORT
S The refractor produces an impressive 3½° Next, I thought I’d try some
field at its native f/5.8 focal ratio. The red box
shows the field size on an APS-C detector.
narrowband with this little scope.
Inset: Stars near the very corners of the A doublet APO should excel when
APS-C field show some elongation. shooting with filters as a much at an object or two. It really was a
narrower range of wavelengths needs to pleasure, certainly better than my first
bit elongated, but curiously, one of be focused in the same place. Slightly experience with a Go To mount and
the corners actually held up okay. It under-sampled on a Starlight Xpress scope combination many years back,
is possible there was some tilt in my Trius-SX694 monochrome camera at which was of course the biggest scope I
prototype adapter, or perhaps some f/5, I knew I could get some nice images could afford (the #1 mistake beginners
sag with a heavy camera attached. with short 5-minute exposures, even at often make). The AZ-GTi is simple,
Performance is better inside the crop- narrowband wavelengths. stress-free and easy to use.
sensor rectangle, of course, but still you I focused all of these images by hand The Evostar 72 is a budget APO, and
can see the correction fall off at the using the stock focuser. My region’s yes, I could tell the difference between
edges and corners of the APS-C frame. summers are pretty stable temperature- it and some of my top-shelf scopes,
Anything smaller than an APS-C should wise, and I focused once and left it most of which, however, would require
produce round stars across the entire for the night. I shot four targets total adding an extra zero to the price. It has
image, while APS-C detectors will show over several nights in automated runs good colour performance in the middle
acceptable stars until you get to the very that included meridian flips, and the of the field, with only a touch of colour
corners of the frame. focuser never slipped. visible at the edges when viewing the
Colour-wise, there was some lateral brightest objects. For astrophotography,
colour separation of stars radially Conclusion I found the Evostar 72 to be a pretty
towards the centre of the image, with I started my astronomical life strictly a reasonable starter scope, and combined
stars displaying a blue edge on one visual observer, and now after several with the AZ-GTi, it’s also a nice,
side and a red one on the other. This is years as a hardcore imager, I’ve only portable visual package.
normal for a doublet APO in this price recently returned to visual astronomy.
range without using a field-flattener, I must admit, I had forgotten the ■ RICHARD S. WRIGHT, JR. can often be
and I’ve even seen worse on more- simple joy of just taking five minutes found sharing views of the night sky at
expensive APO triplets. to set up a telescope for a quick look his local coffee shop.

Image courtesy Dr. John Carver (50 megapixel MicroLine ML50100 camera)
.HSOHU&0263DUDGLJP6KLIW
It is no surprise that the CCD’s best performance is with a single long exposure. What may be surprising is the Kepler KL4040 CMOS
camera has a better signal-to-noise ratio than the PL16803 even with a single long exposure. The signal-to-noise ratio of the KL4040
is better than the PL16803 even when using short exposures that are stacked!
The benefit of taking multiple short exposures is the option to discard a bad exposure ruined by satellite trails, tracking errors, or bad
seeing (etc.). Incredible low-noise images are now possible with a single long exposure or many stacked short exposures. The
KL4040’s superior performance allows it to be used for a wide range of applications and requirements.
At Finger Lakes Instrumentation, we design and build unrivaled CMOS and

CCD cameras, filter wheels, and focusers to pave your way to
success—whichever path you choose. Designed and manufactured in New
York, USA.
Visit us at flicamera.com for

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cameras, focusers, and
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© 2018 Finger Lakes Instrumentation LLC. All rights reserved.

ASTRONOMER’S WORKBENCH by Jerry Oltion
Mel Bartels with his

62.5-cm (25-inch)
f/2.6 scope.
A giant breakthrough
This innovative scope incorporates new ATM advances on three separate fronts.
MEL BARTELS HAS BEEN ON years before I came up with the same All three scopes were wildly
MEL BA RTELS; FLE X ROCK ER: JERRY OLTION; FOCUSERS, BE A RINGS: JERRY OLTION
something of a crusade lately. Long concept) has devised a new two-speed successful, so he decided to push
a proponent of large, thin mirrors, helical Crayford focuser for the same onward with larger, faster mirrors.
he has also become a proponent of scope. Together, these design elements Next up was a 62.5-cm blank that was
fast mirrors, resulting in what he have created a completely new observing slumped to f/2 by amateur telescope
calls “richest-field telescopes”. He has experience. maker Greg Wilhite, who presented it
previously completed 32.5-cm f/3 and Mel caught the thin-mirror bug to Mel as a gift. F/2 was way faster than
his 15-cm f/2.8 telescopes. He’s since from amateur telescope maker David Mel wanted to go, but as he says, “I do
taken it up a notch both in size and Davis, who did much of the pioneering not look gift horses in the mouth and
speed: He has just finished a 62.5-cm work in slumping thin glass in a kiln took the glass with many thanks”.
(25-inch) f/2.6. and finishing out mirrors as thin as a 6 He decided to grind it back to
That in itself would be exciting mm over 40 cm of diameter. With that f/2.6, which would leave him with a
enough, but Mel has come up with an success, Mel reasoned that he could get 12-mm-thick edge. He did that in about
innovative new twist on the standard away with ¾″ plate glass for a mirror a month of hand grinding, then fine-
alt-azimuth mount that completely up to at least 105 cm. Mel ground a ground it for another 70 hours. He had
eliminates ‘Dob’s hole’ (see box). 32.5-cm f/3 first, then pushed faster to to stop at 20-micron grit, since the thin
But wait, there’s more! Pierre Lemay a 25-cm f/2.7 and a 15-cm f/2.8 that he mirror flexed too much and scratched
(originator of the tracking ball scope made in tandem. with finer grits.

There was no way Mel was going to
polish and parabolise a mirror that size Dob’s Hole
and that rough by hand. So he spent a
“Dob’s hole” is the gymbal lock
year making a grinding and polishing
experienced when observing near
machine. Because he eventually plans
to make a 105-cm ultra-fast scope, Mel the zenith with a Dobsonian mount,
designed it to handle up to that size. although Mel points out that it’s
He put the 62.5-cm on the machine, “rather unfair to call this Dobson’s
and 74 hours of polishing later, using hole since John Dobson hardly
pads on the grinding tool, there were wanted the telescope he invented
no pits left. But polishing pads leave to be called the Dobsonian in the
an irregular figure, so Mel made a first place.”
hydrostone-and-pitch tool and polished
X An extra flex rocker provides a second
for another 69 hours, eventually altitude axis, completely eliminating
bringing it to spherical. “Dob’s hole”.
Then came the hard part:
parabolising. I’ll spare you the gory
details, other than to point out that room to play around with a concept he around in a circle for azimuth. As you
Mel did the entire process with the had been considering while he polished: raise it up toward the zenith, however,
matching Ronchi test and star testing, how to eliminate the dreaded Dob’s hole the second altitude axis comes into
eventually (after 181 hours) coming with an alt-az mount. play. By 60° elevation or so, the scope
up with a parabola that provides (with The solution was simple, elegant, and gently starts to rock sideways as well as
a coma corrector) pinpoint stars from apparently brand-new: add a second rotate when you push, and the higher
edge to edge of the field. The temptation altitude axis! When the scope is raised you’re pointed the more rocking and
to tweak it further was great, but as Mel toward the zenith, instead of twisting it less rotation you get. At the zenith it’s
says, “Somewhere in the intersection in azimuth for sideways motion the way all rocking motion, no matter which
between personal skill, Ronchi a regular Dobsonian mount requires, direction you push.
matching test and star test results, just push it sideways on another axis Mel designed the second altitude
and the risk of making the mirror’s 90° from the standard one. Mel built axis to have about 15° — one hour — of
profile worse and having to start over, a second flex rocker on top of the first, motion. He also gave himself an extra
the ‘observer’ seizes the mirror from placed the OTA on it, and shoved. It 7½° beyond vertical in the regular
the ‘maker’ and sends it off to be worked beautifully! And thus the alt- altitude direction. That lets him observe
aluminised”. alt-az mount was born. an object right on through the zenith
With the mirror done, Mel turned to When aimed near the horizon, without twisting the scope in azimuth.
the scope that would hold it. At f/2.6, the scope behaves just like a standard With a telescope this fast, a coma
the eyepiece would be below eye level Dobsonian: You raise and lower it corrector is essential. At f/2.6 Mel can
at zenith, which meant he had some for altitude, and you push and pull it just squeak by with a 2-inch Paracorr,
T Left: Pierre Lemay’s two-speed helical Crayford focuser incorporates the 3-inch paracorr as a
drawtube. Middle: The fine-motion mechanism moves a nylon block sideways to provide minute
adjustment to the helical twist. Right: A helical Crayford focuser uses angled bearings to direct
the drawtube inward and outward as it’s twisted.
ASTRONOMER’S WORKBENCH
W Pierre has designed an easy and Pierre’s first attempt, using a

inexpensive two-inch plywood version cylindrical Delrin friction block,
of his two-speed helical Crayford
proved too slippery, but he re-did the
focuser.
friction block with a rectangular cross
or outward along the bearings’ section and that worked like a charm.
angle of attack, while a friction Mel reports that the focuser works
pad holds the tube against those beautifully on his new scope.
bearings and provides the right An interesting detail: The coma
amount of resistance. corrector intrudes into the light path
Somewhere along the line as by a couple of centimetres or so. That
he was designing the focuser, enabled Mel to use a smaller secondary
Pierre had a brainstorm: If he put mirror, which provides less overall
the friction block on a screw that obstruction than if he had moved the
pulled it from side to side, he could coma corrector farther out.
provide a fine motion control. And One of Mel’s big observing interests
but he wanted the capability to use thus the two-speed helical Crayford is tracing out the delicate web of galactic
a 3-inch corrector for a wider, fully focuser was born. cirrus, the gas and dust within our
illuminated field. That would require a The focuser coarse-focuses with a galaxy that’s illuminated not by any
3-inch focuser, which is both heavy and twisting motion like any helical design, single star but by the combined glow
expensive. and it fine-focuses with a threaded of the entire Milky Way Galaxy. He
Mel and Pierre Lemay were in shaft that pulls and pushes the friction continues to search out new patches of
constant contact during the building block tangentially across the drawtube. galactic cirrus whenever he can. This
process, and when Pierre heard about The pitch of the screw determines new scope is great for that. With its wide
this problem, he said, “Why don’t you how incremental the fine motion is. field and large aperture, faint nebulosity
use the barrel of the coma corrector Experimentation quickly showed that really stands out nicely. Mel reports
as the drawtube of a helical Crayford Pierre would need a coarse thread to that the Ring Nebula (M57) also sports
focuser?” In fact, Pierre offered to make keep from making multiple turns for colour when viewed directly on.
just such a focuser for him. even the finest adjustment. He settled I had the pleasure of viewing through
A helical Crayford foregoes the on a multi-lead screw with a draw of 3 this innovative optical masterpiece,
threaded barrel that standard helical turns per 2.5 cm, which gave a coarse- and I can confirm that it is a joy to use.
focusers use in favour of angled to-fine focus ratio of about 32:1, which is With the Veil Nebula nearly straight
bearings that rest against the drawtube. perfect for fast telescopes where the tight overhead, I was guiding the scope with
Rotating the tube makes it crawl inward depth of field leaves no room for error. the ease of a ball-mounted scope and
enjoying the sharp-focused view from a
62.5-cm aperture mirror, seeing details
The secondary mirror is I’d never seen before — all with both my
supported using solid
feet flat on the ground.
wire and only requires
minor adjustment after Now that’s what I call a multiple
each setup. breakthrough.
PLY WOOD FOCUSER: PIERRE LEM AY; SECONDA RY MIRROR: MEL BA RTELS
For more information about
this telescope and many of Mel’s
other designs, visit his website at
bbastrodesigns.com.
Visit Pierre Lemay’s website at
telescopelemay.com if you’d like to
learn more about the focuser, including
plans for a plywood 2-inch version
that can be built for about $20 in parts
with little more than hand tools and a
drill press.
■ Contributing Editor JERRY OLTION is

easily impressed… with innovations as
impressive as these!

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NIGHT LIFE
Space celebrations
2019 will see a bumper crop of astrofests and other science events.
here’ll be lots of exciting events Australian Centre for Astrobiology at
T coming up in 2019, especially

those in July associated with
the 50th anniversary of the landing
UNSW. Check out the event website
(worldsciencefestival.com.au) for more
details.
of Apollo 11 on the Moon— watch On the other side of the country, WA
this space and the AS&T website will once again play host to a couple of
(skyandtelescope.com.au) for details of fantastic astronomy festivals, the first
those events as they are announced. of which will be the WA Astrofest itself
The World Science Festival returns (astronomywa.net.au) in March. This
to Brisbane in March, with an amazing event regularly attracts up to 4,000
line-up of topics and speakers to suit all people, and it’s no wonder considering
tastes, and especially space exploration. the range of family-friendly activities
One of the headline presentations will on offer (telescope viewing, guest
be ‘We will be Martians: Our Future speakers, science presentations etc).
on the Red Planet,’ with a top-flight Smaller, but having the advantage of
range of speakers including: Professor some seriously dark skies, will be the
Brian Greene, renowned physicist and Astro Rock Fest (mtmagnet-astrorocks.
World Science Festival co-founder; com), to be held in September at Mt
Yvonne Cagle, Chief Scientist, Level II Magnet (inland from Geraldton). Now
Program Office Commercial Re-useable in its seventh year, the event combines
Suborbital Research program at astronomy and geology, which makes
NASA; Christin Charles, Professor a lot of sense considering the location.
This year will see the 50th anniversary and Head of Space Plasma, Power and Although a bit off the beaten track for
of the Apollo 11 lunar landing.. Propulsion Laboratory at the ANU; and many, if you’re in the area make sure
Jon Clarke, Associate Member at the you drop in and take part.
WA Astrofest Yuri’s Night Asteroid Day

March 16 April 12 June 30
A family friendly astronomy festival held in Annual worldwide celebration of space on A global day of education to help protect
Perth. the anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s flight. Earth from asteroids.
astronomywa.net.au yurisnight.net asteroidday.org
World Science Festival Brisbane South Pacific Star Party National Science Week
March 20–24 May 2–5 August 10–18
Multiple activities, including a headline Mars Annual star party of the Astronomical Includes lots of astro events. Keep visiting
presentation. Society of NSW. the website for the latest info.
worldsciencefestival.com.au asnsw.com/spsp scienceweek.net.au
Earth Hour Open Night RASNZ Conference Astro Rocks Fest

March 30 May 17–19 September 20–22
Free family stargazing event with Sydney’s New Zealand’s annual astro gathering, this Family weekend of both astro and geo fun at
Sutherland Astronomical Society. year to be held in New Plymouth. Mt Magnet, WA.
sasi.net.au rasnz.org.nz/32-conference mtmagnet-astrorocks.com
WHAT’S UP? Do you have an event or activity coming up? Email us at editor@skyandtelescope.com.au
N ASA

IN PROFILE
Houghy with the capture it from go to whoa in H-alpha

Celestron RASA in his and white light.
‘doghouse’ dome.
What has been your proudest moment?

I do love solar imaging; the Sun is
never boring. In 2014 I got lucky; the
seeing steadied and gave me a moment
I will never forget — white light solar
granulation detail around a very large
sunspot. That gave me a nice certificate
from the David Malin Awards in 2014.
I also got another Malin award for a
time-lapse of the Venus transit in 2012.
What’s on your astronomy ‘to do’ list?
David Hough I would love to witness an aurora and

chase down some more eclipses. I hope
to make the one going through Sydney
childhood fascination with the in 2028 and not be pushing up the
A
What has been your favourite
stars has led to a lifelong interest astronomical moment? daisies for the 2037 one near the Gold
for David Hough, or Houghy as The total solar eclipse near Cairns was Coast. I love the Queensland Astrofest
he is known. His father gave him pair of mesmerising, but chasing down clear and hope I can add to my list of fests for
binoculars, and a “cool” physics teacher skies for the transit of Venus for the many more years; I am 10-plus at the
made science worthwhile. And then in second time was my best moment. moment and very much addicted.
his late-teens he saw Saturn through a Mike Sidonio and I travelled to sunny
homemade 20-cm Dob. “That blew me Nyngan where, from the backyard of ■ You can see David’s Venus transit
away and I wanted more,” he says. a 100-year-old pub, we managed to video at youtu.be/-uOo_bK7LoM
What was your first telescope set-up?

My first real telescope was a white
80-mm Tasco refractor that I bought
second-hand when I was 21. It had
a timber tripod and a very wobbly
equatorial manual mount. The 0.96
eyepieces gave wondrous but fleeting
glimpses of Saturn, Jupiter and the
Moon, because I couldn’t set it up to
save my life.
What sort of equipment do you use

now, and why?
I consider astronomy to be like golf…
you just need the right club to catch
those photons. Currently I have a couple
of different refractors, a 20-cm SCT,
60-mm solar telescope, FLI and ASI
cameras, and my pride of place Celestron
11 RASA telescope. My Sky-Watcher EQ8
mount works well as the travel mount
for the Queensland Astrofest. And then
there is the ‘doghouse,’ a 2.3m dome.
X Solar imaging is one of David’s passions —

“the Sun is never boring”.
GALLERY
Astrophotos from our readers
S CELESTIAL BAUBLE Kevin Osborn

Sharpless 2-308, also known as the Gourd Nebula, is a
60-light-year-wide bubble blown by a hot stellar wind from
the bright star in the middle. The wind is shaping gas released
thousands of years earlier. Kevin used a Sky-Watcher Esprit
100 ED telescope on a Sky-Watcher EQ6-R Pro mount. The
camera used was a ZWO ASI1600MM Pro with red, green,
blue, H-alpha and OIII filters.

W RINGED WONDER
Michael Clark
Saturn was high in the sky in August 2018
when Michael used his Sky-Watcher
Newtonian OTA, Sky-Watcher EQ6 mount and
AstroShop GSTAR-EX3 colour video camera
to produce this image. It’s a stack of the best
5% of 1,554 frames.
T STARGAZERS
Michael Mattiazzo
The Milky Way hugged the horizon as
observers gathered for the VicSouth
Star Party at the Little Desert Nature
lodge near Nhill, Victoria. Michael used
a Canon EOS 60Da camera and an 18-
mm lens for the 14-second exposure.
GALLERY
MARS ON SHOW Niall MacNeill

We’ve featured Niall’s award-winning images in our
pages before. He’s now produced this montage of
Mars taken during last year’s close approach. He
used a Celestron C14 EdgeHD, Paramount MX+,
ZWO ASI174MM camera and ZWO RGB filter set.
MOONRISE Stephen Mudge

This shot of the Moon rising over the
Brisbane skyline combines three exposures
(1/25th, 0.3 and 2.5 seconds) using HDR
processing. The equipment was a tripod-
mounted Canon EOS 6D and a 200-mm
telephoto lens at f/5.6.

S TARANTULA Ben Jackson
There’s plenty of detail visible in this
image of the Tarantula Nebula, one of
the showpieces of our southern skies.
Ben used a Sky-Watcher Esprit 80 scope
and ZWO ASI1600MM Pro camera, with
H-alpha, OIII and SII filters.
HOW TO SUBMIT YOUR IMAGES Images should be sent electronically and in high-resolution (up to 10MB per email) to contributions@
skyandtelescope.com.au. Please provide full details for each image, eg. date and time taken; telescope and/or lens; mount; imaging equipment
type and model; filter (if used); exposure or integration time; and any software processing employed. If your image is published in this Gallery,
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observatory to a working museum. From
Foundation in Washington D.C.
the close cultural relationship shared
between a colonial lieutenant and a Cadigal SpaceTime blog
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telescope used to map the stars of the
spacetimewithstuartgary.
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Included is a complete guide to what’s visible in the
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FOCAL POINT by Pat Plunkett
Sight unseen
On a fine observing night with friends, an amateur astronomer got an alarming surprise.
OUR LOCAL ASTRONOMY CLUB hosts That’s when I started to notice that companion galaxy. When I put my
a monthly starwatch every third Friday. something was not right. I’m almost eye to the eyepiece of his 25-cm
Since it was finally a clear evening, I always the first of the group to find reflector, I was barely able to make
travelled to the site to get ready for objects and usually the one to point out the main galaxy and certainly
what I hoped would be a great evening them out to my compatriots. As Venus couldn’t see the companion. Bad night
observing a crescent Moon and lots appeared, I kept losing it when trying indeed, I thought. Then one of the
of deep sky objects. I was especially to aim my scope at it, while my mates inexperienced visitors peered through
looking forward to my last peek of the seemed to have no problem keeping the scope and saw both galaxies with
season at M42, the Orion Nebula. a lock on our sister planet. Oh well, I no problem.
When I arrived, the Sun was still up thought, I must be a little off my game What was happening? Was I losing
but low on the horizon, and the Moon tonight. Later, one of the group was my sight?
was high in the western sky. I took trying to get me to M42, and I was The night continued in the same
advantage of the sunlight to set up my having trouble locating the Belt stars to vein for a while, and I contented myself
scope and start viewing the Moon — it indicate the way to the Sword. Again, I with observing the Moon. It really was
was magnificent through my refractor. thought I was just a bit off. outstanding, so the night wasn’t a total
As the evening wore on, the sky darkened Later still, one of the folks found disappointment. But I left the site with
nicely, and the stars began popping out. one of the better galaxies and its a real worry nagging at me. Were my
eyes finally succumbing to old age? I’m
only 63, after all!
On the drive home, my headlights
didn’t seem to be working as well as
usual, and as I pulled into my driveway
I checked to see if both headlights
were functional. (They were.) Okay,
now I was really worried. Can sudden
loss of vision happen? Anticipating an
emergency visit to an ophthalmologist
in the morning, I morosely started
dragging my stuff inside. As I entered
the house, everything seemed dim as
well. Not good.
Then, feeling like a complete idiot,
I noticed that I still had my sunglasses
on! They’re the same prescription as my
regular glasses, including being bifocals.
It’d been sunny when I arrived at the
stargazing site, and I’d simply forgotten
to remove them.
Moral: It’s never too dark to be cool,
but if you see someone in your group
wearing sunglasses after dark, you might
want to mention it.
PAT PLUNKETT spent 20-plus

years in the air force, after which he
taught computer science for another
20-plus years.

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INTRODUCING THE ALL NEW

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+ Added autoguider and AUX

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CELESTRON AUSTRALIAN RETAILERS:

THE ESSENTIAL MAGAZINE OF ASTRONOMY

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FIND YOUR LOCAL STOCKIST )LQGXVRQ)DFHERRN

18 Meet the neighbours

26 Space missions in 2019

4 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE February | March 2019

The days of DIY

74 NightLife and Astro Calendar

we interview leading amateurs.

6 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE February | March 2019

Evidence mounts for mighty Magellanic collision In 2012, researchers offered an

The Kepler era comes to an end Sunset for Dawn

8 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE February | March 2019

CELESTRON AUSTRALIAN RETAILERS:

G A L A XIES N ASA / ESA / HUBBLE / CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

Some stars may be intergalactic visitors

10 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE February | March 2019

T is one of the many splendid sights

February 1987 (left). An

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MAKING WAVES This artist’s concept

Astronomers are watching dozens

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predicted arrival time (ns)

predicted arrival time (ns)

along its path from the pulsar to Earth.

Detecting individual sources

S WORLDWIDE EFFORT Astronomers use 12 radio observatories to track roughly 75

16 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE February | March 2019

The Solar System barycentre

18 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE February | March 2019

Meet the of the nearest stars to discover

I might have become a leading light in the search for

distance at which the difference between a

VEGA The A-type as M dwarfs or red dwarfs. These are the 1%

20 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE February | March 2019

team, led by Alexander Scholz (University

“This is possible, but the theorists would really be wrong by 0.16

Radius (solar radii)

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ROSS 128b This artist’s

24 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE February | March 2019

ideal gift for all astronomers, particularly

Moon Inner Solar System

26 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE February | March 2019

Outer Solar System

Not to scale Voyager 2

30 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE February | March 2019

At issue is what we mean by ‘Big Bang’. There is some

Inﬂation scenario Bounce scenario

32 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE February | March 2019

X B MODES If inflation happened,

34 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE February | March 2019

The world’s first female

SIL AS ELLSWORTH COLEM A N, THE ELEMENTS OF PHYSICS (19 0 6) / PUBLIC DO M AIN

36 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE February | March 2019

TIMOTHY JENSEN images the night sky from his rural