2020-05-01 Australian Sky Telescope
2020-05-01 Australian Sky Telescope
2020-05-01 Australian Sky Telescope
hello CMOS chip cameras P60 life into a 1970s Dobsonian P36 tracking down ring galaxies P52
NEW WORLDS
Rethinking how
planets are made P20
LIQUID MIRRORS
Making telescopes
from mercury P28
THE ESSENTIAL MAGAZINE OF ASTRONOMY
ASTEROID
ENIGMAS Revealing two
rugged, rubble
worlds P12
TEST REPORT
Canon’s
Mirrorless
EOS Ra
MAY | JUNE 2020
camera P66 ISSUE 125
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Contents
REGULARS
Observing eclipses
5 Spectrum p.56
from other planets
6 News notes
11 Discoveries
26 Cosmic relief
41 AS&T bookshop
45 Vistas
64 New products
65 Book review
FEATURES
12 Rugged worlds
The two spacecraft sent to Ryugu
and Bennu have unveiled asteroids
with formidable surfaces and
mysterious histories.
By Camille M. Carlisle
Mr Dobson and
his radical idea
WAY BACK IN THE 1970s, one man set off a revolution in telescope
design that has not only lasted until the present time, but is still
flourishing. His idea was simple – get a basic telescope tube, stick it
in a basic wooden box and make it tilt and swivel. Use the cheapest
components you can find, even (or preferably) recycled materials, and
voila! — you would have an inexpensive instrument that even the most
inexperienced of beginners could easily use.
That man was John Dobson, of course. Although he didn’t really
like having his telescope design, the Dobsonian, named after him, the
Completing a project moniker has stuck and today is universally recognised. Dobsonians have
p.36
begun in the 1970s gone from being mostly amateur-built scopes, some of them very rough, to
mainstream instruments produced at one time or another by all the major
manufacturers. One of those rough scopes — begun under the tutelage
of Dobson himself, but not completed at the time — has finally seen first
THE ASTRONOMY SCENE
light thanks to the efforts of Jerry Oltion (see page 36).
36 Telescope making I had the privilege of meeting John Dobson more than 30 years ago,
A Dobsonian relic of the 1970s and he certainly made an impression on me. He came across as a humble
finally sees the light. but incisive man, very smart and with a cheeky sense of humour. There
By Jerry Oltion
are few people about whom it can be said that they changed amateur
66 Test report astronomy forever. We should all be grateful for the legacy of someone
We take a good look at Canon’s whose simple concept did just that.
mirrorless EOS Ra. Jonathan Nally, Editor
By Alan Dyer [email protected]
72 Astronomer’s workbench
Building a carbon-fibre telescope.
By Jerry Oltion
THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO ASTRONOMY
74 Night life and Astro calendar
Check out the Australian Sky & Telescope website for the latest astronomy
Events, activities and what’s news from Australia and around the cosmos: skyandtelescope.com.au
happening in the astronomy world.
www.skyandtelescope.com.au
NEWS NOTES
D. NIDE V ER E T A L. / NR AO / AUI / NSF / MELLING ER / LEIDEN / A RG EN TINE / BONN SURV E Y / PA RK ES OBSERVATORY / WESTERBORK OBSERVATORY / A RECIBO OBSERVATORY;
Way. These stars probably formed from material
originating from the Magellanic Clouds.
Leading arm of
the Magellanic Both their composition and velocities
Stream match that of the leading arm of the
Magellanic Stream. In two papers in
Plane of the Milky Way the Astrophysical Journal, the team
concludes that these stars likely
formed from the gas at the head of the
Magellanic Stream.
R A DCLIFFE WAV E: WORLDWIDE TELESCOPE, COURTESY OF A LYSSA GOODM A N; Q UASA RS: N ASA / ESA / S. H. SU Y U / K . C. WONG
Murmurs of excitement from fellow
Magellanic Stream Large
Magellanic astronomers met Price-Whelan and
Small Cloud Nidever when they reported these
Magellanic results at a meeting of the American
Cloud
Astronomical Society in Honolulu.
Observers have been looking for stars
associated with the Magellanic Stream
for decades, explains Jeremy Bailin
(University of Alabama), in part to help
ASTRONOMERS HAVE DISCOVERED a making gas in the Milky Way’s halo, as pin down its distance. It’s difficult to
collection of young stars in a surprising most of the gas is too hot and diffuse to determine the distance to hydrogen
location: the Milky Way’s halo. collapse into new suns. What little cool gas, but based on the stars’ distances,
Adrian Price-Whelan (Flatiron gas there is resides in the Magellanic the astronomers estimate that the
Institute) discovered the stars while Stream, a long gaseous ribbon that Magellanic Stream is roughly half as far
digging through data collected by the travels with the Large and Small away as previously thought.
European Gaia mission. The newfound Magellanic Clouds through our galaxy’s The stars lie in front of the stream,
stars are 117 million years old and move outer regions. not in it. The team thinks this offset
together as a set. They’re similar to open And the new stars appear to be sailing occurs because the halo’s hot gas drags
clusters like the Pleiades in both age and right in front of that ribbon of gas. on the gaseous stream but not on the
mass. But at 94,000 light-years away, the To investigate the stars’ properties, stars. Over time, the gas slows down
new stars are 200 times farther away David Nidever (Montana State and falls behind the stars. In fact, the
than the Seven Sisters. They’re also more University), Price-Whelan and stars’ ages match when the stream last
spread out, spanning some 2,500 light- colleagues took spectra of 28 of the passed through our galaxy’s outer disk.
years, and are not gravitationally bound. brightest stars in the group. The That passage could have compressed the
By rights, the stars shouldn’t be out measurements showed that the stars stream’s gas, spurring starbirth.
there at all. There’s not much star- have a fairly pristine composition. ■ CAMILLE M. CARLISLE
t A selection of
gravitationally
lensed quasars
travelling a longer path will arrive later, completely independent from other rate. But calculations based on the
so astronomers will see the same flicker distance measurements. Based on these cosmic microwave background emitted
multiple times. They can then measure distances, the team estimated that the shortly after the Big Bang suggest that
the time delays to paint a 3D picture of universe is currently expanding at a rate the current expansion rate ought to
the gravitational lens. between 71.5 and 75 km/s/megaparsec. be slower. The gravitational-lensing
From this picture, astronomers This finding confirms other results study therefore deepens the ongoing
can estimate the distances to the based on relatively nearby objects, controversy.
quasar and the lensing galaxy in a way which show a similarly fast expansion ■ GOVERT SCHILLING
www.skyandtelescope.com.au 7
NEWS NOTES
IN BRIEF
A star-forming region in a spiral galaxy hosts FRB 180916.
Most planets lost in
globular clusters
At most one-fifth of planetary systems
around stars in globular clusters may
survive, student astronomer Melissa
Cashion (Texas A&M University) has
reported. Globulars are dense, long-lived
clusters of many thousands of stars, and
it’s unclear how planets fare in such an
environment. Cashion and her colleagues
simulated clusters with 800,000 stars,
with some fraction of them beginning
with a Jupiter-mass planet circling at the
same distance that Jupiter circles the Sun.
The astronomers then followed the stars
and their planets over 12 billion years,
watching things unfold. Most planetary
systems were destroyed in the first billion
WHITE DWA RF A ND NEU TRON STA R: M A RK M Y ERS / A RC CEN TRE OF E XCELLENCE FOR G R AVITATION A L WAV E DISCOV ERY (OZG R AV ); THUBA N BIN A RY: N ASA GODDA RD SPACE FLIG H T
years, they found, with planets jumping
to different stars — or in rare cases,
black holes. Some planets wound up
permanently circling another companion,
but most went rogue, wandering the
cluster starless or even ejected from the
cluster entirely. A 5% to 20% survival rate
is “not too bad, considering all the chaos,”
Cashion says.
■ CAMILLE M. CARLISLE
New radio flash ‘repeater’ pinned down
RECENT OBSERVATIONS have This environment is similar to
New Horizons still pinpointed the location of a fifth fast the star-forming region hosting the
exploring the Kuiper Belt radio burst (FRB), shedding light on the first repeater, but it contrasts with
CEN TER / CHRIS SMITH (USR A); G EMINI OBSERVATORY / NSF’S N ATION A L OIR ASTRONO M Y RESE A RCH L A BOR ATORY / AUR A
Ever since the New Horizons spacecraft environments that create these brief but the locations of single FRB flashes,
passed Pluto and set its sights on powerful radio-wave flashes. Marcote says. All those have been
Arrokoth (formerly 2014 MU69), its team Benito Marcote (Joint Institute for localised to massive galaxies with low
has been taking pictures of other, faraway VLBI, The Netherlands) announced at star-formation rates. The find suggests
worlds in the Kuiper Belt. Although the American Astronomical Society that repeating and non-repeating FRBs
these small bodies have been nothing
meeting in Honolulu that he and his might have different origins.
but blurry blobs as the craft passed
them — at distances from one-tenth colleagues have pinned down another Yet astronomers are still far from
to 1 astronomical unit — scientists are radio flash, the second repeating FRB understanding what those origins
still able to learn about their shapes. to have a known location. The result are. New results from the CHIME
The team watches how the worlds appears in the January 9 issue of Nature. collaboration, to appear in the
change in brightness over time as The Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Astrophysical Journal Letters, will
they’re seen from different angles, then Mapping Experiment (CHIME) help: The unique telescope discovered
combines that information with Earth-
telescope discovered the radio flash, nine additional repeaters in 2019
based observations. This work indicates
that Kuiper Belt objects have a variety referred to as FRB 180916, in 2018. As observations, but what’s more, the
of shapes, Simon Porter (Southwest the source continued to emit flashes, collaboration is also still analysing some
Research Institute) and colleagues eight radio dishes of the European 700 additional FRB detections, to be
reported at the meeting of the American VLBI Network pinpointed the source to published in a forthcoming catalogue.
Astronomical Society in Honolulu. One, the outskirts of a spiral galaxy, whose “By the end of 2020, we will have
called 2011 JY31, is probably spherical; light travelled almost half a billion more than 1,000 FRBs, at least a few
two others appear to be conjoined twins,
years to Earth. The astronomers used dozen that will be precisely localised,
like Arrokoth. A third looks like a binary
system. The results add to growing
the 8.1-metre Gemini North telescope and we can answer some questions,”
evidence that binaries and contact on Mauna Kea, Hawai‘i, to image the predicts study coauthor Jason Hessels
binaries might be common in the outer region: Whatever was producing the (ASTRON, The Netherlands). “Or at
solar system. radio flashes had a nursery of newborn least we’ll have some new questions.”
■ CAMILLE M. CARLISLE stars for company. ■ MONICA YOUNG
Into astronomy?
Don’t be left in the dark
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www.skyandtelescope.com.au 9
NEWS NOTES
Computing boost for Australian nodes, each with two Intel Xeon Gold
6230 processors operating at 2.1 GHz
radio telescopes providing a total of forty compute cores,
plus a single NVIDIA V100 with 32 GB
A NEW $2 MILLION computing facility Modern observatories such as these of high-bandwidth memory, 960 GB
based at the Pawsey Supercomputing produce copious quantities of data that of local NVMe storage and 384 GB of
Centre in Perth will crunch the huge needs to be crunched at high speed. The main memory.
amounts of data produced by the new computer — a cluster of 78 ‘nodes’ High-performance computing
Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) that comprise the latest in computing supplier HPE has been awarded the
radio telescope. technology — will do just that. contract. The firm not only met the
The MWA comprises a large group The cluster will provide improved technical requirements, but also brings
of radio antennae spread across parts capabilities to undertake artificial an ability to apply local and global
of the Western Australia desert, and is intelligence, computational work, resources to provide the best level of
a stepping-stone or ‘precursor’ of the machine learning workflows and data support for the lifetime of the system.
future much-larger Square Kilometre analytics. Commissioning of the MWA
Array. Until now, MWA and ASKAP computing cluster is expected to be
Both the MWA and the Australian researchers have used the Pawsey completed by the second quarter of
SKA Pathfinder (ASKAP) are located Supercomputing Centre’s special 2020.
at the Murchison Radio-astronomy purpose Galaxy supercomputer, which The Pawsey Supercomputing Centre
Observatory in WA, which is owned and itself is to be upgraded at a cost of is a joint venture of the CSIRO, Curtin
operated by the CSIRO. The number of $70 million, funded by the federal University, Edith Cowan University,
antennae in the MWA has recently been government. Murdoch University and the University
doubled, and ASKAP will soon begin “The new MWA cluster at Pawsey of Western Australia.
undertaking full surveys of the sky. will feature 156 of the latest generation ■ JONATHAN NALLY
May 15, 1836, reported so vividly on helped spark reform of the Nautical
what he saw that he awakened a wide Almanac, a vital source of astronomical ■ DAVID ELLYARD is the author of Who
general interest in solar eclipses and information, published every year and Discovered What When.
www.skyandtelescope.com.au 11
ASTEROID RECON by Camille M. Carlisle
The two spacecraft sent to Ryugu and Bennu have unveiled asteroids
with formidable surfaces and mysterious histories.
CARL HERGENROTHER’S BRAIN was fried. He’d been awake Puzzled, he pulled up the free software Stellarium and
all night, writing up results for a morning presentation at the plugged in the coordinates. The background stars matched
science team meeting for NASA’s OSIRIS-REX mission, which up, but there was no sign of the cluster’s 20 orr so pinpricks.
had arrived at asteroid 101955 Bennu just a month prior. After processing the image and others taken arround the same
Running on maybe half an hour of sleep, he decided the time, he made a startling discovery: The ‘stars’’ had trails
only thing his mind was good for was to blink through the that all traced back to a single point on the astteroid’s surface.
week’s backlog of navigation images and check for anything These weren’t stars — they were particles.
interesting. Bennu was firing rock bullets.
He watched in a daze as Vega and Lyra went by, then The particles put Hergenrother in a pickle. His
Orion, then distant Earth and its Moon. Suddenly, he hit presentation that morning was supposed to bee about how
upon an image of what looked like a dense star cluster sitting OSIRIS-REX hadn’t seen any signs of activity ffrom the
just off the asteroid’s limb. Enough of a backyard astronomer asteroid. This wasn’t the moment to break the news to the
to quickly tell one cluster from another, Hergenrother whole team. So he hedged. Later, when everyon ne broke for
(University of Arizona) knew at a glance that he wasn’t lunch, he grabbed some of the mission leaders, including
looking at one of the well-known celestial groupings such as principal investigator (PI) Dante Lauretta (also University of
the Coma or Hyades clusters. In fact, he didn’t know of any Arizona), and showed them the images on his screen.
cluster at the coordinates captured in the image. “Dante just kind of turned white,” Hergenrrother says.
The PI’s jaw dropped. “Here we are, we had just arrived at the
asteroid, and the thing’s shooting at us!”
A LOT IN A NAME Bennu’s intermittent coughs of centimetre--size pebbles
Bennu takes its name from an ancient Egyptian deity
are one of several surprising results from OSIR RIS-REX
connected to the Sun, creation and rebirth, and its
surface features are named for birds or bird-like
creatures in mythology. Ryugu (or ‘Ryugo-jo’) is a “Here we are, we had just arrived
dragon palace in a Japanese fairy tale; the asteroid’s at the asteroid, and the thing’s
feature names come from children’s stories.
shooting at us!”
KO C HI U N I V. / R IK K YO U N I V. / N AGOYA U N I V.
A R IZO N A ; RY UGU: JA X A / U N I V. O F TOK YO /
B E N N U: N ASA / GO D DA R D / U N I V E R S IT Y O F
Worlds
N ASA / GO D DA R D
/ U N I V E R S IT Y O F
A R IZO N A
www.skyandtelescope.com.au 13
ASTEROID RECON
regolith and its boulders when they look at the surface in JUN 27: ARRIVAL AT
ASTEROID RYUGU
infrared, says the navigation cameras’ science team leader
SEPT 21: MINERVA-II1 ROVERS
Seiji Sugita (University of Tokyo). On both Ryugu and Bennu, DEPLOYED TO SURFACE
the whole surface heats up at more or less the same rate.
OCT 3: MASCOT ROVER DEPLOYED
“That’s the surprising discovery,” he says. “We are really DEC 3: ARRIVAL AT BENNU
DEC 31: ENTERED ORBIT
scratching our heads.” FEB 22: TOUCHDOWN 1
2019 AROUND BENNU
Another Hayabusa 2 experiment also suggests the asteroids APR 4: BLASTED ARTIFICIAL FEB 28: DETAILED
CRATER USING EXPLOSIVE SMALL SURVEYING BEGAN
are extraordinarily porous. Before its second and final CARRY-ON IMPACTOR (SCI)
touchdown on Ryugu, the spacecraft launched an explosive JUL 11: TOUCHDOWN 2,
ABOUT 20 M FROM SCI CRATER
projectile to blast a hole in the surface, digging up material
RY UGU’S SURFACE: JA X A (2); CAULIFLOWER ROCK: N ASA / GODDA RD / UNIV ERSIT Y OF A RIZON A; MISSION TIMELINE: TERRI DUBÉ / S&T
OCT 3: MINERVA-II2
previously protected from space weathering. The scientists ROVER DEPLOYED
expected the resulting crater would be a few metres wide. 2020
NOV 13: DEPARTURE
JAN 21: SITE RECON
Instead, the explosion dug a 13-metre-wide pit. Probably the FROM RYUGU
FLYOVERS BEGAN
COMPLETED
rocks’ low porosity, paired with the asteroid’s weak gravity,
explains the peculiarly large hole, mission manager Makoto PLANNED
Yoshikawa (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) said at the AUG 25: TOUCHDOWN
this perspective.
www.skyandtelescope.com.au 15
ASTEROID RECON
Bennu rotates every 4.3 hours, which must have formed at least several million years ago, back
when both worlds were still in the main asteroid belt between
means that every 4.3 hours its airless Mars and Jupiter and vulnerable to big crashes. That implies
surface experiences a temperature the ridges are old, perhaps even as old as the asteroids
rollercoaster. themselves. Simulations by Patrick Michel (Côte d’Azur
Observatory, France) and others also indicate that a body
SH A DOW OF H AYA BUSA 2: JA X A / UNIV. OF TOK YO / KOCHI UNIV. / RIK K YO UNIV. / N AGOYA UNIV. / CHIBA INST. OF TECHNOLOGY / MEIJI UNIV. / UNIV. OF AIZU / AIST; SURFACE M A P OF RY UGU: JA X A A ND S. SUGITA E T A L. / SCIENCE 2019
Such resurfacing might be connected to the strange die built up from the shattered remains of an earlier asteroid can
shape, Sugita suggests. Ryugu’s equatorial ridge draws a end up with a die shape, no landslides required.
symmetric circle around the asteroid’s middle when viewed That there are craters at all on Bennu and Ryugu “really
from above the poles, like a skirt whirled out by a rapid spin. shocked me,” says asteroid scientist Bill Bottke (Southwest
The overall slope of the ground is also low and gentle, close Research Institute, Boulder). Many small asteroids shed
to the critical angle for landslides if the material, for various reasons. He thus
asteroid had once been spinning about expected the spacecrafts’ targets to be
twice as fast as it is now, project scientist essentially blank slates, wiped clean by all
Seiichiro Watanabe (Nagoya University, the goings-on. Perhaps it’s easier to make
Japan), Sugita, and their colleagues craters on these bodies’ surfaces than we
calculated last year. Perhaps Ryugu spun thought, he says — a solution supported
itself into its odd shape, generating by Hayabusa 2’s impact experiment. Or,
landslides and erasing craters. he speculates, maybe asteroid surfaces
Lauretta is hesitant to favour a don’t erase themselves easily. That would
scenario for how the asteroids came imply that regions covered with large
by these shapes. At first, he was “fully
onboard” with the rapid spin solution. W LEFT A MARK Hayabusa 2’s shadow sails
But the large, ancient craters on the over the first touchdown site on February 22,
equatorial ridges give him pause. Those 2019, just after completing the maneuver.
T RYUGU Hayabusa 2 dropped rovers at two known locations (yellow, hazy spots) on Ryugu, touched down twice and mapped dozens of craters
(white circles) as well as two large trenches, called fossae. The largest boulder, Otohime Saxum, appears stretched out here because of the severe
projection distortions near the map’s poles. The team has not yet identified where the final rover, Minerva-II2, landed.
90°N
60°N
Minerva-II1
30°N landin
ng site
i Cendrillon
Crater
Touchdown 2
Touchdown 1
Brabo Ryujin Dorsum
Ryujin Dorsum Kintaro Crater
0° Crater
Urashima Kolobok
l
Crater Crater
Momotaro
Crater
–30°S MASCOT
M
landing site
e
Ejima Horai
Kibidango Saxum Fossa
Crater
–60°S
Tokoyo
Fossa
Otohime
Saxum
–90S°
0° 30° 60° 90° 120° 150° 180° 210° 240° 270° 300° 330° 360°
Hayabusa 2 will bring home could tell us observations had hinted that Ryugu’s
the little worlds’ ages. The catastrophic surface bore hydrated minerals, while
impact that created the rubble the Bennu looked relatively dry. Scientists
asteroids formed from would have reset found the reverse. Ryugu has much less
certain chemical clocks, Lauretta explains. water caught up in its rocks’ crystalline
One useful clock is the ratio of potassium structure than what’s typically seen in a
to argon. Potassium is a rock-loving carbonaceous chondrite meteorite.
T BENNU The OSIRIS-REX team has chosen two W UP CLOSE Shots of Bennu reveal an imposing
potential landing sites on Bennu: Nightingale and surface replete with boulders. These rocks look
Osprey. Also shown are the origins for the three deceptively small: The one in the top image’s
largest particle ejection events (the Jan. 6 event upper left is 14.5 metres wide; the little rock on
launched from near the south pole). The various the flat one in the middle image is the size of a
smaller ones come from all over the asteroid. The horse; and the bottom image’s boulder is as tall
team hasn’t assigned official feature names yet. as a 747 aircraft’s tail.
60°N
Nightingale
30°N
Feb. 11 Jan. 19
0°
Osprey
–30°S
–60°S Jan. 6
0° 30° 60° 90° 120° 150° 180° 210° 240° 270° 300° 330° 360°
www.skyandtelescope.com.au 17
ASTEROID RECON
TA RG E T DESCEN T: JA X A / UNIV. OF TOK YO / KOCHI UNIV. / RIK K YO UNIV. / N AGOYA UNIV. / CHIBA INST. OF TECHNOLOGY / MEIJI UNIV. / UNIV. OF AIZU / AIST
out by sunlight. Or maybe the asteroids aren’t siblings after all. landing again. The sum effect is like a constant swarm of
bees, Hergenrother says.
q ACTIVE ASTEROID This enhanced, two-image composite shows The Hayabusa 2 team can’t tell whether Ryugu also spews
some of the 93 particles observed launching from Bennu on January 19, shards — the spacecraft only darted close to Ryugu’s surface
2019. The event was one of the three largest seen thus far. to drop its rovers and take samples, and it also doesn’t have
as sensitive a camera. OSIRIS-REX, on the other hand, stayed
within a couple of kilometres of Bennu’s surface for months.
No spacecraft has done that before. “It’s very possible this
happens on all asteroids, and it just hasn’t been seen yet,”
Hergenrother says.
The team favours three possible causes for the ejections:
the sublimation of water molecules liberated from minerals
by grinding, cracking and heating, which then propels grains
off the surface; meteoroid impacts; and thermal fracturing.
Bennu rotates every 4.3 hours, which means that every
4.3 hours its airless surface experiences a temperature
rollercoaster, plunging to 250 kelvin at night and surging to
400 K just after local noon. This dramatic cycling can cause
rocks to crack and crumble — in fact, Hayabusa 2 images
show that more than half of the cracks on Ryugu’s surface
line up north-south, as expected if the rocks cracked because
they repeatedly rotate into darkness and light. Researchers see
hints of a similar alignment on Bennu.
The three largest swarms of particles seen from Bennu
thus far all launched during local afternoon. This makes
sense if the cause is thermal fracturing, because it takes
roughly three hours for heat to penetrate the rock’s upper
couple of centimetres, creating a difference in temperature
that would stress the rock. But the other events happened at
random times, even at night.
The range in timing suggests that more than one
mechanism is at work, or perhaps they work together. hazards. Instead, the researchers will track features using a
Thermal stress could weaken the surface, “and then if a catalogue they’ll upload to the craft in advance.
micrometeorite comes in and hits it, it’s going to respond in a OSIRIS-REX has a primary and a backup sample site, both
spectacular way,” Lauretta speculates. If thermal fracturing is announced in December 2019. The first, Nightingale, is a
the root cause, then all near-Earth asteroids should be doing relatively smooth spot in a 70-metre-wide crater high in the
this, he adds. But if water is the key factor, then only Bennu northern hemisphere. Scientists think the crater and the
and other hydrated asteroids will launch particles. debris it unearthed are fairly fresh. The backup site, dubbed
Since space agencies aren’t likely to send a fleet of Osprey, sits in a much smaller, equatorial crater surrounded
spacecraft to check dozens of near-Earth asteroids for this by several types of rocks.
activity, the OSIRIS-REX team has found a clever alternative: The spacecraft will do multiple recon passes of both sites
The researchers partnered with SETI scientists to look for in the first half of 2020 before touching down, hopefully in
meteors that might be from Bennu’s debris. So far, nothing. late August. It has until early 2021 to snatch its sample, then
But after a couple of years, they hope to have enough the craft will start the trip back to Earth. The cargo should
observations to identify any potential links between meteor drop in Utah in September 2023.
populations and near-Earth asteroids. The retrieved rocks won’t be in perfect condition. Both
missions’ grab-and-go strategies involve some rather violent
Landward, ho jostling, and then there’s the atmospheric entry. “It’s coming
Hayabusa 2 has already finished its investigation of Ryugu, in at 12.4 km/s, so it’s going to shake up a bit on that ride,”
leaving the asteroid last November with two samples safely Lauretta says. “No getting around that. I tried.”
stowed. It will drop these in Australia during an Earth flyby Still, scientists expect to learn much from Hayabusa 2 and
at the end of 2020. With the extra propellant onboard, the OSIRIS-REX’s samples. The asteroid pieces, shaken up though
SPE WING PA RTICLES: N ASA / GODDA RD / UNIV ERSIT Y OF A RIZON A / LOCK HEED M A RTIN ; JA X A (3)
spacecraft might continue on to whizz by another asteroid. they may be, will be treasures of chemical and geological
OSIRIS-REX, which arrived at its asteroid about five insight, providing glimpses of how everything we see in the
months after Hayabusa 2 did, intended from the beginning to Solar System — including the delightful array of carbon-based
take more of a tortoise pace with its sampling. But the jagged life around us — came to be.
surface hasn’t done the team any favours, either. The original
plan to monitor the spacecraft’s descent with lidar doesn’t ¢ CAMILLE M. CARLISLE gasped when she first saw Ryugu’s
offer the guidance accuracy necessary to avoid potential rugged landscape in a rover surface image.
ASTEROID PROSPECTING?
Both scientists and starry-eyed entrepreneurs speak of have mineable water — something that, given the surprise
mining asteroids for water and metals. But although these of a wet Bennu and dry Ryugu, we clearly need to work
space rocks may someday provide valuable resources, on. The samples OSIRIS-REX and Hayabusa 2 bring back
we have a long way to go before that day comes. “We’re will tell us how much water the asteroids’ minerals contain
talking about the space economy of the 22nd century,” says and potentially indicate how much future spacefarers could
asteroid expert Richard Binzel (MIT). extract globally.
Water will likely be the first resource utilised, he says. “But I don’t predict it for this century,” Binzel says. “I would
But first we have to learn how to recognise which asteroids love to be wrong.”
www.skyandtelescope.com.au 19
TO MAKE A PLANET by Megan Ansdell
Revising the
story of
New technology has given astronomers
access to the dusty regions where
planets are born — and has complicated
our picture of planet formation.
planet
granted that, just a few decades ago, we were unsure whether
worlds outside our Solar System even existed. At that time,
astronomers used the single known planetary system — our
own — to shape our understanding of planet formation.
Our Solar System features an orderly setup, with all the
planets moving together in a nice flat plane and with plenty
of space between orbits. There is also a dichotomy between
the inner rocky planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars)
and the outer gas and ice giants (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus,
Neptune). Based on this, we concluded that small, terrestrial
worlds will always huddle close to their stars, whereas large,
formation
20 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE May | June 2020
gaseous worlds will invariably circle farther out. The processes dust collapse to form protostars.
of planet formation must be tuned to create this setup, we By the end of the 1900s, the generally accepted theory
thought. was that the dust grains orbiting in these disks would collide,
But we now know that a model based only on our Solar stick together, and build up into rocky bodies known as
System is misleading. From systems where planets orbit two planetesimals, eventually growing into planet cores. The
stars instead of just one (Kepler-16b) to those with Jupiter- planet cores that grew quickly enough and were sufficiently
mass planets on orbits of just a few days (Kepler-435b), our massive to grab gas from what remained of the surrounding
observations since the first exoplanet discoveries in the disk would become giant planets like Jupiter and Saturn;
mid-1990s have continuously surprised us with a puzzling those with less mass would remain as smaller, rocky worlds
diversity of system architectures. Our Solar System is not the like Earth.
blueprint we once assumed it was. In this picture, the split between the small inner and
To understand how planets form, we cannot depend on giant outer planets in our Solar System could be naturally
our Solar System alone to guide us. Instead, astronomers go explained by the fact that the outer regions of protoplanetary
back in time by observing planet formation in action around disks should contain more planet-building material, and
other stars much younger than our Sun. But even there, with also that this material should more easily coagulate. That’s
H U B B LE IM AG ES: M A R K M CCAUG HR E A N (M A X- PL A N CK- IN STIT U TE FO R ASTRO N O M Y ) / C. RO B E R T O’D E LL (R ICE U N I V E R S IT Y ) / N ASA
few exceptions, we cannot directly observe forming planets: because these outer regions are much colder due to their
The light they emit is far too faint compared to that from larger distances from their host stars, and so their dust
their host star and the bright disks of dust and gas from grains are icy and thus more likely to stick together when
which they are coalescing. So as an alternative, astronomers they collide. The extra stickiness accelerates the growth of
search for indirect signatures of forming planets in these dust grains into large planetary cores that can quickly accrete
protoplanetary disks. the surrounding gas to become giant planets.
Similar to exoplanets, observations of protoplanetary disks Although we have since uncovered some roadblocks in this
have experienced a boom in recent years as new state-of-the- theory’s specifics, the overarching picture holds: Planets are
art observatories have come online. While the details are still assembled in disks of gas and dust surrounding young stars
being worked out, it is becoming increasingly clear that the that form as a natural consequence of the star formation
diversity of exoplanets is likely rooted in the diversity of the process. Indeed, we see these protoplanetary disks around
protoplanetary disks from which they came. nearly all young stars in nearby star-forming regions, just as
nearly all mature stars in our galaxy likely host at least one
A traditional take on planet formation exoplanet.
The orderly setup of our Solar System led scholars in the However, as our observations of protoplanetary disks
1700s such as Kant and Laplace to conclude that planets improve, we are finding that, as with exoplanets, the disks
likely form in flattened disks around young stars. These exhibit a surprising diversity that has challenged key parts of
aptly named protoplanetary disks are natural consequences of our traditional ideas of planet formation.
the star-formation process, created due to the conservation
of angular momentum as large molecular clouds of gas and A better view
In recent years two facilities in particular, the Atacama Large
t DSHARP Astronomers used ALMA to image the dust in these Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and the Spectro-
protoplanetary disks as part of the Disk Substructures at High Angular Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet Research (SPHERE)
Resolution Project (DSHARP). Gaps and rings are common and may instrument, have been providing the most detailed views
indicate ongoing planet formation. AS 205 (top right) is a multiple-star
of protoplanetary disks that we have ever seen. These two
system, with each star sporting its own dusty disk.
facilities take very different observations, but the data sets
q DARK BIRTH Protoplanetary disks appear dark in these Hubble complement each other to improve our understanding of
images, silhouetted by light from brilliant starbirth in the Orion Nebula. planet formation.
www.skyandtelescope.com.au 21
TO MAKE A PLANET
ALMA is what we call an interferometer, consisting planets may create at least some of these structures as they
of more than 60 antennas spread up to 16 km across the carve their way through the dust that lies along their orbit.
Atacama Desert in Chile. These individual dishes work We can use detailed computer simulations to infer the masses
together to act as a single, much larger telescope to obtain of the planets based on the properties of the disk features.
sensitive, high-resolution images at radio wavelengths. In addition to these prolific concentric gaps and rings,
In contrast, SPHERE is an extreme adaptive optics system ALMA has also revealed vortices, spiral arms, and large inner
used with one of the four 8.2-m Very Large Telescope (VLT) cavities in the dust distribution — all of which can also
mirrors located on Chile’s Cerro Paranal. This instrument be explained by planets with a variety of sizes and orbits.
produces high-resolution and high-contrast images at optical However, actually observing these forming planets has proven
and near-infrared wavelengths. extremely difficult. SPHERE has detected only one convincing
SPHERE is tuned to detect the starlight that scatters case, PDS 70b. (Astronomers also recently discovered a
off small, micron-size dust grains near the surfaces of second potential planet with another VLT instrument, using
protoplanetary disks. These dust grains are comparable in a technique that looks for effects the planet may have on the
size to smoke particles, and like smoke they float easily, motions of gas in the disk.)
interspersed in the disk’s gas. This behaviour makes them Indeed, the structures in protoplanetary disks may not be
good tracers of where the gas lies, which is useful since it’s due solely to planets; other processes could also create similar
often much harder to observe the gas than the dust grains due patterns. In fact, the gaps and rings in the dust distribution
to gas’s weaker emission. could actually help the planets form by solving the radial
ALMA’s longer radio wavelengths, on the other hand, are drift problem. Pebbles should feel a stronger headwind from
best suited for probing the glow radiating from larger, pebble- surrounding gas as they grow, making them fall rapidly
size solids heated by the starlight. These pebbles contain most into the central star and depleting the reservoir of planet-
of the mass that will eventually form planets. As they grow, forming material before planets can actually form. The gaps
they settle toward the midplane of the disk, which means that and rings in protoplanetary disks that we now commonly
ALMA can see below the surface of the disk to detect what’s see with ALMA may show places where this inward drift has
happening inside it. ALMA can also directly observe the gas stopped, providing a sheltered place for pebbles to grow into
by measuring the faint emission from simple molecules such planetesimals and eventually planet cores.
as carbon monoxide. Still, despite the unprecedentedly high resolution of ALMA
ALMA can resolve structures as small as 5 astronomical and SPHERE, we cannot probe closer to the star than the
units across in protoplanetary disks located in the nearest equivalent of the orbit of Jupiter in nearly all protoplanetary
star-forming regions — a 10-fold improvement over the systems. This is a problem if we want to understand how
previous generation of radio observatories. With ALMA’s planets like Earth form. We also want to compare our
higher resolution, we now see that these disks are not smooth observations of protoplanetary disks to those of exoplanets,
like frisbees but rather often have multiple concentric gaps which are much easier to detect close to their host stars.
and rings in their dust distributions. We think growing One innovative way of studying the inner disk regions
T DISK COMPOSITION In the centre of a protoplanetary disk, starlight sublimates dust, leaving a gas-filled hole around the star. This gas accretes
onto the star. Farther out, the dust coagulates and settles toward the disk midplane. Beyond the snow lines, ices make grains stickier, fostering giant
planet growth. Different wavelengths probe different parts of the disk. Distances are approximate.
Near-infrared
Scattered visible/
Giant planet formation?
near-infrared
Mid-infrared
Dust settling
Gas only
Magnetospheric
Snow line accretion flows
Grain growth (ultraviolet)
100 10 1
Distance (a.u.)
Rotation retards
Stars form when large molecular clouds of gas and dust in collapse in
interstellar space collapse under their own gravity. These large disk plane
clouds contain many particles that move in random ways. But
they will always have an overall ‘spin’ to their collective motion,
as it is difficult for all the particle motions to exactly cancel
each other out.
The overall spin of the system, or its angular momentum,
must remain constant under the laws of physics (if there are no
external torques operating on the system). This conservation Slowly spinning As cloud collapses,
Approx.
law means that as the cloud collapses, it must spin faster if the interstellar cloud it spins faster, 100 a.u.
collapes due to gravity and flattens
collapse is purely toward the axis of rotation. This is the same
reason why a spinning ice skater pulling their arms towards
them will begin to spin faster. momentum still allows the particles to collapse parallel to the
Continually increasing the spin would eventually cause the axis of rotation. As the particles bump into each other, their
cloud to fly apart, so a balance must be established to allow motions in this direction will cancel each other out, resulting in
the star to form. Fortunately, the conservation of angular the formation of a flat disk.
www.skyandtelescope.com.au 23
TO MAKE A PLANET
MWC 758: NR AO / AUI / NSF; DISKS IM AG ED BY SPHERE: ESO / H. AV ENH AUS E T A L. / E. SISSA E T A L. / DA RT T-S A ND SHINE COLL A BOR ATIONS
revealed differences in the ratio of carbon to oxygen in the
planets’ atmospheres, consistent with the outer two planets
having formed outside the water snow line and the inner two
planets having formed inside of it.
that planets come together when the star and disk themselves
are still forming, on the order of hundreds of thousands of
years rather than millions of years.
Evidence from our own Solar System also supports such
rapid planet formation. The age of Jupiter’s core, inferred from
dating different meteorite populations, indicates that it had
already assembled by 1 million years after the start of the Solar
System. Scientists also think that on the order of 10 Earth
masses of ice, rock and metals went into forming Jupiter’s
early core, implying that the growth of planetesimals and
planet cores occurs even earlier than 1 million years. If planets
assemble at the same time as the star and disk, then we would
have to fundamentally change our models of planet formation.
To chase down the answers to these mysteries,
astronomers will soon add to their arsenal the next
generation of 30-metre telescopes, which will give us an
unprecedented ability to probe the structure and motions
in young protoplanetary disks. ALMA recently detected the
first signatures of planet-building material flowing into a gap
in a protoplanetary disk, where a young planet is thought
S TW HYDRAE In the protoplanetary system nearest Earth, ALMA
to be orbiting. The observation provides an exciting preview images reveal a gap in the disk at 1 astronomical unit from the star.
of what is yet to come. We’ll combine with these ground- The TW Hydrae system is about 10 million years old and may provide a
based instruments the upcoming space-based missions like window to our own Solar System’s infancy.
the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), set to launch in
2021. Its sensitivity at infrared wavelengths will enable MEGAN ANSDELL is a Research Fellow at the Flatiron
the first demographic chemistry studies of planet-forming Institute’s Center for Computational Astrophysics and Center
environments. Together, these facilities promise to enable us for Computational Mathematics. Her research focuses on
to place our Solar System within its larger galactic context, observing planet formation and applying machine learning to
rather than the other way around. astrophysical problems.
www.skyandtelescope.com.au 25
COSMIC RELIEF by David Grinspoon
Venus is dead.
Long live Venus.
In which I attempt a contrarian argument against my own contrarian argument.
FOR MORE THAN TWO DECADES This contrarian position has niches and evolving when conditions
I’ve been arguing that Venus — so produced some eye-rolling at change. But we don’t know if Venus
often voted ‘least likely to succeed’ conferences, but nobody has come up has been continuously cloudy since the
by astrobiologists — might possibly with a good reason why it’s wrong. And surface became uninhabitable, so a
harbour life. Not on the scorching now a funny thing has happened: An cloud niche may not have been stable
surface but high up in the clouds, international workshop on Venusian over long time scales.
where temperatures are mild, cloud life held in Moscow in October Maybe an ocean never had the
nutrients and energy abound, and 2019, along with several recent right conditions. Some scientists think
droplets consist of water that, while publications, appear to have moved that for life to start you need oceans
steeped in sulfuric acid, are less acidic the idea from the fringe to near- and continents. If early Venus had
than some environments where life is respectability. too much water and no land/water
found on Earth. Several results contribute to this interface, life might not have arisen.
shift. Observations from the Venus Or a specific necessary environment,
Express and Akatsuki missions have such as seafloor hot springs, might
deepened some of the Venusian have been absent or chemically
mysteries that cloud life might different enough to preclude life’s
explain, such as unidentified airborne origin.
material that absorbs more than half Maybe an ocean didn’t last long.
the solar energy falling on the planet. Calculations showing that an ocean
Exoplanets in the ‘Venus zone’ have could have lasted for billions of years
renewed astronomers’ interest in depend on several assumptions about
the possible habitability of close-in early Venus. They require that the
planets. And new calculations point planet always rotated slowly, as it does
toward Venus having had water oceans now; a fast-rotating Venus would have
for much of its lifetime. quickly lost its oceans. But we have no
So now let me tell you everything idea what the early rotation rate was.
that’s wrong with the idea. Here’s why Venus may never have had an
Venus is most likely a dead world: ocean. The young Sun may have
Maybe life can’t live in clouds. vaporised any water, with the solar
Although microbes thrive in clouds wind blowing away a steam atmosphere
on Earth, no known species lives its before it condensed on the surface.
entire life cycle in this environment. Maybe Earth just lucked out. Life
Maybe the chemistry of Venus’ could be improbable, dependent as
clouds is just too harsh. While Earth much on some absurd twist of fate
does have acid-loving microbes, we as on specific planetary conditions,
don’t know the detailed composition stages, or events.
of the Venusian cloud particles or So what do you think? I’ve made
whether they would be compatible my best attempt to tell you why Venus
with any form of life. should be dead — though I haven’t
© PL A N E T- C PRO JECT TE A M
ver
ast omy
IT’S NOT THE LARGEST TELESCOPE in the world. It’s not at
the best possible site. And it can only look straight up, towards
the zenith. But at just over US$2 million, the nearly completed
4-metre International Liquid Mirror Telescope (ILMT) in
northern India is cheap. So cheap, in fact, that it may usher
in a new era of observational astronomy. As the very first
liquid mirror telescope that will actually be used for regular
astronomical research, the ILMT could pave the way for a slate
of successors — maybe even on the farside of the Moon.
The principle is simple. Fill a basin with mercury (also
known as quicksilver) and set it spinning. Due to the
combination of gravity and the centrifugal pseudo force, the
shiny liquid metal will adopt a paraboloidal surface — the
ideal shape to focus the light of distant stars. Place a camera
at the focal point, and there’s your zenith-pointing telescope.
However, building the ILMT has turned out to be anything
but simple. The project has a chequered history, with endless
delays. “We just never wanted to give up,” says principal
investigator Jean Surdej (University of Liège, Belgium).
www.skyandtelescope.com.au 29
LIQUID MIRRORS
before pre-
1857
Concept only
BUCHAN (FULL NAME UNKNOWN) / U.S.
one beginning with Borra’s paper in 1982. Developments in grey have
limited or anecdotal evidence. Dates and focal lengths are approximate.
Except for the ILMT, all telescopes built in the 1990s or 2000s were
Isaac Newton realised late Unspecified size
1850s H. SKEY / ENGLAND
dedicated to space debris (NODO) or lidar and atmospheric studies.
that the surface of a
spinning liquid forms 1868 Unspecified size below the mercury container to prevent unwanted vibrations,
a paraboloid — the R. C. CARRINGTON /
ENGLAND (FRENSHAM) and precise control of the rotational speed (eventually with
ideal shape to focus
1872 0.35 m (lab)
0.00001% accuracy) to maintain the perfect paraboloidal
parallel rays of light
First published account shape. In the late 1980s, Borra teamed up with astrophysicist
into one single point. of a working LMT
In 1850, well over a Paul Hickson (University of British Columbia, Canada),
H. SKEY / NEW ZEALAND (DUNEDIN)
century after Newton’s who had more experience in building telescopes and who
1908 0.18 m (lab) subsequently designed and engineered larger mercury mirrors.
death, Ernesto Capocci R. W. WOOD / U.S. (BALTIMORE)
(Naples Observatory, “In 1994, my students and I had built a prototype
1908 0.51 m, f/1.7 to f/3 (lab)
Italy) was the first to instrument with a 2.7-metre mirror,” says Hickson. “I set it
0.51 m, f/9 (field)
suggest the use of a First astronomical up for testing in my own backyard in White Rock,” a small
spinning liquid-mercury observations coastal community just south of Vancouver. Just a few weeks
R. W. WOOD / U.S. (EAST HAMPTON)
mirror to construct after regular observations began, he presented the design
telescopes. However, 1922 15.2 m, f/5.6 to f/12 and performance results at a conference on astronomical
there is no evidence (concept)
B. A. MCA. (FULL NAME UNKNOWN) / telescopes and instrumentation in Hawai‘i. Science magazine
that he built one. In CHILE (CHANARAL)
reported on it, the dean of his university read the story, and
1868, English amateur
1982 Concept only before long, Hickson got money to build a permanent home
astronomer Richard Landmark paper for the instrument in Maple Ridge, some 60 kilometres east
Carrington (famous E. F. BORRA / CANADA (QUEBEC CITY)
TERRI DUBÉ / S&T, SOURCES: B. K . GIBSON / JOUR NAL OF THE R OYAL ASTR ONOMICAL SOCIE T Y OF CANADA 19 91, PAUL HICKSON
1983– 1.7 m, f/0.89 (lab)
The first documented 1984 E. F. BORRA / CANADA (QUEBEC CITY) developed under the leadership of project scientist Mark
liquid mirror was a Mulrooney, operated from 1995 to 2002 and looked for small
1987 1.2 m, f/4.58 (field)
35-centimetre one, pieces of space junk passing overhead.
First scientific paper based
made in 1872 by solely on LMT observations So by the time Borra sought collaborators for a really big
astronomer Henry Skey E. F. BORRA / CANADA (QUEBEC CITY)
mercury telescope in 1996, he and others already had quite
in New Zealand. In 1909, 1987– 1.5 m, f/2 (lab) a bit of experience with the new technology. Too bad that
Robert Wood (Johns 1989 E. F. BORRA / CANADA (QUEBEC CITY)
Surdej didn’t seem to be interested.
Hopkins University) built
a larger, 51-centimetre
1989– 2.7 m, f/1.89 (field) That all changed in 1997, at an astronomy conference
1994 P. HICKSON / CANADA (VANCOUVER)
mercury mirror. in Marseille, France, says Surdej. A liquid mirror telescope
However, after Skey’s 1991– 2.7 m, f/1.89 (field) can only observe a narrow strip of the sky, but Surdej and
present PURPLE CROW / CANADA (ILDERTON)
and Wood’s early work, his colleagues realised that a deep survey in such a narrow
astronomers didn’t 1992– 3.0 m, f/1.7 (lab) strip might detect some 50,000 new quasars. “About one
1994 NODO / U.S. (HOUSTON)
pursue the technology in every 1,000 quasars should show multiple images due to
again until the 1980s, 1994– 2.7 m, f/1.89 (field) gravitational lensing by a foreground galaxy,” he says, “so
when pioneer Ermanno 1995 P. HICKSON / CANADA (MAPLE RIDGE)
this could yield 50 new multiply imaged quasars.” That would
Borra (Laval University, 1995– 3.0 m, f/1.7 (field) constitute a treasure trove for cosmologists, who can use
Canada) revived the 2002 NODO / U.S. (CLOUDCROFT)
these systems to study the distribution of dark matter and the
topic. After he wrote geometry and expansion history of the universe. Observing
1995– 2.7 m, f/1.89 (field)
a landmark paper on 2009 HIPAS / U.S. (FAIRBANKS)
time on a ‘conventional’ large optical telescope is much too
the technique in 1982,
2003– 6.0 m, f/1.50 (field) precious to carry out such a time-consuming survey, but a
Borra kept developing
the technology for
2014 LZT / CANADA (MAPLE RIDGE) cheap, dedicated instrument would be ideal.
many years, eventually At the Marseille conference, French and British
2006– 4.0 m, f/2 (field)
together with Paul present First to be dedicated to astronomers also expressed interest, and together with Borra
astrophysical observations and Liège colleague Jean-Pierre Swings, Surdej developed the
Hickson (University ILMT / INDIA (DEVASTHAL)
of British Columbia, first plans for what would become the 4-metre International
Canada). 2008 20 m to 100 m (concept only) Liquid Mirror Telescope. However, securing the necessary
R. ANGEL / THE MOON (NORTH POLE)
funds wasn’t easy. “In my naïveté, I thought that wealthy of 29° south. But it never panned out, says Surdej. “We didn’t
industrialists might want to sponsor the project,” he says. develop a good personal relationship with La Silla’s director,
Surdej and Swings even approached the foundation of King Jorge Melnick, and he wasn’t very supportive. We would have
Baudouin I of Belgium for money. Alas, royal money failed to had to pay €70,000 [about US$78,000] per year, just for the
materialise. site, water and electricity.”
Of course, building a large, unconventional telescope Another setback came in 2002, when the United Kingdom
presented many technological hurdles, too. Right from the joined ESO. Just a few years earlier, the British research
start, it was clear that the Belgian company AMOS (Advanced council PPARC had ranked UK participation in the ILMT
Mechanical & Optical Systems), also based in Liège, would project as one of their top priorities, but now they decided
be the main contractor for the ILMT. AMOS knew all about that all their astronomy funding should go to ESO. Around
constructing professional telescopes (it built the four 1.8- the same time, the French funding agency CNRS gave priority
metre auxiliary telescopes for the Very Large Telescope to the 378-megapixel MegaCam instrument on the Canada-
Interferometer in Chile), but the company had no experience France-Hawai‘i Telescope on Mauna Kea. Suddenly, the
with liquid mirror technology. Luckily, while visiting the ILMT’s future started to look bleak.
NODO facility in New Mexico in 2000, Surdej ran into
Hickson and convinced him to join the project. “The man is Himalayan home
a genius,” Surdej says. “Without him, the ILMT would never Meanwhile, back in Vancouver, Hickson had secured funds
have been possible.” for the construction and operation of a larger, 6-metre liquid
One complicated component of the future telescope mirror telescope. Building on the experience with the earlier
was the corrector in front of the CCD camera. Because a 2.7-metre prototype and using parts of the decommissioned
quicksilver telescope has a fixed orientation, stellar images NODO instrument, this Large Zenith Telescope (LZT) was
move across the CCD as a result of Earth’s rotation. They erected between 2003 and 2005 for less than $1 million.
do so in slightly curved paths, dependent on the telescope’s “It took us about a year to get it working properly,” says
geographic latitude. Apart from compensating for off-axis Hickson. “The main problem was that the fast rotation of the
optical aberrations, the corrector — an intricate set of special- mirror — one metre per second at the rim — was causing air
purpose lenses — also needs to rectify these curved tracks flows that resulted in tiny ripples on the mercury surface.”
into straight lines. As a result, each stellar image moves Eventually, the researchers solved the problem by suspending
across a straight row of pixels at a constant pace, enabling an ultra-thin, transparent sheet of Mylar just above the
longer exposures by reading out the CCD in a ‘co-moving’ mirror’s surface to damp any unwanted turbulence.
way — a process known as time-delayed integration. However, the Maple Ridge site suffered from light
Initially, Surdej and his team were eyeing the European La pollution and bad weather. “It proved to be a good place to
Silla Observatory in Chile as the site for the new telescope. develop the technology, but not such a good location for
After all, back in the 1960s Belgium had been one of the astronomy,” says Hickson. Instead, starting in 2008 the
founding members of the European Southern Observatory LZT was mainly used in combination with a lidar facility to
(ESO). Moreover, Riccardo Giacconi, ESO’s director general precisely study the variable properties of the sodium layer in
from 1993 to 1999, was enthusiastic about the project. By Earth’s mesosphere. Large telescopes fire laser beams into the
the late 1990s, following a design proposed by Hickson and sky to excite sodium atoms in this 90-kilometre-high layer;
optical engineer Harvey Richardson, a British company was the resulting laser guide stars enable the use of adaptive optics
already constructing the ILMT corrector for La Silla’s latitude to compensate for the effects of atmospheric turbulence.
q TEAM EFFORT (From left to right) Jean q SPIN CASTING (From left to right) Team q SMOOTHER THAN SILK Surdej checks
Surdej, Paul Hickson, Stefan Denis and members Denis Defrère, Paul Hickson, Arnaud the smoothness of the mirror basin’s
Tatyana Sadibekowa prepare for the basin’s Magette and Stefan Denis pour polyurethane polyurethane surface during the first spin
spin casting. over the spinning mirror basin, which is made casting in 2010.
of sheets of carbon fibre. A NN A A ND JE A N SURDEJ (3)
“We had the most powerful lidar facility W DEVASTHAL The ILMT perches at 2,450
AFGHANISTAN
in the world,” says Hickson, who is also CHI NA
metres (8,040 ft) in the northern Indian state of
the project scientist for the adaptive optics Uttarakhand, just south of the Himalaya Mountains.
system of the future Thirty Meter Telescope. PAKI STA N
New NE
PA L
“Our results are of great value for the next Delhi it, the site is almost exactly as far north
generation of extremely large telescopes.” Devasthal of the equator as La Silla is south, at a
Observatory
The LZT funding ended in 2014, and the latitude of 29°. Says Surdej: “We were able
telescope was taken apart. “We removed I ND I A
to use the same corrector that had been
everything,” says Hickson. “The building developed for La Silla — we just had to flip
is now empty. Yes, it’s a bit sad, but the it by 180°.”
B ay of
LZT served its purpose. The experience we B en ga l So was this the end for the many
gained can now be used for the ILMT.” troubles the project had been facing so far?
During the LZT’s construction phase, Unfortunately, no. “We have experienced
Surdej and Swings had approached many so many delays,” laments Surdej. “I could
other potential funders, such as the write a book about it. I could write two.”
Belgian National Fund for Scientific Research (FNRS), the At ARIES, construction of the 3.6-metre DOT took
University of Liège, the Royal Observatory of Belgium and the precedence over work on the ILMT, especially when Sagar’s
www.skyandtelescope.com.au 35
TELESCOPE MAKING by Jerry Oltion
The classic
A LL PHOTOS BY JERRY OLTION; FLOWER ILLUSTR ATIONS: THO M AS PA JOT / SHU T TERSTOCK .CO M
complete its construction using the original materials of the
day. Of course I documented the process. So here, at long
last, is the article that should have been published in 1969.
Dobson spent over two decades as a Vedantan monk, and
the austere monastic lifestyle stuck with him even after he
left the monastery. To make ends meet, and to continue his
ongoing goal of promoting amateur astronomy, he taught
classes throughout the US on how to build telescopes.
During those classes, he would teach students how to grind
a primary mirror and how to build the telescope to house it.
t This 20-cm f/6 Dobsonian reflector was built under the personal
tutelage of John Dobson during a six-week telescope-making class.
After passing from its original owner to telescope maker Jerry Oltion in
2018, it regularly shares the night sky at star parties.
Back to basics
What makes a classic Dobsonian design? Many elements, but
they all revolve around a basic theme: cheap. Dobson’s goal
was to make telescopes out of scrap materials, items that you
u The telescope
could often get for free. Free is the great equaliser, and that
came to the author in
was Dobson’s primary focus: to put telescopes in the hands this rough condition
of anybody who wanted one. — nearly finished, but
To start with, attendees ground the mirror out of not quite.
whatever glass they could find. Dobson used porthole glass
for many of his primary mirrors. When he taught classes, the was on the outside. So I did as Dobson would have done — I
students often bought mirror kits when there was no other peeled off a layer of the cardboard spiral, exposing a rough
source of cheap, thick glass, but John would happily teach paper surface that would readily accept paint.
people how to grind a chunk of storefront door into a mirror
if one was available. Primary support
The one in my scope used a Pyrex blank from a kit. It did The mirror mount was already built, and I’m glad it was
have one characteristic Dobson-class feature, though: Since because I would have had a very hard time believing that it
the classes typically ran for only six weeks, students rushed would work otherwise. It’s just a plywood square the same
from one grit to the next, often not sufficiently grinding width as the mirror diameter, with the corners cut off so it
out the pits from the previous grit before moving on. This will fit snugly inside the tube. Three bolts screwed through
mirror was like that. Even though it had been polished and tight holes in the plywood push against the mirror to provide
parabolised, the outer couple of centimetres were so frosted
with pits that it was unusable. The maker had in fact masked q The flowers and ladybugs were painted by hand. Wearing tie-dye is
it off, turning a 20-cm blank into a 17.5-cm mirror. essential at this stage.
I decided that I needn’t slavishly accept every aspect of the
classic Dobsonian, and in fact most of Dobson’s own mirrors
(and many, many mirrors from his classes) were excellent, so
I took this mirror back to 30-micron grit and ground out the
pits, then fine-ground, polished and re-parabolised it. At f/6,
that was a pretty simple job, and that’s another aspect of the
classic Dobsonian telescope: fairly long focal ratios. No f/4
rich-field scopes here; Dobson and his students made ‘planet-
killers,’ galaxy-nabbing backyard cannons.
When I was done with the mirror, I sent it off for
aluminising and got back a beautifully finished 20-cm f/6
mirror.
The optical tube was a cardboard concrete form.
‘Sonotubes,’ as they’re typically called even when made by
another company, fulfill the goal of being cheap, they come
in sizes that complement most standard mirror diameters,
and they’re stiff enough to hold their shape from horizon to
zenith. They’re also heavy. And coated with wax. Wax keeps
concrete from sticking to the tube, but it also prevents paint
from sticking to it. This one must have been an inside form,
intended to leave a hole in a foundation, because the wax
www.skyandtelescope.com.au 37
TELESCOPE MAKING
A simple secondary
collimation adjustment. To prevent having metal on glass, the On the other end of the scope, the secondary mirror is held in
Dobsonian design calls for three squares of 3.2-mm Masonite place by a spider made of narrow slats of cedar shingles simply
between the bolts and the mirror back. What holds these wedged into place.
small hardboard squares in place? Why, a triangle cut out of No, really.
a cereal box, of course, and glued to the front of the plywood This was the moment when I truly began to appreciate
square. the genius of Dobson’s design. Talk about simple, cheap, and
To centre the mirror in the tube, Dobson used blocks made effective!
of that selfsame 19-mm plywood screwed to the inside of the To make the secondary mount, cut a piece of wide wooden
tube. Cut the plywood to the right thickness and mount it dowel about 75 mm long. Cut one end at a 45° angle. Then
edge-on, and it makes a remarkably good mirror support. To cut three 3-mm wide grooves along the length of it, spaced
q Left: The mirror is centred in the tube with small blocks of plywood. Nylon sleeves screwed into the plywood keep the mirror from falling forward.
Middle: Once the mirror is installed, the plywood tailgate is tipped into place and screwed down. Right: The spider assembly that holds the secondary
mirror in place is made from cedar shingles.
www.skyandtelescope.com.au 39
TELESCOPE MAKING
p Left: The finder is a simple peep sight. An equally simple cardboard tube slipped inside another cardboard tube serves as the focuser. The OTA end
protector is a length of 6-mm gas hose split lengthwise and glued into place. Right: In keeping with the simplicity of the overall design, the dust cover
is a shower cap.
USING THE
α
STAR CHART
PUPPIS
β WHEN
r view
c u la Late April 11pm
no r Early May 10pm
bi
NE
5°
S
ζ
Go outside within an hour or so
of a time listed above. Hold the
map out in front of you and turn
α
α
it around so the label for the
direction you’re facing (such as
west or northeast) is right-side up.
The curved edge represents the
β
horizon, and the stars above it on
( C AU DN S
SER
the map now match the stars in
P
front of you in the sky. The centre
E
A)
of the map is the zenith, the point
Fa c i n g E a s t
η
in the sky directly overhead.
S
omething that concerns me as an observer is just how much
ν
FOR EXAMPLE
SCUTUM
sky I haven’t looked at carefully yet. There are so many
M17
wonderful things to see in the deep south, it’s sometimes hard Turn the map so the label
M11
19
h
to know where to start. Plus there’s the temptation to keep revisiting “Facing SW” is right-side up.
old favourites. Sometimes this leads to a tendency to overlook even About a third of the way from
M25
some of the more obvious of astronomical delights, whether they are there to the map’s centre is the
individual objects or entire regions. brilliant star Canopus. Go out
M
The constellation Puppis, the stern of the celestial ship Argo and look southwest nearly a
σ
Navis (see our April 2020 issue for a discussion about this now-
π
third of the way from horizontal
SA
obsolete stellar grouping), is an especially rewarding hunting ground to straight up. There’s Canopus!
GI
T
for binocular observers. One of my favourite Puppis objects is the
open cluster NGC 2546, which lies 3° northeast of Zeta (ζ) Puppis, NOTE
squarely along the centreline of the Milky Way. At sixth magnitude, The map is plotted for 35° south
NGC 2546 is fairly bright, although it may be a challenge to figure latitude (for example, Sydney,
out where the cluster ends and the rich background star field Buenos Aires, Cape Town). If
begins. The cluster sprawls over a full degree of sky, so even through you’re far north of there, stars
binoculars it shows plenty of detail, with a band of brighter stars in the northern part of the sky
running from southeast to northwest. will be higher and stars in the
Another degree to the northeast you’ll find a gaggle of bright stars, south lower. Far south of 35°
Fa
ci
including q and r Puppis and the double star OS Puppis. These are the reverse is true.
all foreground objects compared to NGC 2546, lying between 90 and
1,000 light-years away, compared to 3,000 light-years for the cluster. –1
And as long as you’re in the area, have a look back at Zeta Puppis and ONLINE 0
see if you can detect any colour. The star is a 2.2-magnitude O-type You can get a real-time sky chart
1
blue supergiant, vastly brighter and more massive than our own Sun. for your location at
2
skychart.skyandtelescope.com/
3 Star
¢ MATT WEDEL will be mining his celestial blind spots for observing skychart.php
4 magnitudes
targets for years to come.
13h
M51
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BERENICES OR
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ANTLIA
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θ Zenith
σ
M4
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ν –40°
M23
Antares
M46
τ
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SCOR
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λ
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λ
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α UM Open cluster
OL OGI
–60°
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Achernar
Globular cluster
Fa c i n g S o u t h Planetary nebula
www.skyandtelescope.com.au 43
UNDER THE STARS by Fred Schaaf
NORTHERN CROWN You can find the curve helped Athenian king Theseus escape
of Corona Borealis east of Boötes, which from the Labyrinth after he killed the
is dominated by the zero-magnitude red dreadful Minotaur, but whom Theseus
giant Arcturus (at top left). During May, both
constellations are at their highest for late-
abandoned on an island. Ariadne
evening observing from Australasia. was rescued by the god Dionysius,
who made her his queen and wife.
And when Ariadne died, Dionysius
placed her crown among the stars as
the conspicuous semicircle known as
Corona Borealis, the Northern Crown.
Interestingly, Coma Berenices and
Corona Borealis are located on either
side of Boötes, the Herdsman, home
of the bright star, Arcturus. The Coma
constellation precedes Boötes and lies
directly north of the western half of
Virgo — the part that portrays the head
and upper body of the reclining virgin.
Corona Borealis follows Boötes and is
found directly north of the eastern end
of Virgo, her feet. The big Coma Star
Cluster (Melotte 111) is about 5° in
diameter, with at least five stars brighter
than magnitude 5.5 and about a dozen
brighter than 6.5. The somewhat wider
semicircle of the Northern Crown
features a magnitude-2.2 gem: Gemma,
also known as Alphecca.
My first transit. I’ve previously
Fabled females
described the life-changing views I
got of my first total solar eclipse of
the Sun (March 7, 1970) and my first
I
f you look to the west at sunset in column. Elevated to its highest in the Mercury had just exited the Sun’s disk
early May, you’ll see Venus — the north on that map is the only woman on my telescope’s projection screen
Roman goddess of love — very low of the zodiac: Virgo, the Virgin. It’s also when a motorist stopped on our
on the horizon. Already gone from our the longest constellation of the zodiac quiet country road to ask what I was
autumn skies are summertime star and the second largest in area of the 88 observing. The driver from the 1973
cluster favourites the Pleiades (the constellations. Very near the meridian transit wondered if I was observing —
Seven Sisters of Greek mythology) and at this time is Virgo’s brightest star, in broad daylight — the still quite faint
the Hyades sisters. 1st-magnitude Spica. Comet Kohoutek. I wasn’t.
These three are just a few of the But what other female characters All five of my Mercury transits and
female characters that can be seen in are represented in this sky? One is the both of my Venus transits were amazing
the sky. Let’s look at some more, and historic Queen Berenice II, queen of and gratifying visions of worlds
then finish with a different kind of Cyrene and Egypt, whose amber tresses snatched from out of the stupendous
astronomical phenomenon. are part of the constellation Coma furnace of the Sun.
Females in the evening sky. Our Berenices (Berenice’s Hair) and the big,
A K IR A FUJII
May Southern Hemisphere all-sky map scattered Coma Star Cluster. Another ¢ FRED SCHAAF welcomes your letters
is just one page-turn back from this is Ariadne, the Cretan princess who and comments at [email protected].
www.skyandtelescope.com.au 45
SUN, MOON & PLANETS by Jonathan Nally
M
ercury (mag. –1.2, dia. 5.5″, dominated the evening sky for months, for opposition in July, will reach the
May 15) begins May at superior is now accelerating its downward slide apparent stationary point in its orbit
conjunction (ie. on the other toward the horizon as it heads toward on May 15, and will then go into four
side of the Sun) on the 5th, then slowly inferior conjunction on June 4. The months retrograde (ie. east to west)
returns to the post-sunset western sky. planet will reappear in the eastern, motion, caused by the Earth overtaking
Reaching greatest eastern elongation pre-dawn sky in the second half of June, it on our planet’s ‘inside orbit’. Jupiter
of 24° on June 4, it will remain an when it will be in the constellation will rise just after 10:00pm at the
evening planet all the way through until Taurus — quite near the Hyades star beginning of May, but getting earlier
late June, whereupon it will descend cluster in fact. The waning crescent each night — it will climb above the
toward the horizon again and inferior Moon will be nearby on June 19. eastern horizon by just after 6:00pm
conjunction on July 1. Mercury will pair Mars (0.2, 8.3″), still slowly increasing by the end of June. Come the July
up with Venus very low on the horizon in apparent size, rises just after midnight opposition it will have increased in
after sunset on May 22, with the two at the beginning of May (and just before apparent size to 47.6″.
planets just 1° apart. But they’ll be hard midnight by the end of June). The Red Saturn (0.5, 17.3″), too, is heading
to see — you’ll need a clear horizon and Planet will reach western quadrature for opposition in July. During May and
maybe even optical aid in the form of (where the Sun, Earth, Mars angle is June the Ringed Planet rises only about
binoculars. Two days later the very thin 90°) on June 7, and through a telescope half an hour after Jupiter; with the
crescent Moon will join the duo, with the planet will look a bit like the gibbous two remaining within 5° of each other
all three bodies being within a 4° field Moon. A suitably sized telescope will all through May, it’ll be the closest
of view… but again, this grouping will also show the southern polar ice cap they’ve been for about 20 years. And
be quite difficult to see. beginning to shrink as the weeks pass. like its larger sibling, Saturn will begin
Venus (–4.6, 48.5″), having Jupiter (–2.4, 42.5″), heading retrograde motion (for 4.5 months) on
XXXX
p Left: Jupiter and Saturn do a dance. Middle: Venus and Mercury, low after sunset. Right: Venus visits Taurus in June.
I
Moon forming a nice trio on May 12 t’s May, so that means it’s Eta
and again on June 8/9. Aquariids time. This shower is one
Uranus (5.9, 3.4″) was in of the best for the year for southern
conjunction with the Sun in April, and observers, with the radiant in Aquarius
therefore out of view. But it will return located nicely in the pre-dawn northern
to our eastern dawn sky in May, rising sky for most observers in Australasia.
about an hour before the Sun at the Its meteors are often swift and bright
beginning of the month and by just (some exceeding magnitude 1), with
before 3:00am by the end of June. a few leaving trains that can last for
Neptune (7.9, 2.3″) rises around minutes. There is also the occasional Eta Aquariids
1:30am in mid-May and by just before fireball. Colours tend to be on the May 6, 3:00am
midnight in mid-June. The distant yellowish side.
world is slowly making its way through Most Moon-free years, I observe
Aquarius and will reach its apparent from a dark sky location (rated 3 on the
stationary point on June 24; after that, Bortle scale) and usually see more than
it will be in retrograde motion all the 30 meteors per hour around the time
way through until late November. of the peak on May 6–7. In 2014, while
Between June 12 and 16, Neptune will observing with fellow meteor shower
appear quite close to Mars — you’ll need enthusiasts from Nagambie in Victoria,
binoculars to see them, with the Red we recorded 54 meteors in one hour on
Planet and the blue ice giant contrasting the morning of the 7th, about an hour
nicely in the same field of view. before astronomical twilight. Similarly
Finally, Earth will reach the in 2011, we saw 40 meteors in just over darker rural skies, you might see as
southern winter solstice on June 21. an hour on the morning of May 6. many as 15 to 18 per hour.
On this day the Sun will be at its most This year, the near-full Moon will
northerly declination, and the hours reduce the number of meteors you ■ CON STOITSIS is director of the
of daylight are shortest for us in the might see — perhaps 5 to 8 per hour Astronomical Society of Victoria’s comet
south. Indeed, we consider this to be the around the time of maximum, May 6, and meteor sections. Follow him on
approximate mid-point of winter. under city skies. If you observe from Twitter @vivstoitsis
29 Moon 4° north of Regulus 29 Moon 8° north of Spica Perigee …… 30th, 02h UT, 368,958 km
www.skyandtelescope.com.au 47
COMETS by David Seargent
L
ate autumn and early winter this place any bets on this happening!” reserved for temporary increases in a
year will bring two ‘dark horse’ Remarkably, observations during comet’s brightness followed by a return
comets of interest to southern February suggest that this may indeed to what may be called a ‘base level’.
observers. Details of the discovery and be true and, although I would still not What happened to Y4 appears to have
early history of the first of these, C/2019 place any bets, the chance of it surviving been a sudden surge in brightness…
Y4 (ATLAS), were given in our April perihelion certainly looks better than it a short interval of rapid brightening,
issue, where the relationship between did last year or during January. ending in the establishment of a new
this comet and the Great Comet of Observations through the second level of intrinsic brightness which is
1844 was also noted. half of February revealed a condensed then maintained.
I wrote that C/2019 Y4 is intrinsically inner coma and a large and diffuse Assuming it survives, this comet
very faint and that it was, for that outer coma of low surface brightness. should emerge for southern observers
reason, likely to fade out and disappear Although there was a wide scatter very low in the morning twilight from
as it approached perihelion. Yet, I also of brightness estimates, the rise in early June. Initially located in Taurus,
noted that there is circumstantial brightness that month was certainly it will enter Orion in the middle of the
evidence that the great comet C/1844 unexpected. According to the month but will always be poorly placed
Y2 may have followed an atypical light- ephemeris, the comet should have as it retreats from the Sun and Earth.
curve and that, if the current comet brightened by, at most, a factor of four Because of the uncertainties in
behaves similarly, its early faintness during February. However, considering this comet’s behaviour, it is next to
may not necessarily be indicative of the brighter estimates late in the impossible to make any meaningful
small size. I wrote that “Needless to month and comparing these with the predictions as to its brightness. It could
say, it does not necessarily follow that early observations, suggests an actual appear anywhere on a spectrum from a
C/2019 Y4 will show similar behaviour, brightness increase by a factor of about naked-eye comet to a very faint debris
although this is an interesting thought 100! In part, this was due to the outer cloud! One thing of which we can be
as it suggests that the present intrinsic coma becoming observable; however pretty sure, however, is that it will not
faintness of this comet may be due to a that was not the whole story as the be a repeat of the spectacle that graced
semi-dormant state rather than simply inner coma also displayed a rapid (albeit our skies long ago in late 1844 and
its small size. If so, perhaps there is some less extreme) brightening. early 1845. That comet was the leading
hope of it becoming visible in June from Some reports referred to this as an fragment of a split which presumably
southern latitudes, although I would not ‘outburst,’ however that term is best happened at its previous return several
p JUST PASSING #1 Comet C/2019 Y4 (ATLAS), seen here passing in p JUST PASSING #2 In January, Comet PanSTARRS (C/2017 T2)
front of some distant deep sky objects on February 25, will be visible low shared the field of view with the Double Cluster, in the northern
in the morning twilight in late June. constellation Perseus. The comet will become visible for southern
observers around the beginning of July.
thousand years ago and, as such, was In common with an increasing cometary activity, although the ‘A’
almost certainly the major component number of bodies being discovered in designation remained and the object
of the parent comet. Nevertheless, even recent years, this object was not clearly was not officially listed as a comet until
if Y4 did become as intrinsically bright an asteroid nor a comet and accordingly late March, when the designation was
as the earlier one (which nobody expects was given a ‘mixed’ designation. It changed to C/2019 U6 (Lemmon). As
will happen), the poorer observational was numbered as a comet, but the ‘A’ an asteroidal body, U6 would remain
geometry this time would still make it implies a lack of visible activity. Similar fainter than magnitude 15 and not
less of a spectacle as seen from Earth. objects in recent years have been a mixed be of interest to the average visual
bag. Some have remained asteroidal in observer. However, if the observed
Comet or asteroid? appearance while others have displayed activity continues and intensifies as the
The other potential ‘dark horse’ is the varying degrees of cometary activity object approaches perihelion, it should
peculiar object initially designated as closer to perihelion. The inactive ones be several magnitudes brighter than
A/2019 U6. The ‘A’ implies ‘asteroid’ may be dormant comets or they may be this — the actual magnitude depending,
as that is what it appeared to be when genuine rocky asteroids that have been of course, on the degree to which it
discovered as a magnitude 20.5, star-like pushed into comet-like orbits. Others activates. The start of June will find it
point of light by the Mount Lemmon are possibly similar to the very long- in Canis Major, crossing the northern
Survey on October 31 last year. However, period but low-activity ‘Manx comets,’ part of Puppis during the first half of
this ‘asteroid’ was on a long-period named after the tailless cats of the Isle of the month before entering Hydra. If it
elliptical orbit with a period of just over Man. These appear to be ‘missing links’ behaves like a ‘regular comet’ it may
9,600 years! Perihelion will be reached between completely inactive asteroids reach at least magnitude 9 in late June.
on June 18 at 0.91 a.u. and the object is and fully active comets.
predicted to make its closest approach to As for A/2019 U6, several observers ■ DAVID SEARGENT is the discoverer
our planet (0.83 a.u.) eleven days later. early this year noted positive signs of of comet 1978 XV.
I
n our April issue we looked at the shell reaches a certain temperature T CrB has been observed in outburst
Betelgeuse, the nearest red supergiant and pressure, a runaway thermonuclear in 1866 and 1946, and if that represents
star and a core-collapse supernova explosion occurs. This explosion ejects a period, 2026 may be next. Its visual
candidate. This month we’ll introduce the entire shell structure into space, magnitude range is 2.0 to 10.8, but in
T Coronae Borealis, an expected forming huge shells of gas… and these recent years it has brightened a little
candidate of a different type of old nova shells are indeed observable. and become bluer, a phenomenon noted
supernova — the thermonuclear, or Type The question now is: after every such before the 1946 event. So I’d suggest
1a. T CrB is classified as a recurrent nova event, has the white dwarf lost a starting your observations now!
nova; that is, a classical nova that’s been little mass or gained some? It is thought
seen to recur. Such a system comprises that T CrB has been accumulating mass ■ ALAN PLUMMER observes from the
a white dwarf primary and a red giant and is approaching the limit at which Blue Mountains west of Sydney, and can
secondary within a common envelope. the entire white dwarf — not just a gas be contacted at [email protected]
It’s also called a symbiotic nova.
Symbiotic novae are one of several
theorised progenitors of Type 1a
supernovae. In this scenario, the white
dwarf draws gas from the red giant into
a tightly held shell. When the bottom of
www.skyandtelescope.com.au 49
EXPLORING THE SOLAR SYSTEM by Thomas A. Dobbins
On August 26, 2003, the Hubble Space Telescope Mitchel was a captivating orator
captured this image of Mars with the Mountains who spoke without notes or visual aids.
of Mitchel as they detached from the periphery of
His series of public lectures about the
the south polar cap.
Solar System attracted audiences of as
many as 2,000 Cincinnati residents,
who packed into one of the city’s
largest churches. At the conclusion of
the final lecture, Mitchel announced
that he would devote his energies to
establishing a major observatory in
Cincinnati to be funded by the sale
of 300 shares of stock at the price
of US$25 apiece. Shareholders in the
Cincinnati Astronomical Society
would be granted the privilege of
viewing the heavens through the future
observatory’s powerful telescope.
Despite the price of a single share
being equal to the monthly wages of
a typical labourer, Mitchel generated
such popular enthusiasm that all the
shares were sold in less than a month.
With the necessary funds in hand, he
sailed off to visit Europe’s pre-eminent
observatories and telescope makers. He
wisely selected the renowned Munich
firm of Merz and Mahler to construct
a refractor using a recently completed
The
objective lens of 11.2 inches (28.5 cm)
aperture.
In April 1845 the great telescope
Mountains of Mitchel
finally entered service. Unrivalled
by any instrument in the Western
Hemisphere, at the time it was the
M A RS: N ASA / STSCI / J. BELL (COR NELL U.) / M. WOLFF (SSI); TELESCOPE: M A RY STRUBBE
of the Red Planet.
T
his year’s favourable apparition and practical astronomy in addition
of Mars presents an excellent to military subjects. After graduating,
opportunity to witness the Mitchel remained at West Point as a
development of a transient but mathematics instructor for three years.
recurring Martian feature known as He resigned his commission in 1832
the Mountains of Mitchel, discovered and moved to the thriving metropolis
175 years ago by the founder of the first of Cincinnati, Ohio, where he studied
major observatory established in the law and was admitted to the bar. He
United States. was hired four years later by the newly
Ormsby MacKnight Mitchel was established Cincinnati College to
born in 1809 in Kentucky, then a rural teach mathematics, engineering, and
outpost on America’s western frontier. astronomy.
In 1825 he secured an appointment
u The Cincinnati Observatory’s 11.2-inch
to the United States Military Academy (28.5-cm) Merz and Mahler refractor is a
at West Point, where the curriculum painstakingly preserved masterpiece that
included surveying, civil engineering continues to serve the public.
this feature appears whenever the spacecraft yields surprising results the Mountains of Mitchel tends to be
dwindling southern polar cap is — even the very name has proven to brighter and smaller in particle size
favourably presented for observation. be a misnomer. Two decades ago, the than the frost on most other areas of
Occupying a swath of longitude from laser altimeter aboard NASA’s Mars the polar cap. Finer grains of frozen
300° to 330° at a latitude of 70° Global Surveyor revealed that the carbon dioxide reflect sunlight more
(almost 400 kilometres from the true region’s heavily cratered terrain is only efficiently and sublimate more slowly
pole), it follows a regular pattern of moderately elevated. than the coarser frost, which may also
seasonal development, breaking up into Curiously, nearby areas at contain more sunlight-absorbing dust.
discrete white dots before eventually comparable elevations with similar The Mountains of Mitchel remain
vanishing. Green reasonably inferred topography do not retain frost. one of the Red Planet’s few enduring
that the lingering remnants were Although a portion of the Mountains mysteries accessible to backyard
isolated snowfields on the summits of of Mitchel includes an escarpment that astronomers.
mountains that thawed long after snow may shade some frost from sunlight
at lower elevations. during late winter and early spring, ¢ TOM DOBBINS looks forward to
When it appears as a brighter region the persistence of frost through late observing the coming apparition of
within the polar cap or as a bulge or spring remains puzzling. For some still Mars with several instruments from his
peninsula on its periphery, It is known unknown reason, the frost covering backyard.
www.skyandtelescope.com.au 51
GOING DEEP by Dave Tosteson
Hoag’s legacy
gravitational lensing (which displayed
remarkable forward thinking, for the
first observation of a gravitational lens
didn’t happen until 1979). In the end,
Ring galaxies are among some of the quirkiest objects in the sky — his most likely explanation — that it was
and one in particular piqued the author’s curiosity. a “new species among the ‘pathological’
galaxies” — gradually took hold, and the
I
f beauty is symmetry laced with he graduated in 1942 with a degree in object would eventually bear his name.
mystery, then a discovery by a young physics, stoked his interest in astronomy.
doctoral student back in 1950 could After World War II, Hoag attended Star party memories
be one of the most beautiful ever. Harvard University, where he was As I write this on the first day of a star
His discovery has inspired not only mentored by Bart Bok. He received party, I am reminded of my early interest
generations of professional astronomers his PhD in 1952, and then went on in the deep sky. Star party attendees
but has also intrigued amateurs drawn to become the first
to arcana of the sky. director of the US Naval
Arthur Hoag was born in 1921 and Observatory division in Hoag’s Objects
spent his early years in the New York Flagstaff, Arizona. In the
N ASA / ESA / THE HUBBLE HERITAG E TE A M
City area. His childhood was marred mid-1960s he headed the Object Mag(v) RA Dec.
by the tragic death of his mother and stellar division at Kitt Peak Hoag’s Object 15.1 15h 17.2m +21° 35′
younger sister in a barge accident on National Observatory Hoag 1 (Quasar) 19.5 09h 57.0m +69° 39′
the Hudson River when he was five. His in Tucson, and later
NGC 4650A 13.6 12h 44.8m –40° 43′
father died when Arthur was 15, but returned to Flagstaff to
the lad had the fortunate support of an serve as director of Lowell Cartwheel Galaxy 15.2 00h 37.7m –33° 43′
extended family. Teachers, both in high Observatory from 1977 Right ascension and declination are for equinox 2000.0.
William Herschel. Now best known for of Alphecca, or Alpha (α) Coronae years. The core spans 6″ in diameter.
his challenging Advanced Observing Borealis. The nearest ‘bright’ star — at Most of the visible light from the
Program, a quarter of a century ago magnitude 5.6 — is 1° south-southeast galaxy is concentrated in this inner
he and his observing partner Barbara of the galaxy. It’s relatively isolated core, which appears 2 to 3 magnitudes
Wilson were ‘sirens of the sky,’ calling from nearby deep sky objects, as the brighter than the ring — this is
out the names of unusual and seldom- closest is 14th-magnitude NGC 5910 especially evident in red photographic
observed (or never-observed) objects (one of two Hickson Compact Group plates.
back and forth, drawing unsuspecting galaxies) about 1° to the southeast. Coincidentally, another ring galaxy
initiates into their lair. My incipient Hoag’s Object as a whole has a B (SDSS J151713.93+213516.8) peeks
interest in obscure and esoteric magnitude of 15.8 and a V magnitude through the dark gap between the core
things in the sky was ignited by their of 15.1. Since the core is yellow and the and the ring of Hoag’s Object. This
contagious passion. I recall one object fainter ring very blue, colour must be may be a ‘cartwheel’-type galaxy, as
in particular that piqued my curiosity: taken into account when describing the Hubble Space Telescope images hint
a perfectly round galaxy with a gap galaxy. Observations indicate that this at faint spokes inside its ring. What a
between the core and outer ring. I had face-on ring galaxy is likely inclined remarkable tableau!
glimpsed Hoag’s Object. to our line of sight by 19°. The outer When I started observing this galaxy
in 1993, it was one of the most exciting
q BRIGHTER CORE, FAINTER RING At 15th-magnitude, Hoag’s Object can be a challenging things I’d ever seen and sparked an
target, and the fainter ring even more so. This 10′ × 10′ POSS-II blue-plate image enhances the
abiding interest in unusual objects. I
ring. Magnitudes of nearby stars are marked.
viewed it half a dozen times with the
62.5-cm throughout the following
16h 00m 15h 30m 15h 00m 14h 30m
θ δ decade, noting the brighter centre and
+30° COR. ρ 137 hazy, outer ring. In 2004, the dark ‘gap’
ι BOR.
109
β ε separating the ring from the core eluded
ε
α me even at 908× the galaxy positioned
δ γ
near the zenith. It took the increased
SERPENS
CAPUT
127 power of my 80-cm f/4 scope to be
+20° ι Hoag's Object certain of seeing that feature. Despite
κ Arcturus
the larger aperture, the background
BOÖTES
‘Baby Hoag’ ring galaxy at the one
γ β
ζ o’clock position within the gap remains
Star magnitudes elusive. I plan to keep trying.
102
+10° δ 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 Arthur Hoag researched many
things, but his other eponymous finds,
www.skyandtelescope.com.au 53
GOING DEEP by Dave Tosteson
Minnesota and her collaborators nicely my 80-cm reflector. On the POSS plates
N summarise the four main categories of and through the eyepiece, the Cartwheel
M82 galaxy rings: polar, collisional, accretion appears reverse to Hoag’s Object: The
Hoag 1 and those arising from secular evolution. ring is brighter than the core.
Polar-ring galaxies are likely formed IC 2006 in Eridanus is a good
when a smaller galaxy is gravitationally example of a galaxy with a ring that
captured by a larger lenticular or formed through accretion processes.
elliptical galaxy, and waves of star In these cases, an early-type galaxy
formation ensue. I’ve observed NGC accreted external matter — possibly
4650A , NGC 660 and NGC 2685, through interactions at a distance
which are examples from this category. with other galaxies — that went
NGC 5128 is arguably the most famous into structuring the ring. IC 2006 is
p CHALLENGING TRIPLET Hoag 1 appears
as a faint dot southeast of M82 in this 7′ × 10′
galaxy in this group. ephemeral at best on the red POSS
blue POSS-II image. The arrows indicate the Galaxies sporting collisional rings plates, and on the blue plates it’s large
positions of Hoag 2 and Hoag 3. are perhaps best exemplified by the (4′ in diameter), circular, and ghostly
Cartwheel Galaxy (ESO 350-40) in faint.
as noted, were three closely clustered Sculptor. In this case, an interloper has The most common ring galaxies
quasars southeast of M82 in Ursa collided head-on with another galaxy, are likely forged via secular evolution
Major. The brightest is Hoag 1 with a giving rise to nearly symmetric density through slow, steady interaction with
V magnitude of 19.5 and a redshift of waves of gravitational disruption that their environment. This class is largely
2.05. I viewed this object’s ten-and- trigger star formation. I have viewed composed of barred spirals, although
a-half-billion-year-old light on the the 15th-magnitude Cartwheel with non-barred spirals have also been
night of May 13, 2017, with an 80-cm observed to sport rings. These galaxies
reflector at 650× in seeing of 4/10 and morph over time via internal processes,
transparency of 6–7/10. It was stellar, of N which include star formation induced
course, and difficult in those conditions. by spiral density waves and bulge
At the eyepiece there was no hint of the growth through the funneling of gas
two fainter, nearby Hoag quasars. into the core in barred spirals (which
could also contribute to starburst
Several kinds of rings activity).
After the National Geographic Society — So, into which of these ring-
HOAG 1: POSS-II / STSCI / CA LTECH / PA LO M A R OBSERVATORY; NGC 4650A: THE HUBBLE HERITAG E TE A M / N ASA / ESA
Palomar Observatory Sky Survey (POSS) forming scenarios does Hoag’s Object
was completed in 1958, astronomers fit? Although consensus hasn’t been
trawled this jewel of a resource for reached, observational clues largely
previously unknown objects. The point to a major accretion event some
Russian astronomer Boris Vorontsov- 2 to 3 billion years ago onto the core
Vel’yaminov searched systematically for of the central elliptical galaxy, likely
interacting and unusual galaxies. His triggered by interaction with another
Atlas and Catalog of Interacting Galaxies, galaxy.
published in 1959 and later expanded
in the 1970s to 852 items, listed many Epilogue
ring-type galaxies, including a category The prolific science and sci-fi writer
of detached-ring” objects similar to Isaac Asimov is credited with the phrase
Hoag’s find. Three of Halton Arp’s “That’s odd!” in reference to a moment
peculiar galaxies (numbers 146, 147 of discovery. The legacy of Arthur
and 148) have ring structures. During Hoag’s finds will live on if we pursue
the past seven decades reports of new our personal and collective dreams of
ring galaxy discoveries have trickled exploring outliers in the sky. Beauty —
in. Proliferation can foster confusion even when it’s “odd”— is in the eyepiece
until organising principles of formation of the beholder.
and evolution are established. The field
appears to be without consensus, but pRING AROUND A GALAXY A prime example ¢ DAVE TOSTESON enjoys searching
of a polar-ring galaxy, NGC 4650A lies around
agreement is simmering in some areas. 130 million light-years away in Centaurus. As
the literature and news outlets for
In a paper published in 2017, Burçin the category name implies, the ring rotates unusual and yet-to-be-explained
Mutlu Pakdil of the University of around the poles of the central galaxy. objects to observe.
Eclipses W
e’re going to be treated to two penumbral eclipses this year. The third
eclipses over the next couple will occur in July but won’t be visible
of months — one each of the from Australia. But the fourth, on
These times assume that the spot will be centred at You may not be able to perceive a distinct crescent. Even
System II longitude 332° on May 1. If the Red Spot has moved when Venus is at its biggest during May, it remains slightly
elsewhere, it will transit 12/3 minutes earlier for each degree below the 60″ threshold mentioned earlier. Instead, look for
less than 332° and 12/3 minutes later for each degree more an elongated shape or an indentation on the top edge of the
than 332°. ■ BOB KING planet. ■ BOB KING
www.skyandtelescope.com.au 55
ECLIPSES by Rod J. Hill
Solar eclipses
throughout the
Solar System
Total solar eclipses are amazing
spectacles, but can they be seen
from planets other than the Earth?
TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSES, as seen providing comprehensive numerical a situation close to that which we
from the Earth, occur because the ratio data or direct quantitative comparisons. experience on Earth. For this article,
of the real diameters (400.6) and the At the time of writing, 184 natural R has been calculated using the size,
average centre-to-centre distances from satellites (‘moons’) have been identified eccentricity and inclination to the
the Earth (389.2) of the Sun and Moon orbiting six planets and four dwarf ecliptic of the satellite and its parent
compensate for each other almost planets in the Solar System, plus there are body’s orbits, the irregular dimensions
exactly. In other words, the Sun and 334 minor planets (including 76 asteroids of the satellite, and the position of the
the Moon appear to be almost the same and 84 trans-Neptunian objects) known observer on the surface of the parent
size in our sky, making it possible for to have satellites. But for the purposes of body.
the Moon to completely cover the solar this article, only the 156 named satellites Figure 1 plots the diameter of each
disk. It also gives us the chance to see are considered as they are the ones whose of these satellites versus the average
the Sun’s awesome corona surrounding orbital and size parameters have been apparent sizes of the satellite and the
the silhouette of the Moon. characterised the best. Sun at the points of closest (periapsis)
It has often been claimed that The key parameter that defines the and farthest (apoapsis) separation
nowhere else in the Solar System is the potential similarity with eclipses on from the parent body and the Sun,
apparent size of a natural satellite close Earth is the ratio (R) of the apparent respectively. The satellite’s apparent size
enough to that of the Sun to produce an sizes of the satellite and Sun at the is calculated with respect to an observer
eclipse spectacle similar to that which observer’s location. Values of R greater positioned on the planet’s surface
ESO/P. HOR Á LEK
we experience on Earth. This claim than or equal to 1 indicate a total (consistent with its nominated radius)
has been discussed a number of times eclipse, less than 1 indicates an annular directly under the eclipse when it is
but mostly in general terms, without eclipse, and values near 1 represent occuring overhead.
1000.000 Jupiter
Saturn
Nereid
Uranus Dysnomia
Neptune Amalthea
100.000 Pluto
Haumea Epimetheus
Prometheus & Pandora
Eris
Perdita
10.000
Styx & Kerberos
Phobos &
Annular eclipses
Cupid
Total eclipses
1.000
Valeudo Occulations
Transits
ROD HILL
0.100
0.0000 0.0001 0.0010 0.0100 0.1000 1.0000 10.0000 100.0000 1000.0000
www.skyandtelescope.com.au 57
ECLIPSES
Moon and Sun (R=1.01) – from Earth at Callisto and Sun (R=1.49) Epimetheus and Sun (R=1.1-1.6)
mid-totality August 21, 2017 – from Jupiter at mid-totality – from Saturn
Ganymede and Jupiter at apoapsis Perdita and Uranus at periapsis Perdita and Uranus at apoapsis
and periapsis (R=2.8), resp. (R=0.93/1.40) (R=1.02/1.52)
Similar to Europa from Jupiter; Janus & Similar to Styx from Pluto
Enceladus from Saturn; Ophelia & Bianca
from Uranus; Hydra from Pluto
Moon and Sun (R=0.95) – from Earth at Cupid at apoapsis and Uranus at Cupid at periapsis and Uranus at aphelion
mid-totality on May 10, 2013 perihelion (R=0.72) – at mid-totality (R=0.79) at mid-totality
left), the latter imaged by NASA’s Curiosity rover qualifies him as a genuine ‘eclipse at aphelion (Styx) 0.6’ wide
from the surface of Mars on 20 August, 2013. chaser’.
www.skyandtelescope.com.au 59
IMAGING by Richard S. Wright, Jr.
IT WASN’T THAT LONG AGO that photography went cautionary tale, of course, to anyone watching the current
through the major transition from chemical film-based transition from CCD-based image sensors to CMOS, a
emulsion to digital cameras. I remember well an editor of a transition that’s in full bloom for the astronomical imaging
computer magazine who would regularly pontificate about community.
how ridiculous it was that anyone thought digital cameras Every technological advancement experiences growing
would ever match the quality of film. He’d quote numbers pains, and the current transition in digital imaging from
that compared the sizes of pixels to film grains, highlighting CCD to CMOS technology is no exception. Both charge-
the various shortcomings of digital cameras at the time, and coupled devices (CCDs), and complementary metal oxide
to some degree he was right. What he didn’t foresee is how semiconductors (CMOS) sensors work on the same basic
quickly these shortcomings would be overcome. This is a principles of physics. Specially treated silicon is laid out in a
A LL PH OTOS CO U R TESY O F THE AU TH O R U N LES S OTHE RWIS E N OTE D; C HIP R E A D O U TS: LE A H TISCIO N E / S&T
CMOS CCD
Pixels
Pixels
www.skyandtelescope.com.au 61
IMAGING
into electrical charge. A sensor that registers t ALREADY BEST CMOS detectors are vastly
half the light falling on it has a QE of 50%, superior to CCD technology when it comes to
readout speed. CMOS active-pixel designs are
while one that records ¾ of the light has
inherently useful for the ‘lucky imaging’ technique
75% QE. The higher the QE, the better of planetary astrophotography, in which hundreds
the sensor is for low-light applications. of frames per second are recorded to capture
Early CMOS sensors had relatively poor the sharpest frames during the best moments of
QE compared to CCDs at the wavelengths steady seeing. This detailed image of Mars was
captured with a ZWO ASI120MM CMOS planetary
astronomers are interested in and were
camera and 31.7-cm Newtonian reflector recording
generally poor choices for any kind of 133 frames per second.
low-light imaging. Today, the top CCD and
CMOS sensors are now flirting with QE’s to convert the collected photons to a
in the 90% range, meaning that there is no digital signal. CMOS incorporates a single
inherent QE advantage to either technology. amplifier behind every pixel, meaning
Another technical limitation of CMOS that has vanished there are millions of amplifiers on every CMOS detector. It
in recent years is read noise. Read noise is a slight random turns out that all those extra integrated electronics get warm
fluctuation in data values that occurs as an image is read and produce a lot more heat when the sensor is in operation.
off a detector. Both CCD and CMOS started life with very This heat shows up as a glowing pattern radiating out from
poor read-noise performance, and CCDs were well ahead of the edges of the chip during long exposures — amp glow.
CMOS for many years. Today, CMOS read-noise performance Subtracting a dark frame during calibration can mitigate
has caught up with and even surpassed most CCD designs. this, as it does with CCD calibration to some degree. But it
This tiny bit of noise has a very big impact on low-light is not 100% repeatable with CMOS images, and dark-frame
applications in which the faintest signal is being sought, and subtraction will often leave some residual thermal signal
so it’s no small consideration for the astronomical market. that must be removed manually during post-processing. In
One weakness for low-light imaging with CMOS that addition, this accumulated thermal signal robs the chip of its
is seeing rapid improvement is amp glow. A CCD detector ability to detect extremely faint objects, because these pixels
requires an output amplifier in its supporting electronics are filling up too fast with polluted signal and noise.
that is part of the analogue-to-digital conversion necessary Amp glow is strong even in some very recent CMOS
38,550
M A RS: SE A N WA LK ER / S&T
designs, but many newer sensors exhibit amp glow that is Finally, another commonly discussed issue with CMOS
quite low, and some camera vendors are doing ‘tricks’ with sensors is fixed-pattern noise. Both CCD and CMOS sensors
the electronics to keep it to a minimum. One scientist who have fixed-pattern noise, often noticeable during longer
is searching for ultra-faint targets tells me there is currently exposure shots when particular pixels are susceptible to giving
no CMOS sensor on the market that performs adequately for brighter intensities above the general background noise. This
his very exacting work. I’ll have to check in with him again in is easily removed by calibration with a bias or dark frame
five years and see if this is still the case. on a CCD sensor. With some CMOS cameras, the pattern
The last significant issue that CMOS has yet to overcome noise often varies from frame to frame, and since it’s not
is the non-linear sensitivity to light. When we talk about repeatable, it can’t be simply subtracted. However, a lot of
linearity of a sensor, we are talking about the ratio of the this pattern noise has more to do with the surrounding
signal recorded to the signal that was received. If you dump in electronics implementation than it does with the sensor itself,
twice the amount of light, you should get twice the amount and camera vendors are gaining more experience in taming
of signal. CCDs that are intended for scientific use are 100% this beast for our market. For example, the issue is already a
linear (non-antiblooming), so that when the signal is so high nonfactor for most commercial DSLR cameras, as well as the
that they saturate, they spill the excess charge into adjacent latest generation of smartphones capable of low-light imaging.
pixels, called blooming spikes. Many CCD detectors used for
astrophotography include an anti-blooming gate to redirect Onward into the future
overflow charge and lose their linearity only at the upper end Technological progress is often fraught with growing pains,
of their exposure range. CMOS sensors, on the other hand, false starts and compromises. There are still and possibly
are non-linear throughout much of their range. This varies always will be some applications where CCD-imaging
from sensor to sensor. How this affects astronomy is that flat- technology works best, such as in space where radiation
field calibration, which corrects for pixel-to-pixel sensitivity hazards are very harsh on delicate electronics. To be sure,
differences, among other things, does not always work well there will be manufacturers willing to meet that need for
with CMOS sensors; the maths just doesn’t work. Also, if a price. For those of us on Earth without government-sized
your intended use is photometry (accurately measuring the budgets, the juggernaut of CMOS is well beyond critical
brightness of a target), your calculated values may be suspect. mass now. Clearly, the Sun is setting on CCDs for amateur
They are likely close, but not as rigorous as if determined astronomers and most ground-based imaging applications.
from a truly linear sensor. But I wouldn’t be in a hurry to toss out your old CCD
If your goal is simply aesthetic astrophotography, sensor cameras. The current generation of CCD cameras is going
non-linearity is often negligible or can be mitigated in post- to be available for a few more years yet, and it will offer
processing. Often, it’s very slight (CMOS is still far superior some important advantages for the discerning imager. While
to film). Of course, it requires more work than having a CMOS sensors are still not quite up to the challenge of many
properly calibrated image in the first place, but it’s not a kinds of scientific imaging, we can say confidently that they
showstopper. I’ve seen some academic work recently in which are getting very large in the rear-view mirror.
this is the subject of intense research, and I wouldn’t be
surprised if technological advancements solve this problem ¢ RICHARD S. WRIGHT, JR. is a software developer by day
within a generation or two. and an avid astrophotographer by night.
www.skyandtelescope.com.au 63
NEW PRODUCT SHOWCASE
u OFF-AXIS AUTOGUIDER
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Cameras. These unique guide cameras both feature a 1.3-megapixel CMOS
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an adjustable pick-off mirror. The StarChaser SC-2 (US$999) attaches to most
SBIG STF or Aluma cameras and filter wheels, while the larger StarChaser
SC-3 (US$1,299) works with the SBIG STX and STXL-series cameras and
compatible filter wheels. Both models operate in conjunction with the
company’s Adaptive Optics high-speed correctors for their respective models.
Each camera is powered with an included 12V power supply and connects to
a computer via a 2-metre USB 2.0 cable. A copy of MaxIm LT is also included
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Diffraction Limited diffractionlimited.com
t ENHANCED OBSERVING
At long last, Unistellar Optics unveils the eVscope (US$2,999). This
integrated telescope system promises to change your observing experience.
The system combines a 114-mm f/4 reflector with a permanently
mounted Sony IMC224 colour CMOS detector, an enhanced-vision OLED
screen ‘eyepiece’ and a powerful alt-az Go To mount controlled by your
smartphone. The system’s patent-pending Autonomous Field Detection
feature automatically recognises star fields, self-aligns and is ready to
observe within 10 seconds of powering up. Its track-and-accumulate
imaging with automated intelligent image-processing produces colourful
‘live’ images of 4,800 deep sky targets from its internal database within
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Unistellar unistellaroptics.com
New Product Showcase is a reader service featuring innovative equipment and software of interest to amateur astronomers. The descriptions are based largely on
information supplied by the manufacturers or distributors. Australian Sky & Telescope assumes no responsibility for the accuracy of vendors’ statements. For further
information contact the manufacturer or distributor.
Albert Einstein to move”. Einstein’s theory, Gutfreund the smooth geometric description of
SP Books, 2019 notes, is a hugely complex mathematical spacetime that GR presumes with the
80 pages, ISBN 979-10-95457-05-3 formulation of this simple-sounding ‘grainy’ description that quantum
statement. That formulation finds its mechanics calls for. The other concerns
climax in the famous equation labeled singularities, where our understanding
“I AM GLAD THAT I GOT RID OF THE “(53)”. of physics breaks down. GR posits
MANUSCRIPT,” Einstein wrote in late What didn’t this paper transform singularities at the centre of black holes
April 1925 to his wife, Elsa, “and thank in our modern understanding of the and at the start of the Big Bang. But do
you for doing me this favor of love.” Elsa universe and its workings? Many of the they actually exist? Or does GR require
had solved a problem that her famous phenomena astrophysicists study today rejigging?
husband, who was then travelling in are natural consequences of GR (as Neither of these open questions
South America, had been unable to the theory is often abbreviated): Black need diminish our wonder at this
solve: what to do with the original holes, which according to GR will form priceless manuscript. Few documents
manuscript of his magnum opus, “The whenever the ratio of an object’s mass in human history have upended their
Foundation of the General Theory of to its radius becomes sufficiently large. field as utterly as GR has physics. One
Relativity”. At the time, Einstein was Gravitational time dilation, in which feels reverential sliding this book out of
helping establish the Hebrew University events occur more slowly near a massive its charcoal-gray, nearly 25-by-35-cm
of Jerusalem, and Elsa had given the body than they do farther away. The slipcase. You turn the pages slowly, in
document to a university official who bending of starlight and associated time part out of respect for how long it took
ensured that it later ended up there. The delay as light follows the its author to work out
manuscript has been a treasured part of curvature of spacetime the theory (eight years).
the Hebrew University’s collection since that a massive object We merely ordinary
it opened on April 1 of that year. creates. types latch onto signs
Einstein ended the sentence quoted There’s more — that Einstein was as
above with a few words that would much more. Another human as the rest of
trigger heart palpitations in historians consequence of GR, for us: His cross-outs,
of science: “better than burnt or sold”. example, is gravitational insertions and other
Burnt?! One might as well burn Magna lensing. As illustrated last-minute corrections
Carta, to which Hanoch Gutfreund, most aptly by Einstein’s before publication speak
director of the university’s Albert Cross, a strongly lensed to us in ways we can all
Einstein Archives and author of this quasar in Pegasus, lensing sympathise with. One
facsimile edition’s foreword, likens enables astronomers to surprise, considering our
Einstein’s masterwork. For this 46-page study distant celestial collective mental image
handwritten paper, published on May objects that intervening of his famously messy
11, 1916, in the journal Annalen der matter (in this case, hair, is his neat, quite
Physik, represents as great a watershed. a foreground galaxy) multiplies and legible handwriting.
One doesn’t have to read German, magnifies. The theory also augured We’re extremely fortunate to have
much less understand the complicated gravitational waves. These ripples in this original document. Einstein
mathematics in Einstein’s paper, to the fabric of spacetime arise from typically tossed his working papers
appreciate its beauty. In his foreword, violent gravitational events such as the once pieces appeared in print; no early
which also appears in French and merging of two black holes. Scientists drafts, for instance, survive from his
German, Gutfreund gets to the core of first detected these waves, which have “miracle year” of 1905. So thank you,
Einstein’s chef d’oeuvre when he writes, ushered in a new era of astronomy, a Elsa, for ensuring the safekeeping of
paraphrasing the theoretical physicist century after Einstein’s paper saw print. this seminal work in Einstein’s own
John Wheeler, “An almost poetic As revolutionary as GR has been, hand.
formulation of the essence [of general it’s not the be all and end all. Two
relativity] is: matter tells space how to significant issues in particular dog ¢ PETER TYSON wishes he understood
curve and curved space tells matter how the theory. One is how to reconcile general relativity as well as Einstein did.
www.skyandtelescope.com.au 65
AS&T TEST REPORT by Alan Dyer
www.skyandtelescope.com.au 67
AS&T TEST REPORT
Compatibility concerns
Oddly, as of version 1.6 of the firmware,
both EOS R cameras lack a built-in
intervalometer, useful for shooting
time-lapses, a feature present in all
recent Canon DSLRs and even the
EOS Rp. You must use an external
intervalometer to run the cameras.
The EOS R cameras use Canon’s E3
sub-mini jack for their shutter release port,
not the more robust three-pronged N3
S At night, the EOS R cameras (left) present a much brighter image in Live View (the only way
to preview a scene with a mirrorless camera) than does the Canon 6D MkII (right), which barely
port used on Canon’s full-frame DSLRs.
shows a few stars. Using an intervalometer with a type N3
plug requires the Canon RA-E3 adapter
EOS R. Both cameras’ 30-megapixel high noise levels, poor contrast, and cable. But with the right connector, any
sensors have a pixel pitch of 5.36 artifacts such as discolouration and time-lapse controller that operates the
microns versus the 5.76-micron pixels banding. camera through the shutter release port
of Canon’s 26-megapixel EOS Rp Happily, both EOS R cameras will work with the EOS R cameras.
mirrorless and 6D MkII DSLR. Not exhibited minimal additional noise and However, for devices or software
having an Rp on hand, I compared the R artifacts in shadows when brightened that operate the camera through its
models to the 6D MkII. in post-processing. This makes them USB port, compatibility will be an issue.
I was pleased to see that the EOS R superb for nightscape stills and time- For example, as of this writing the
cameras exhibited noise levels that are lapse photography. They are perhaps popular control program BackyardEOS
as good as, if not slightly lower than, Canon’s best cameras for this purpose. (v3.1) would not connect to an EOS
the Canon 6D MkII despite the latter’s R, but AstroPhotography Tool (v3.82)
larger pixels. Noise appeared to be no Battery life would and operated the Ra just fine. As
more than half a stop worse than in A single battery in the EOS Ra you would expect, Canon’s own EOS
the 24-megapixel Sony α7III we tested lasted seven hours on cold nights at Utility desktop program controls both R
(AS&T: May/Jun. 2019, p. 66), with its near-freezing temperatures (just as models, either tethered or wirelessly via
6-micron pixels. advertised by Canon), recording 1,500 the camera’s Wi-Fi connections.
Where the EOS R models really consecutive 15-second exposures. That With its mirrorless cameras,
excel over Canon’s 6D MkII is in ‘ISO was with Wi-Fi turned off and the Canon introduces a new CR3 format
invariancy’. Underexposing at a lower power-saving ‘Eco Mode’ disabled. for its RAW files. Adobe Photoshop,
ISO, then boosting the exposure later Canon also supplied us with the Adobe Lightroom and competitor
during RAW processing should, with an BG-E22 dual battery grip — a US$250 programs from ACDSee, Affinity,
ISO invariant sensor, produce identical accessory. Powering the camera with DxO and ON1 can open these CR3
results to shooting at a high ISO in the it in very cold temperatures extended files, as can PixInsight as of v1.8.8. But
field. That’s the case with Sony cameras the life to 16 hours and 3,600 shots, AstroPixelProcessor (v1.075) and Raw
and many Nikons. more than enough for night-long time- Therapee (v5.7), two programs popular
By contrast, the Canon 6D MkII is lapses during the winter. The worry with astrophotographers, could not.
terribly unforgiving of underexposure. that mirrorless cameras quickly exhaust With all mirrorless cameras the
When boosted later to extract details, their batteries is a concern of the past — ‘flange distance’ from the lens mount
dark shadows in its nightscapes exhibit at least with these Canon cameras. to the sensor is very short; there is no
The RF 85 mm f/1.2 L
Razor-sharp on-axis, even wide open,
this short telephoto
h
hoto showed very
low off-axis abbe
errations even at
f/1.2, enabling it to grab lots of
nebulosity in short
h exposures
and at low ISO O speeds.
This test shot is with the RF 85-mm
stock EOS R camera.
a lens at f/1.4.
This is one of the
h best
85-mm lenses
on the market,
providing a fine
focal lengthå
for Milky Way
star fields.
www.skyandtelescope.com.au 69
AS&T TEST REPORT
Recommendations
If you are looking to upgrade to a
full-frame camera and stay within the
Canon lens ecosystem, then an EOS R
camera gets you the image quality of a
5D Mark IV at lower cost, and with a
brighter Live View screen.
The stock EOS R will also work very
well for general-purpose nightscape and
time-lapse shooting, and for deep sky
imaging of constellations, star clusters
mirror to flip in and out of the light the case, much like when shooting with and galaxies, as well as solar and lunar
path as there is in a DSLR. In Canon’s APS-format cameras. eclipses.
case their EOS R cameras have a flange When using Long Exposure Noise But if it’s rich emission nebulosity
distance 24 mm less than in their Reduction (LENR) to reduce thermal you’re after, consider the EOS Ra for
DSLRs. Plus, with their mirrorless noise, Canon’s full-frame DSLRs have its extended red sensitivity. Keep in
R cameras Canon introduces a new a unique buffer that allows you to take mind it will be slightly compromised for
wider-format RF lens mount. Adapting three to five images in quick succession daytime photography.
older EF and EF-S Canon lenses is (the number varies with the model), I was impressed with the EOS R,
possible with one of Canon’s EF-EOS before the dark frame kicks in with and even more so with its astronomical
R lens adapters. One is also needed to LENR turned on. One internal dark variant, the Ra. Kudos to Canon for
attach an EOS R to a telescope via your frame gets applied to several images, recognising our niche use and for
existing camera adapter/field flattener speeding up image acquisition. providing us with a superb camera for
and its Canon T-ring. However, this feature does not work capturing the cosmos. I just might have
The version of the EF-EOS R lens if you control the camera through its to retire my decade-old modified EOS
adapter that accepts drop-in filters USB port with software on a computer. 5D Mark II!
provides the opportunity to insert Nor does it work with a DSLR if you
light-pollution filters into the light path have Live View activated. Unfortunately, ■ ALAN DYER maintains his blog at
well ahead of the sensor. They will work due to the nature of mirrorless cameras, amazingsky.net with tales of image-
better with wide-angle lenses than do the EOS R and Ra have Live View always taking, time-lapse videos, tutorials,
clip-in filters, which can vignette the on and lack this dark frame buffer. Pity! and test reports.
image on the sensor.
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.
A ‘painted’ telescope
Here’s how to fabricate a carbon-fibre tube.
LAST YEAR I WROTE about Tom layers of duct tape around it to act as a A homemade
Bartol’s massive equatorial mount. He release agent (epoxy doesn’t bond well carbon-fibre
OTA is a fitting
made it to carry his home-built 25-cm to duct tape). Next, they made plywood
companion to
f/5.6 Newtonian telescope, which disks that fit snugly inside the tube to this homemade
has a cardboard tube OTA. After the keep it round and ran a length of PVC mount.
mount was finished, the scope seemed pipe through holes in the middle of the
a bit shabby compared to its shiny new disks to act as a rotisserie spit. They
support. So one of Tom’s friends, Cary rested the pipe on two sawhorses so
Thomas, offered to help him make a they could spin it, slowly drawing the
carbon-fibre tube to replace it. fabric onto the tube a little at a time
Cary is as accomplished at working while they wet it with epoxy.
with composite materials as Tom is with To test their methods, the pair first
metal. He convinced Tom they could made a prototype that had the full
make a lightweight, rigid tube worthy of 30-cm diameter but was only 10 cm
his machined metal masterpiece. long. They wrapped 12 layers of 3k
The pair worked out a simple carbon fabric (0.25-mm thickness) onto
procedure for wrapping layers of the tube, using paintbrushes to soak it
carbon-fibre fabric around a cardboard with epoxy as they wound it up. By being
tube that served as an internal form. careful with the epoxy and winding to reveal a rough-textured outer surface.
They started with a 30-cm-diameter slowly and evenly, squeezing out air Rough textured? Why didn’t they
tube and wrapped two overlapping bubbles as they went, they got a strong want it smooth? Because the original
ring that required neither external form scope was deep blue and the mount was
nor vacuum bagging to finish out. The named ‘BlueShift’ in its honour, yet
prototype wound up with a 3.8-mm wall carbon fibre is black. That wouldn’t do.
thickness, and even though it weighed So the peel-ply’s rough texture created
only 280 grams it was strong enough to a good bonding surface for a final layer
support Tom’s weight (68 kg) and only of carbon with blue Kevlar in the weave.
flex a couple of cm. They wound this layer onto the tube
Buoyed by that success, they went using the same technique, then added
into full production. The cardboard several coats of clear epoxy to create a
tube they purchased at a hardware beautiful, high-gloss finish.
store only came in 1.2-m lengths, but They carefully measured their
the final tube needed to be 1.3-m, so finished product and cut the ends
The carbon-fibre fabric is wetted with epoxy they had to splice two pieces together. square to 1.5 metres, then soaked the
(applied with brushes) as it’s slowly wound They used 10 metres of 1.5-metre-wide whole works with a garden hose. The
onto the form. Pictured left to right are Bryan
carbon fibre fabric, which gave them cardboard tube disintegrated and was
Paquette, Kevin Winchell and Tom Bartol.
ample extra width plus factory edges to easily pulled out, along with the duct
work with. (Cut edges easily unravel.) tape, leaving a beautiful finished tube
With the help of two friends, Bryan that Tom painted on the inside with 3%
Paquette and Kevin Winchell, they reflective flat black theatre paint.
rolled up a 9-layer core in about three The result is what you see here.
hours. While that was still wet, they BlueShift is now complete, beautiful
applied a layer of polyester peel-ply to and homemade right down to the core.
top it off. They used a heat gun to kick- For more information, contact Tom
start the curing process and let it finish at [email protected].
TO M BA RTOL (3)
Email:
Expiry: /
Address:
Cardholder’s name:
coronavirus bites
POSTPONED
New Zealand’s national amateur
astronomy conference.
rasnz.org.nz
Several astronomy events have had to be cancelled. South Pacific Star Party
CANCELLED
Annual star party of the Astronomical
Society of NSW, at a dark sky site.
asnsw.com/spsp
Asteroid Day
June 30
A global day of education to help protect
Earth from asteroid impacts.
asteroidday.org
A
light of current Government policy and cwas.org.au
s this issue was going to press
at the end of March, the prevailing health advice regarding novel Queensland Astrofest
coronavirus crisis was hitting the coronavirus COVID-19. We do not want August 14–23, 2020
conference and function sectors hard, to expose our members or guests to any Held since 1993, the dark skies of
with events being cancelled or postponed unnecessary risk of infection. Council Camp Duckadang, Linville, attract lots of
left, right and centre. Unfortunately is working with our venue provider amateur astronomers.
qldastrofest.org.au
this includes the National Australian and guest speakers to find an optimal
Convention of Amateur Astronomers alternative date, in the final quarter of SASI Public Open Nights 2020
(NACAA), the annual conference of 2020.” August 28–29
the Royal Astronomical Society of New And the Astronomical Society of Public viewing at Greenpoint
Zealand (RASNZ), and the South Pacific NSW’s South Pacific Star Party has been Observatory in Sydney.
http://sasi.net.au/public-events/august-
Star Party. cancelled for this year. The organising public-open-nights
NACAA organisers announced committee said that “Since 1993 we
in mid-March that, “Due to the have held the Star Party through rain, Stargazers Getaway 2020
unprecedented situation with the sleet, snow and some unbelievable clear September 18–20
COVID-19 virus, the NACAA Inc night skies. In light of the COVID-19 Star party to be held at Camp Iona,
North Otago, New Zealand
Committee has decided, with due situation, the committee of the ASNSW https://www.facebook.com/
consideration to the safety of all Inc has cancelled this event for the events/943327669369996/
concerned, that the 2020 NACAA at safety of all our astronomy friends.”
Parkes is cancelled. All registration We can only imagine the International Observe
fees will be refunded in full… The disappointment felt by the organisers the Moon Night
September 26
committee is considering where and and also the sadness of the prospective Annual event to encourage observation
when the next NACAA will be held; this attendees. and learning about the Moon.
will be announced in due course.” When contemplating attending any moon.nasa.gov/observe-the-moon
The RASNZ, celebrating its 100th of the events listed in the Calendar on
year, has postponed its annual this page, it would pay to check first to WHAT’S UP?
ESO/P. HOR Á LEK
event. In a statement, the society’s see if they, too, have been cancelled or Do you have an event or activity
Council said that “Our society has a postponed in light of the coronavirus coming up? Email us at editor@
skyandtelescope.com.au
responsibility to manage its affairs in situation.
Stephen Kerr
I spent a cold predawn in June 2008
recording a possible occultation by
Pluto that was predicted to occur across
southern Australia but would be a near
S
tephen Kerr has been a leading Halley so I ended up buying all that I miss for me. Watching the monitor at
light in occultation observing for could afford – a 50-mm plastic refractor the time, nothing very much happened
many years, and in February 2015 which I managed to use for another – a common theme with occultations.
was appointed Director of the Royal four years until I finished my homebuilt The emails were flooding in with
Astronomical Society of New Zealand’s 20-cm Newtonian. all the great results from observers
Occultation Section. further south so I went through with
What sort of gear do you use now? the formality of analysing my video
What got you into astronomy? I mainly use a 30cm Schmidt- recording. My jaw dropped when I
A Patrick Moore book almost did it Cassegrain on a go to German reviewed the light curve to see that the
when I was five, but fear of the dark equatorial mount. Visual observing camera had detected a slight dimming
prevented me from moving much beyond has been largely replaced with special from the atmosphere of Pluto but not
identifying Orion in the twilight. Then, high-sensitivity video cameras for the planet itself. Greg Bolt recorded a
when I was about 10, my uncle moved occultation observing and timing, with similar result using a CCD camera from
to Toowoomba about the time he was data recorded directly to a laptop. Plus Perth. And it wasn’t a fluke. Others
getting into astronomy. He became a I do some dabbling at variable star have made similar detections at other
regular visitor for a while and I couldn’t photometry using a basic CCD camera. Pluto occultations. I’m still amazed at
help but take an interest. I suspect My best bit of equipment, though, is what amateurs can see and measure
what really tipped me over the edge was the dome the scope sits in. Things are with simple equipment.
my independent ‘discovery’ of Omega so much easier when you can go from
Centauri while sweeping with binoculars. the back door of the house to observing What’s on your ‘to do’ list?
in less than 10 minutes, and be back in Living in the tropics, the Zodiacal
What was your first telescope set-up? bed less than 10 minutes after a 2:00am lights are so ho-hum but I am still yet
I grew up in a house of bird watchers occultation. The dome is deliberately to see an aurora. Obviously, I am going
so there were binoculars everywhere. A much bigger than the telescope — so to have to travel for that. I have one
family friend who had an old generic clearly, I have to get a bigger telescope. total solar eclipse under my belt from
75-mm Newtonian reflector they two attempts, but another that lasts
weren’t using offered it to me. I used What has been your favourite moment? a bit longer would be good too. My
that thing heavily for a few years, Standing on the side of the Capricorn other rather more fanciful ambition
replacing the eyepieces with better Highway about 90 km west of is to discover an atmosphere around
ones taken from old broken binoculars. Rockhampton at 4:00am — with another trans-Neptunian object,
Then 1986 came along and the owner nobody else for miles and only flickers with occultations being the obvious
wanted the scope back to look at Comet of lightning from the storms I drove technique with which to do it.
www.skyandtelescope.com.au 75
GALLERY
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, you'll receive
a 3-issue subscription or renewal to the magazine.
t COMETARY VISITOR
Carl Tanner
Comet C/2017 T2
(PANSTARRS) passed by the
Double Cluster (NGC 869
and 884) in Perseus in early
February. Carl took this shot
remotely using the Celestron
11-inch RASA scope and
ZWO ASI071MC camera at
the iTelescope.net site in New
Mexico.
www.skyandtelescope.com.au 77
GALLERY
t COSMIC
CHOOK
Giritharan
Govindasamy
The so-called
Running Chicken
Nebula (formally
known as IC 2944)
lies around 6,000
light-years away
in the direction of
Centaurus. For this
shot, Giritharan
used a William
Optics Star 71
scope, QHY 163M
camera and SHO
narrowband filters.
t FLOWERING
Michael Calvert
The Rosette
Nebula is a large
diffuse nebula
about 5,200 light-
years away in
Monoceros, with
a star cluster (IC
2944) also present.
Michael used a
Tele Vue-NP101is
scope, SBIG
Aluma 8300m
camera and SHO
filters for this
image, which has
a total exposure
time of 4.5 hours.
t DOUBLE-BARRELLED SPIRAL
Ian Gorenstein
The barred spiral galaxy NGC 266
in Pisces displays two distinct spiral
arms containing surprisingly few
star-forming regions. Ian used a
Celestron EdgeHD 14 scope with
Atik 460EX camera. Total exposure
was 13.7 hours through LRGB
filters.
www.skyandtelescope.com.au 79
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www.skyandtelescope.com.au 81
FOCAL POINT by Dan Rinnan
My immense journey
When it comes to distance travelled in my lifetime, I leave even the Voyagers in the dust.
IN MY NEARLY 76 YEARS on this Andromeda Galaxy, our nearest large But what about other motions I’ve
planet, I’ve travelled a total of 2.8 neighbour, at about 360,000 km/hr, or ignored? Well, there’s distance gained
trillion kilometres. Trillion? Incredible. 3.2 billion km/yr. from the daily turning of our planet.
But you have, too, or with luck and Then there’s the motion of the Local That’s 40,000 km/day if you live at the
good health you will. Group of galaxies toward the Virgo equator, or nil if you’re standing on
Let’s start by counting those 76 Cluster: 792,000 km/hr, or 7 billion either pole. (I live halfway between.)
voyages around the Sun. Any distance km/yr. Finally, at the largest scale, Doesn’t add much to the total. Then
we might have accumulated on there’s the motion of the Laniakea there’s the ‘wobble’ motion of the Solar
the surface of our planet is tiny in Supercluster toward the Great Attractor System above and below the galactic
comparison. Frequent-flyer kilometres and beyond it to the Shapley Attractor: plane. Again, spare change. I’ll stick to
don’t count here! an amazing 2,157,000 km/hr or 18.9 my back-of-the-envelope calculation of
Earth’s orbital speed averages about billion km/yr. 2.8 trillion km.
108,000 km per hour, so in one year So, in my 76 years, all these motions But hang on, you’ll say if you’re
our planet travels 946 million km add up to 2.8 trillion km. among the mathematically inclined. All
around the Sun. Multiply that distance Have you felt it? Neither have I, and these motions are not independent of
by your age. For me, that’s a total of 72 I’ve been only occasionally aware of one another, and they move in different
billion km. the fact. But altogether I’ve travelled a directions. Obtaining an accurate
But there’s more. (Following lot farther than the distance that the combined total requires a complicated
estimates vary according to source.) Voyager 1 space probe, launched in vector field analysis.
Our Sun orbits the centre of the Milky 1977, now lies from the Sun. Having Fortunately, that’s arguably been
Way Galaxy at 810,000 km/hr, carrying left our Solar System in 2012, Voyager 1 done. Relative to the Cosmic Microwave
us along with it. One year adds another is currently (as of mid-December Background, it’s a combined motion of
7.1 billion km to our total. And the 2019) about 22.2 billion km from 1.3 million km/hr, or, for a old codger
Milky Way itself is speeding toward the Earth — less than 0.8% of the distance of my years, it’s 865 billion km — in the
I’ve travelled. On the other hand, my direction of the constellation Crater.
journey has brought me about 7% of In sum, at this moment you and I
the distance that Earth lies from our are travelling very fast, at a wide variety
nearest neighbour star system, some of speeds and in a number of different
41.8 trillion km away. At this rate, I’ll directions. What can I say? Bon voyage!
match Alpha Centauri’s distance from
us around the year 3090. ¢ DAN RINNAN, whenever weather
permits, is out under dark skies, hitching
rides and holding onto his hat.
LE A H TISCIONE / S&T
e
Ǧ
ϐ
Im e y Micc ae G h / w w s r
ͳͶ Ǧ
ϐ
Regional International Astronomical Union Meeting (APRIM) at
the Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre on July 6-10, 2020.
APRIM 2020 is jointly hosted by CSIRO and the International Centre for Radio
Astronomy Research (ICRAR), and will incorporate the Astronomical Society of
Australia’s Annual Science Meeting into its program.
ϐ
ǣ
www.aprim2020.org/sponsorship-exhibition