Space and Astronomy News: 2025 in Review

2025 has been an amazing year here at BINTEL! There's been some wonderful news, discoveries, plus it's privilege to be at the forefront as we see trends and technologies for amateur astronomers of all levels.

In January 2025, we celebrated the re-opening of the iconic Port Macquarie Observatory on the NSW north coast. This astro facility has a popular destination for many years, and the revamp included Celestron and Sky-Watcher telescopes, a Planewave mount and more, all supplied and installed by BINTEL.

In fact on of the major trends we're seeing over the last few years is the continual rise of "astro tourism". People are traveling more and more throughout Australia and with some of the finest night skies on the planet to enjoy, tourism operators are keen to offer their guests the opportunity to enjoy the Universe above their heads! It's certainly an area we'll be helping with in the coming years, and there's a growing number of our BINTEL tourism customers using telescopes, especially the newer "Smart Telescopes" to showcase their locations away from city lights.

2025 also saw BINTEL supply other high-end astronomy gear, including Australia's only ZWO ASI461MM Pro Cooled Camera, to a leading University. This $20k+ 100 mega pixel camera will be used to best the design of upcoming astronomy imaging devices to be fitted to some of the world's largest telescopes.

Members of the BINTEL team were also involved in a number of public outreach events and presentations. Thanks to Macquarie University and The Sutherland Astronomical Society for the invitations to be involved!

Smart Telescopes continue to improve

We were excited but not surprised to see the ongoing development of Smart Telescopes from ZWO, DWARF Labs, Vaonis and the release of the Celestron Origin Intelligent Home Observatory Mark II.

As these telescopes can be improved by software updates and with competition between various makers, our customers are finding new features and abilities often added. We've seen the roll out of mosaic features to allow stitching together multiple images in a larger panorama, equatorial or "EQ" mode to improve exposure length and more. This entire area is a rapidly changing and we'll be featuring some new products in next week's blog for what's ahead in 2026.

2025: Year of the comet

New comets arriving at the inner Solar System from the Oort Cloud happen every year or so. This year we were several and astronomers even had the rare opportunity to photograph two comets in a single image!

Comet C/2025 R1 (SWAN) and Comet C/2025 K1 (ATLAS) capture nears Mars by Glenn Pickford on the 21st of September and posted to the BINTEL Society Facebook group. Check out his post here.

We also saw the third known visitor to the Solar System, interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS.

3I/ATLAS glowing green during a Lunar eclipse. | Credit: Michael Jäger/Gerald Rhemann

The comet is now heading out from the Solar System. It's been extensively imaged by both amateur and professional astronomers. The more fanciful theories about the origins and purpose of Comet 3I/ATLAS haven't shown to be the case. (IE, it's not headed towards Earth, nor is it an alien spaceship), however there are some interesting observations about its composition. This isn't surprising, giving its origin from elsewhere in the Milky Way and it was a rare opportunity to study such a body (comparatively) close up. 

The "3I" in the comet's name is because it's the third interstellar object we've observed in the Solar System. Astronomers can spot these bodies as they're moving too fast to be captured by the Sun's gravity. With the opening this year of the long awaited Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile, we could possibly discover several interstellar objects each year.

This unique telescope photographs the entire sky visible from its location every few nights, allowing it quickly find new, fast moving objects in the Solar System and brief but faint events in distant galaxies. 

During the observatory's test period, it was able to find a swarm of new asteroids, including a number that closely approach Earth.

The opening of Vera C. Rubin was certainly one of the highlights of 2025 and astronomers the world over are eagerly waiting on new discoveries.

What is possibly the most enigmatic news in 2025 was a very cautious announcement from NASA that their Perseverance Rover had found what could be signs of ancient life on the surface of Mars.

A close up of the rock Cheyava Falls show the tiny "Leopard Spots". Image via NASA / JPL-Caltech

These results are still the topic of much discussion among scientists. The onboard remote laboratory on the Perseverance Rover doesn't have equipment needed for a final confirmation and it require either samples to be returned from the surface of Mars to Earth for better analysis, or for humans to carry out experiments once they land on the red planet. Either way, it will be years before we know if life did in fact exist elsewhere in the Solar System, however the results are truly tantalising!

What were your favourite events for 2025? Comment below and we'll add them to next week's blog!

Cheers,

Earl White

BINTEL 

27th December 2025