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Members of the BINTEL crew have been attending NEAF 2024 in the USA  –the world’s largest expo of telescopes and astronomy gear! – Here’s some of latest product news and releases Please note that all the products listed are from suppliers that we currently represent and will be heading to BINTEL this year Sunday 21st April 2023 – ZWO again lead the way, showing the move to integrated astrophotography equipment. As any astrophotographer would know, there’s a lot more than simply attaching a camera to a telescope to take photos. There’s other gear (and cables) needed to locate astro objects in the night sky, control the mount, guide long exposures, focus and more.  There’s been a move in recent years to merge a lot of these control requirements into a single device like the ZWO ASIAIR. Announced at NEAF 2024 is the new ZWO ASI260MC Air This remarkable new camera includes a built-in ZWO ASI Air that, a guide camera all controlled over Wi-Fi via an app on your phone or iPad/tablet. (Please note any prices shown are in USD$, not the Australian price). It’s no doubt going to simplify the astrophotography process. More time capturing ancient star light and less time setting up and managing equipment! At NEAF 2023, the ZWO Seestar S50 was launched.  This has been a super popular astronomy product over the last 12 months, with many hundreds of them finding a new home among our customers. While no new Smart Telescope hardware was shown by ZWO, they did remind folks of the near continuous feature upgrades that have been delivered to all Seestar S50 owners via software and firmware updates. They did however highlight future upgrades to the Seestar lineup aimed at both the new astronomer and those with more experience requiring more advanced features. Watch this Space! Always good to catch up with friends – Memory Li from ZWO and Clare Mills from BINTEL earlier today. Sky-Watcher has joined the Harmonic Drive/strain wave mount family with the release of their new WAVE 100i and 150i telescope mounts. Based on what we saw of the mounts themselves and the specifications, they’re going to be a very compelling option for astro imagers and even visual observers. You can also use the Sky-Watcher Wave mounts in both Equatorial and Alt-Az mode as can be seen in this video. More on these soon. Pegasus Astro had on display their new SmartEye “Smart Eyepiece” and running a simulation of the view from it.  This is one of the more interesting gizmos shown and is yet another example of tech making astronomy and astrophotography easier and more open to everyone. Rather than being an entire system like other Smart Telescopes like the ZWO SeeStar S50 or the Vaonis Vespera, the SmartEye is used in place of a tradition eyepiece on a telescope. The view through the SmartEye is of what the telescope is seeing, except automatically and quickly electronically enhanced.  It has a swag of other functions including traditional astrophotography features and object assistance via Wi-Fi. We’re quite excited by the SmartEye.  We posted a video  of the view through a SmartEye and it’s stunning! You can find it here. This an ideal way to upgrade a serious telescope and likely to breath new life into larger ones like Dobsonians.  Availability will be later in the year. Pricing is likely to be around that of a mid-range Smart Telescope. Optec Inc. showed their Aquila-88 high-torque focuser and camera rotator. This has a full 88mm clear aperture (hence the name) and apart from camera rotation, can handle field de-rotation for Alt-Az mounts, image composition and guide star acquisition for the more high end astrophotography setups. The Celestron Origin continues to attract attention ahead of its widespread availability later in the year. Celestron Origin shown with optional table top tripod. The Origin currently has the best specifications among Smart Telescopes and we’re expecting some fantastic images to be come out of this device and  can’t wait to get it into the hands of our BINTEL customers. Celestron have been taking the time to explain how much of the hardware that goes into the Origin, including the RASA optical system, has been incorporated and field-proven in other Celestron products. Cheers, Earl White BINTEL 18th April 2024  

1st April 2024 - Australian amateur space scientists plan a launch later today to solve long-term observing problem for astronomers in the Southern Hemisphere.  We've heard from a number of unreliable sources that today is the launch of a new class of spacecraft - those to help amateur astronomers instead of posing problems like Elon Musk's Starlink satellites. Professor Trevor Zipman from the Australian Space Infrastructure Foundation (ASIF), a non profit organization aiming to modify the night sky to better suit amateur astronomers, spoke exclusively with BINTEL about their immediate plans. Finally - a pole star for the Southern Hemisphere. "Frankly, it's it's a pain in the bee-hind trying to get polar alignment in Australia from what I've read.  Up north of the equator, there's a nice bright star called Polaris where you point your mount and off you go. No mucking around.  The central planning committee of ASIF thought this oversight sounded like a perfect first cab off the rank in terms of our space launches." ranted Professor Zipman. "Basically, we're putting up a large, lightweight balloon, right into geosynchronous orbit so it will sit at exactly where the southern pole star would be if the powers that be saw fit to install one in the first place." he continued with a wink. SPOLARIS-1, is a 20m diameter reflective balloon that will be launched later today from their new facility near Bogan Gate NSW, not far from the famous Parkes radio telescope and aims to be the new south pole star to help with polar alignment in the southern hemisphere. "All going to plan, and especially if the guidance system points our launch vehicle point in the right direction, we'll have SPOLARIS-1 in place and shining brightly this Monday. The first two test launches of the new launch system, Direct Reach into Near Geo Orbit (DRONGO), placed their payloads into wildly, unplanned paths." Professor Zipman, or "Mungo" to his friends, colleagues and wildlife on and around his midget Alpaca farm where he retreats on weekends,  commented that "unlike that Musk bloke who blows his spacecraft  a few times and calls it success, we get 'em up there. We just don't know where exactly "there" is. They go and and stay up and don't crash back down to Earth. At least not on anyone who's made a kerfuffle about it thus far." BIG plans for ASIF Mungo admits he's not an astronomer and it's been a while since he looked through a telescope that didn't involve putting in a 20c coin and pointing it scenery . He'd also not consulted either professional or amateur astronomers when laying out future missions.   Despite this, he and ASIF have some exciting plans for the future. "It's always bugged me how the Southern Cross has a single extra star in the corner. We're seeking funding to fix that stuff up and don't get me started on why Orion's belt is upside down Downunder." "My take is that if you're going to have space junk whizzing around up there, it might as well be bloody useful." Mungo concluded. How to see SPOLARIS-1 Simply head outside just after dark and look directly south and up at the same angle as your latitude. For example,  if the SPOLARIS-1 launch is successful, a bright star will be visible from Sydney at about this angle. It also won't move during the night and can be used for the polar alignment of your telescope.   The crosshairs show were SPOLARIS-1 will (hopefully) be located  as seen from Sydney from evening of the first of April, 2024. Definitely something to keep an eye out for! Cheers, Earl White BINTEL

March 27th - 2024: A common question we get asked here at BINTEL is what's the furthest thing  I can see with my telescope along with a slightly less often asked - "what's the oldest thing I can see and how do we know how old it is?" Currently, possibly the oldest known star in the night sky is a comparatively close by to us in the Milky Way and can even be seen with binoculars! But how do we know how old it is? First of all, let's talk about metal  - in an astronomical sense. Everyone has a different definition of what "Metal" is.  Growing up in the inner western suburbs of Sydney when I did, my immediate answer would be "AC/DC", but not everyone would agree. (Lots of Metallica fans out there too...) We also know metals when we see them in day to day life. Cars are made of them, the copper in power leads carry electricity, jets use titanium in their engines and we drink out of aluminium cans. We're surrounded by metal and we know what it is. Astronomers don't think of metals the same way. You might hear them talk about stars as being "metal rich" or "metal poor" or even talking about "metallicity of a star."   Here's what they're referring to plus we'll chat about what's one of the oldest known stars in the Universe which happens to be on our galactic backyard. Going back a bit.....(actually, really big bit!) The Big Bang produced basically the two simplest observable elements after initial cooled down - lots and lots of Hydrogen and some Helium. (And a tiny dollop of other lighter elements.) The Cosmic microwave background (CMB)  .A  snapshot of the oldest light in our Universe, imprinted on the sky when the Universe was only around 380 000 years old. Image via ESA and the Planck Collaboration. Even after billions of years, about 73% of the visible Universe is Hydrogen and 25% of Helium. The rest of the visible Universe  - around 2% - is all of the other elements put together. This 2% is composed of every other element from Lithium up and this is all the other gases including oxygen and nitrogen, and all the way through to ultra heavy elements such as Uranium. Astronomers use the term "metals" to refer to this 2% of matter we can observe  which wasn't left over from the Big Bang. Sometimes you hear we're made of "star stuff", but what does this mean? If it wasn't from the Big Bang, where does oxygen and nitrogen in the air we breath, the carbon in our bodies and the copper in the speak cables to play come from? All the energy we see from stars, whether it's ancient starlight or the sunlight during the day comes from nuclear fusion in the cores. Lighter elements like hydrogen and helium are pressed together under extreme pressures and temperatures. This process* turns the lighter elements into heavier elements and along the way, a tiny bit of matter is also turned into energy.  All other elements were formed in stars through the nuclear fusion processes that power them. The first generation of stars formed from the primordial gasses left over from the Big Bang. This mean that they were only made of up hydrogen, some helium and that tiny smidge of lithium.  It's a good chance these first stars were huge compared to the Sun. We also know that massive star have a short lifespan, measured in possibly only a few million years. This means that these ancient stars that formed early on  in the Universe's history - which we refer to as "population III" stars - have likely long ceased to exist and have never been directly observed.**  They had no "metals"  - anything in them other that hydrogen, helium  -  in them whatsoever. Why? Simply because anything else didn't yet exist in the early Universe. When astronomers talk about how much of materials other than hydrogen and helium or metals in a star - and use terms like metallicity, they're  talking about how much of a star is formed from the gasses left over from the Big Bang and how much of it is from previous generations of stars. How does material from older stars end up in younger stars? A normal star can produce elements all the way up to to Iron (Fe)  during fusion but to produce elements heavier than this, a different and spectacular event takes places make the remaining, heavier elements - a supernova. During the life of a star, the inwards pressure of gravity and the outwards pressure of energy  and are somewhat balanced. As the star reaches the end of its life, the  star cools slightly as "fuel" is burned through and the energy is not enough to overcome gravity and it collapses quickly and then explodes. (Our own Sun is not large enough to explode in a supernova.) This is the final explosion of a massive star that not release vast amounts of energy but also throws these materials out into interstellar space where they then become part of later generation stars and planets and even end up in speaker cable we use to play AC/DC music.  Early, short lived Population III*** stars would have ended their lives as supernovas.  These supernova explosions  spread the heavier elements created into interstellar space, where they become part of the material from which later generations of stars are formed. As stars explode and their remnants combine into later generation stars, by looking their spectrums and analysing what's inside them we can determine their age, their likely lifespan and more. The oldest stars we can see today referred to as population II stars, would have been formed from gasses in the interstellar medium and some elements produced by the explosions of population III stars. They would have some "metals" in them but only in tiny amounts.  Population II stars then further spread elements during their own end of life supernova events. To wrap up: Astronomers use the term "Metals" for elements that weren't left over from the Big Bang and are created in stars.  The amount of metal or metallicity of a star is a guide to its age. There's three main groups of stars: Population III Stars - stars theorised to have existed, formed from the remnants of the Big Bang and distributed heavier elements throughout the Universe. Population II Stars - ancients stars that contain are metal poor, simply because there were few metals in the Universe when they formed. The Methuselah star is a Population II star. Population I Stars - metal rich stars formed from the remnants of the Big Bang, metals from Population II supernovae. Our Sun is a Population I star. Going back to the oldest star we can see, it's a critter called  HD 140283 or "the Methuselah star" about  200 light years away.  If you'd like to see where it is in the sky, click here to view in Stellarium and then the + button to zoom in.  It's bright enough to to viewed in binoculars.  It's a population II star, very poor in metals - which fingers crossed you now know that this means - and includes some elements created by population III stars.   Digitized Sky Survey image of the HD 140283 of "The Methuselah Star".  Anglo-Australian Observatory (AAO) UK Schmidt telescope photographed the star in blue light and visual observations will show as a faint star. It's not that spectacular to view at but you're looking at a piece of history from an ancient time in the Universe's history. Cheers, Earl White BINTEL PS: This is a super brief overview of a very complex topic - happy to answer more detailed questions and pass along the one's I can't! *"Splitting the atom" or nuclear fission is the opposite. Elements are broken into lighter elements and energy released.  If you saw the movie Oppenheimer, this is the type of energy that powered the bombs dropped on Japan **There haven a tiny few indirect observations of population III stars via the JWST through gravitationally lensed, high red shift galaxies. ***Most of the stars we see are population I. When older stars were discovered, these became population II, and then when even older stars were theorised, no surprise they were termed popular III three stars.  

Australian and New Zealand women have made invaluable contributions to  the field of Astronomy - here's just some of them. New Zealand raised and educated theoretical astrophysicist, Professor Beatrice Tinsley, published over 100 paper during her career which was sadly cut short by her death from melanoma at just 40 in 1981.  She graduated from Canterbury University College with a masters  degree in physics and a PhD from the University of Texas on the theories behind the evolution of galaxies. Beatrice moved to Yale University where she became their first female professor of astronomy.  She also contributed to research about whether the Universe is open or closed and the shapes of proto-galaxies. To commemorate Professor Tinleys' life,  New Zealand named a mountain after her in the country's Fiordland's Kepler Mountains. Ruby Payne-Scott is a famous Australian astronomer, known for her pioneering work in radio physics and radio astronomy.  Born in 1912 in Grafton NSW, she started studying at Sydney University at the age of 16 and obtained a first class honours degree in maths and physics. After obtaining a masters degree  in physics, she worked physicist at the Cancer Research Institute, but after this project closed and without jobs for women physics, she ended up teaching. Finding work with AWA, Ruby moved to the CSIRO where she worked on radar and Solar Astronomy.  She made major contributions to  the techniques of radio astronomy including leading the design and construction of equipment to image the Sun 25 times a second,  as well as discovering three of the five different types of Solar Corona outbursts. Her career was marked by political battles and struggles for women's rights, especially around those equal pay and the right of married women to continue to work. You can read more about Ruby Payne-Scott's life at the CSIRO website here. Mary Emma Greayer was employed at the Adelaide Observatory from 1890 to 1898, working on The Astrographic Catalogue or "AC", a vast project undertaken by 19th century astronomers around the world to chart and record the position of millions of faint stars. The  results of the AC and other catalogues such as the incomplete Carte du Ciel became  not much more than historical curiosities for many decades until they were combined with more recent surveys to used to produce results about the movement or "proper motion" of stars. During her time at the Adelaide Observatory, Mary Geayer worked cataloging stars, their positions as well as calibrating instruments.  During the day, she also working calculating the co-ordinates of many stars that were used in the AC.  Her marriage meant she could no longer work as was common in those times and caused a halt to the survey. ‘Since Mr Griffith’s marriage which has deprived me of Miss Greayer’s services we have been unable to observe any of your Astrographic stars. . .’ Mary Geayer also was one of the first women to join the Adelaide Astronomical Society in 1893 Charlotte Emily Fforde Peel was  originally employed as casual by the Melbourne Observatory, but in 1900 became the first female astronomer to be employed full time in Australia. She worked on the part of the AC that had been assigned to Australia. As any astronomer would know, the southern skies above our head are particularly rich and full of stars of a wide variety of magnitudes.  Charlotte measured stars,  produced the positions using a logarithmic formulae,  corrected the errors of the other workers as well as calibrating astronomical instruments and measuring devices - all before the advent of computers! Charlotte also observed and measured two comets - Comet C/1913 YI (Delavan) and Comet C/1915 CI (Mellish) For more background information about some of Australia's early pioneers in astronomy, please read an article by Dr Toner Stevenson here. In more recent times, Katherine Bennell-Pegg has been selected to become the first person to fly to space under the Australian flag. She was Assistant Manager of the Chief Technology Office for three years at the Australian Space Agency before becoming their Director of Space Technology.  Katherine has followed her childhood dream of becoming an astronaut by studying engineering at Sydney University as well as becoming Australian Army Reservist, a volunteer in the NSW SES, and travelling to India with Engineers Without Borders. In 2021 Katherine applied along with 22,500 other people to ESA's astronaut training and was one of only 25 successful applicants to commence astronaut training.  Cheers, Earl White BINTEL 8th March 2024   .  

23rd Feb 2023: What we see in the night sky seem timeless and eternal - things change on the timescale of millions or billions or years. Even the rare, fleeting or transient events like supernova will often take hundreds of years for the remnants to be seen.  But..... Back in 1987, when BINTEL had only been in business for only a few years, a star in the LMC (Large Magellanic Cloud) exploded as a type II supernova. SN 1987A was the first supernova that was visible to your eyes alone since 1604, which occurred before the development of the telescope*. The LMC is a satellite galaxy of our Milky Way galaxy and can easily seen with just your eyes in the far southern skies. A supernova is the dramatic end stage of a large star. It happens in a few hours and then slowly fades in the following weeks and months. We find remnants of supernovae scattered throughout the Milky Way.  For example, the Crab Nebula corresponds to observations of Chinese astronomers in 1054 of a "guest star".  We also know that many of these supernova remnants have neutron stars at their core. A neutron star made up of a super dense form of matter where every proton and electron been crushed together to form just neutrons.  They're the most extreme objects in the Universe apart from whatever is inside a black hole. Just how dense is a neutron star? According to NASA, a single sugar cube chunk of  a neutron star would weigh about 1 trillion kilograms. It's thought there could be a billion neutron stars in our Milky Way. Even though SN 1987A was some 160,000 light years away, it was near enough to be studied in more detail than any previous supernova. One observation of SN 1987A was a strong blast of neutrinos that preceded its optical discovery by a few hours.  The confirmation of these types of observations helped confirm theories about the core collapse of the star involved in SN 1987A.  There was a strong chance that the host star which exploded could form a  neutron star or even a black hole.  Despite multiple searches, no evidence for a central star in the remains of SN 1987A have been found. An image of the LMC take by the ESO Schmidt camera showing the supernova SN 1987A  - the brightest "star" in the middle of the image.  Today,  results published in Science  indicate early signs of  the newly born, neutron star at the centre of SN 1987A.  Argon emission in SN1987A indicating a central neutron star has been formed These are from observations taken by the JWST (James Webb Space Telescope) on 16th July 2023, shortly after it began full time science operations. “From theoretical models of SN 1987A, the 10-second burst of neutrinos observed just before the supernova implied that a neutron star or black hole was formed in the explosion. But we have not observed any compelling signature of such a newborn object from any supernova explosion. With JWST, we have now found direct evidence for emission triggered by the newborn compact object, most likely a neutron star.” - commented Claes Fransson of Stockholm University, and the lead author on study. There's follow up observations planned this year with the JWST as well as ground based telescopes. The aim is to not just study SN 1987A, but also also help our understanding of the various types of supernovae. Amazing to think that we've seen the catastrophic destruction of a star and the discovery the "new" star that's been born from the massive event - all within a few decades! Cheers, Earl White BINTEL *Yes - we are possibly "overdue" for a major supernova event in the Milky Way itself.

A quick and interesting look at some electronics that were hit by lightning via the BeaverLAB Darwin M1A Microscope. Today we were repairing a customer's large Celestron computerised telescope that was the unfortunate recipient of a lightning strike. It was fairly obvious to your eyes alone that the main board wasn’t in great shape to put it mildly. We decided to take closer examination with BeaverLAB Darwin M1A Microscope. It quickly showed one entire side of a main chip was blown out! It was also taken on the BeaverLAB microscope's lowest magnification. We could have zoomed in for a much closer look if need be. The Darwin M1A Microscope has lighting from the top of the microscope and as well as from underneath. This means that while it can be used for looking at samples prepared on traditional methods like glass slides, it can also be used for examining solid objects like electronics, watches or gemstones stones that need to be lit from above. As you also see, the Darwin M1A Microscope doesn’t have a screen or eyepiece to view through. You hook up to the microscope via Wi-Fi and then view your specimen on your phone, tablet or iPad where you can take photos (like we did in this example) or even videos. One of the things like about this is that it makes it so simple to grab and share images of what you're viewing in the microscope. There's a LOT more to this microscope that's priced under $200, including a stack of accessories and even activity books and stickers for the young inner space explorers.  A very cool bit of tech! Cheers, Earl White BINTEL 8th February 2024

Celestron have three different products to help setup, align and then maintain the position of your telescope and mount throughout the night. Here's what they do and what are the differences between them. First up - what mounts and telescopes do they work with? These devices are compatible with just about all computerised Celestron telescopes and mounts produced in recent years. They include the Celestron: NexStar SE, SLT and Evolution telescopes NexStar GT (with additional aux splitter cable) CGEM and CGEM-DX Mounts CGX and CGX-L mounts CG-5 Computerised mounts (with additional aux splitter cable) Advanced VX mounts AstroFi telescopes If you have a Celestron OTA (Optical Tube Assembly) on say, an iOptron or ZWO AM5, then these accessories won't be of assistance. (There is a separate Celestron AutoAlign for Sky-Watcher mounts, but we won't be covering that in this article.) They  essentially work with Celestron mounts and telescopes that you either setup with a Celestron hand controller or over Wi-Fi with an app. Celestron SkySync GPS This is the simplest of the Celestron mount setup accessories. This plugs into a port on the Celestron mount. It uses the GPS network to accurately enter your current location automatically, rather than  needing to key it into the keypad or manually into the Celestron app. Local time and date plus GPS locate is available via you phone these days. From a practical point of view, the Celestron SkySync GPS will save you time entering details into your hand controller at the start of your observing sessions. Celestron StarSense AutoAlign This device bypasses the normal star or Solar System alignment that's needed to orientate your Celestron telescope or mount.  You're probably familiar with this process. You line up a few your telescope mount  with a few stars that you know the names of, or align with some bright stars. This allows the Celestron to know where it pointing and how it's aligned. Once this is done, you can "GOTO" an object and track it, or manually move to a location in the sky and also track what you've landed on. The Celestron StarSense AutoAlign tell the telescope mount to move around a little and its small telescope and camera identifies patterns of stars it "sees".  This is not to take photos to show you. It's to tell the computer in the telescope's mount how to align itself. Bottom line - no more aligning the telescope so you can use the GOTO or tracking feature. Once the Celestron StarSense AutoAlign has aligned the telescope, it doesn't do anything else, unless you want to update or check the alignment. Please note: this is the telescope mount alignment to orientate itself in the night sky, and nothing to do with polar alignment. Celestron StarSense Autoguider This is the newest Celestron mount accessory and some major addition features compared to the Celestron StarSense AutoAlign. We also have a more detailed article about it. First of all, the StarSense Autoguider has the same telescope mount alignment features as the AutoAlign and works much the same way. It moves the telescope mount around, scanning for patterns of stars and their location to set the mount's alignment in the sky. The major new feature in this new device is autoguiding. Telescope mounts are fairly accurate and normally can be used to track objects in the night sky. For long exposure astro imaging, you need to keep objects exactly in the same position for the sharpest possible results. The compensate for any small mount drift, astronomers use autoguiders. These are either small telescopes attached to the main telescope tube or tiny mirrors that peer into the optical train. Another camera attaches to these and "locks" onto a star in the field of view. If sees any tiny drift in one direction, it tells the mount to move in the opposite direction to keep the entire view steady. The StarSense Autoguider uses its same small telescope that carries out the initial mount alignment for keeping the telescope centred on what it's looking at via this autoguiding process. While it's mainly aimed at astro imaging, it also provides comfortable, extended visual viewing as well. A final major feature of the StarSense Autoguider is that assists with polar alignment. This can be difficult in the Southern Hemisphere as we don't have a nearby star to help, like those in the Northern Hemisphere. The polar alignment feature will show you where to the move the mount itself , rather than the telescope on the mount.  Accurate polar alignment is not needed to visual observing but is essential for long exposure imaging. To wrap it up... Celestron SkySync GPS automatically enters time, date and location into your telescope mount Celestron StarSense AutoAlign carries out initial mount alignment Celestron StarSense Autoguider carries out initial mount alignment, auto guides and assists with polar alignment If you have further questions, please contact us for a chat! Cheers, Earl White BINTEL 8th February 2024      

In last week's BINTEL newsletter (you can read it here), I mentioned the Optolong L-Quad Enhance filter. This is a broad band light pollution filter that cuts out  a very narrow range light from street lights and lamps while letting most of the visual light spectrum through. This make it a good choice for images of objects like star clusters, galaxies and emission nebula through a one-shot colour camera while at the same time keeping a very natural tone to the image.  This week we'll touch on the Optolong L-eNhance and L-eXtreme filters, what they do and why you'd use them. What's the H-alpha, H-beta,  OIII numbers and letters? (A little bit of astrophysics about nebulae here. Don't worry - it won't be too scary!) We can see several types of nebulae in the sky. All nebulae are made up of thin, vast clouds of gas and dust. For an astronaut, they'd be as close to a vacuum as we could measure but they're definitely "there". Over time these super thin interstellar clouds are drawn together by their own gravity and collapse into a star. This is how our own Sun was formed some 4.6 billion years ago. The light from stars close to these nebulae does a few things.  It either bounces off the gasses and what we see is a "reflection nebula".  It can also be absorbed by the gasses.  These gasses can't keep absorbing the energy from the light and energy it carries forever. Something's gotta give!* The electrons in the gas atoms  - and remember hydrogen is a very simple molecule with just one electron - will change energy in specific increments and eventually release the energy and fall back down to a prior level, at the same time emitting a photon.  When it does that it emit light photo at a specific wavelength.  There are several energy levels the electrons will jump to and fall back to. This means that no matter the wavelength of the light its energy it absorbs, the wavelength or colour it emits is very specific. The terms H-alpha, H-beta etc refer to the wavelength of light produced by these the changes in energy level. O-III emission** is produced by a different process, but it still only emits light at a single wavelength. H-alpha emissions are wavelength in the deep red part of the visible spectrum are are responsible for the red and pinkish colours in gas clouds like this image taken by Rob Watson and posted to the BINTEL Society Facebook page. Planetary nebulae are the remnants of an exploded star that are spreading out into space.  They're illuminated by central collapsed star which are usually small and hot.  The chemical process in these nebulae are more complex and another wavelength of light - O-III - is emitted. This is seen as a greenish colour and this in a region where are our eyes are quite sensitive to. Light pollution arrive in wide variety of wavelengths caused by a multiple sources. The Optolong L-Quad Enhance filter stops light from major sources of light pollution and lets remaining wavelengths through. The Optolong L-eNhance filter takes another approach  - it blocks a large chunk of light apart from the H-alpha, H-beta and O-III processes through. This means that a colour camera*** will mainly see light produced by the processes mentioned that occur in emission nebulae and planetary nebula. As an example, here's the Optolong L-Quad Enhance filter: You can see how is transmits most of the light. It's only blocking light around common light pollution sources. See how this compares to the Optolong L-eNhance filter.  The Optolong L-eNhance will only let light around the H-alpha, H-beta and O-III wavelengths. It's not simply a darker filter! Going one step further, the  Optolong L-eXtreme filter only lets through light around the wavelengths produced by H-alpha and O-III, not H-beta. This further trims down the light let through and handy for imaging certain astro objects. Again, not just a darker filter, narrower frequencies of light being let through. Q: Why can't I used a filter like the Optolong L-eNhance or L-eXtreme filter for safely viewing the Sun in its H-alpha light? This is because these filters let through the light the around these wavelengths. Light at specific frequencies and a little either side of them. There's so much light coming in from the Sun, even this small amount of extra light can be very dangerous! The only way to safely view the Sun is either through a white-light filter which fits over the front of the telescope and vastly reduces the amount light of *all* visible wavelengths, or through a dedicated Solar telescope. To wrap, up there's no cure for light pollution, but there are a number of options to help reduce its effects. Have a chat with BINTEL about what you'd like to observe and image and what can be used to help. Cheers, Earl White BINTEL 2nd February 2024 * Yes, I know. This is a major oversimplification! There is a vast amount of information about these processes on the web or contact me and I can explain it further. **O-III emission are produced by collisions of electrons, rather than electrons falling back to lower levels as occurs in H-alpha and H-beta. Oxygen is a only a tiny fraction of the gasses in nebula, but because these collisions are far more energetic than energy level changes, more light is emitted ***This filter can be used with a mono astro camera as well    

30th Jan 2023 - Today,  NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope released a set of stunning images of near and mid-infrared portraits of 19 face-on spiral galaxies. These show details in the structure in the spiral arms of these galaxies in never seen before detail, taken in near- and mid-infrared light with the JWST. The telescope's NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) captured millions of stars in these images, while its telescope’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) camera shows the dust lit up by the stars in and around the dust clouds. (In astro photos, area of interstellar dust and gas that can stretch for many light years are not visible themselves. They need to be illuminated by surrounding star light or absorb energy from nearby stars to emit light of their own.) Images via: Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby GalaxieS (PHANGS) programme Another feature that amazed astronomers were circles of dust that appear to have been blown apart by exploding stars! It's also been found that star formation initially takes place  in the centre of a galaxy, with younger stars being found in the the out spiral arms. If you look at these images, the galaxies that have a bright blue central region are where older populations of stars, and the ones that look like they have a pink or red central area regions with "spikes" in the image either have a super massive black hole or a lit up by numerous central star clusters. A JWT image of NGC1512, a double barred galaxy in the far southern skies and popular target for amateur astronomers.  The blueish central region of the galaxy highlights populations of older stars. These images were released today by the Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby GalaxieS (PHANGS) program, which is supported by more than 150 astronomers worldwide. The PHANGS  program is  working on a number of other projects using data from JSWT, but have already released the largest catalogue ever of star clusters - over 100,000 so far.  Another example of just how much science the JSWT is producing in addition to wonderful images that continue to stun the world! Cheers, Earl White BINTEL