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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  

Multiple nations and private space companies are racing to the Moon. 24th Jan 2024 - NASA's Peregrine Lunar lander launched a few weeks ago suffered a major failure and crashed landed back on Earth. Japan's SLIM lander successfully performed  a precision landing on the Lunar surface a few days ago but sadly  is having power and communication problems - although the Japanese space agency is holding out hope for a restart of the lander's system despite it landing either on its side or even upside down. India's Chandrayaan-3 Moon lander successfully landed in 2023, and China's Chang'e 4 Moon lander touched down on the far side of the Moon  - something not achieved by any nation previously. Space company,  Intuitive Machines, it scheduled to head to the Moon from around the middle of February 2024 onwards. Their Nova-C lander is headed to crater Malapert A near the Moon's south pole. This mission  will be carrying five NASA and commercial Lunar payloads.  Plus there's more on the way! There are numerous upcoming missions to the Moon in both the early and advanced stages of planning . In fact ESA(European Space Agency) has stated that by 2023 there will more than 100 missions to the Moon.  Not all of these will be Lunar rovers. Quite a large percentage of these will be Lunar orbiters, surveying in detail the Moon's surface and searching for resources. There's even an Australian Lunar rover- called Roo-ver - due to fly on a fly on a future Artemis mission, where it will collect Lunar regolith* to attempt the extraction of oxygen from it. While no humans have visited the Moon since Apollo 17 in December 1972, even the most sceptical commentators estimate that NASA's oft-delayed  Artemis program will return humans to the Moon's surface and there's possibility another space program will beat them too it. Seeing there was only a small handful of space missions to the Moon and '90s and early part of this century, why are so many new ventures to the Moon underway or on the drawing board? National prestige The original race to the Moon in the 1960s was largely driven by the geopolitical prestige of putting boots on the Moon's surface before anyone else. After being beaten into Earth orbit and putting the first person into by the USSR , the USA embarked on a massive effort to put a human on the Moon. In 1969 they achieved this and successfully landed a further five Apollo crews.  Along the way the Apollo program answered some important scientific questions including those around the formation of the Earth-Moon system. Having "beaten the Russians to the Moon", the American people quickly lost interest in the Apollo program and there was pressure on NASA over the huge costs of the program.  Apollo 18, 19 and 20 were cancelled and since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972, no human has left Earth's orbit.  (Having "dodged a bullet" with Apollo 13, some in NASA were  nervous about further mishaps with the vastly complex Apollo spacecraft.) Space exploration, especially to the Moon, has been seen for decades as the mark of a developed, high-tech society - this is certainly many developing countries aspire to. Resources for staying and living on the Moon - and exploring beyond Oxygen and water. Studies show that both of these critical resources exist in usable quantities in the Lunar regolith and frozen in the Moon's polar regions.  Oxygen, especially is plentiful and pretty much  everywhere on the Moon. The issue where is it's "stored" Each tonne of Lunar regolith contains around 450kg of oxygen.  It's tightly bound to the rocky materials in the regolith, so the chemical bond holding these compounds need to be broken using energy. We already do this here on Earth with common materials, including aluminium, so it's not unknown technology. Just tricky to learn how to do this on the Moon! The Moon's polar region are known to have water frozen in deep shadows around the pole. There's some debate about the actual amount accessible on the surface, but it is will a vast reserve. Developing techniques for exploiting materials elsewhere in the Solar System Learning to live and work in space is hard.  The ISS (International Space Station) has been used to do just that, but is limited to life in orbit and not on the surface. Many researchers feel that a permanent base on the Moon will be able to act as a "gateway" for future missions to Mars and mineral and resource rich asteroids elsewhere in the Solar System. (The current SpaceX plan to put humans on Mars goes directly there -  no Lunar stop offs. You can check it out here.) NASA's Artemis program has the establishment of a Lunar base camp in its timeline - possibly close to Shackleton Crater near the Moon's south pole.   These Lunar bases are still many years, it not decades away from being built. Have a look at NASA's Artemis base camp plans here. Science on the Moon - protecting ancient sites What's there to protect on the Moon?  Isn't it  a lifeless, rocky body? There's few reasons for sealing off part of the Moon for further scientific study. The very water that's being searched for at the Moon's polar regions has likely been delivered to the Lunar surface in meteorites and comets slamming into the Moon over billions of years.  This means these regions of water ice are sample of the very earliest periods of the Solar System and could contain pointers to the development of life on Earth.  (Water is found other Solar System moons but might have undergone geological and possibly biological processes over billions of years.) NASA's Artemis accords signed by 31 countries agree among other things that certain areas on the Moon such as the Apollo landing sites are of historic value and will be protected, peaceful exploration of space and resource extraction, but there's no explicit protection of regions of scientific value. The Moon would make an ideal places for a wide variety of telescopes (Image via KORNMESSER/ESO)   The far side of the Moon that points away from Earth has long been suggested as a place for large optical and radio telescopes instead of them being placed in space. Light pollution isn't going to be a problem and radio emissions from Earth will be shielded by the Moon.  Probes in Lunar orbit chatting to surface mining rovers might interfere with radio observations or fine Lunar dust being thrown up could effect  observations. Resources for use here on Earth Helium-3 is often given as a reason for the race to the Moon. This is an isotope of helium and has the advantage of not making the reactor and surrounds radioactive during nuclear fusion. It does require much higher temperatures to achieve nuclear fusion ignition than than other materials. The reason more helium-3 is found on the Moon  rather than on the Earth is that the Moon's regolith has been blasted by the Solar wind over billions or years, creating this isotope.  There might be reserves of helium-3 on Earth, trapped in the mantle either from the formation of the planet or processes since then.** The thinking is as this is well below the Earth's crust, it would be easier to obtain it from the Moon's surface. All this is somewhat academic though. There's no doubt that large scale fusion power would truly change the world and the quantity of fuel required to do this is fairly small. However, we don't possess the technology for any kind sustainable nuclear fusion reactor, let alone one that uses helium-3.  In other words, why spend  a fortune to get the fuel for an engine that could be decades away? So, why is everyone heading to the Moon? As seen, there's multiple reason. There's national prestige at stake, testing of new technology and methods of living in space. There might be minerals and rare elements not easily found Earth and very importantly, it's a gateway to the exploration and use of resources further out in the Solar System. Finally - can you see the NASA Apollo landing sites through a telescope? No. Even the most powerful telescopes on Earth can't see them. You can see where they landed, but the equipment left before and the the astronaut's footprints are too small to resolve from Earth.   Guide to Apollo landing sites - image via NASA When you're looking up at the Moon through a telescope, remember to wave at the growing fleet of robots in orbit and crawling over the Lunar surface. Cheers, Earl White *Regolith is the term used for the layer of dust and small rocks that cover the Lunar surface. Unlike the  complex soil here on Earth, it hasn't gone through any weathering processes or contains biological materials.

NASA has finally pried the lid off a precious sample of pristine material dating back to  the early history of the Solar System, collected by the OSIRIS-REx mission from the asteroid Bennu. 19th Jan 2024: We've all been there.  You have your favourite source, jam or sandwich spread. Try as you might, the #$#&#!! lid is jammed on and cannot get it off no matter what you try. (I'm going to admit that I've given up on hot water, various tools etc - I just slam the lids stuck jars on a hard surface face first and this normally works.) The daring OSIRIS-REx mission to the near-Earth asteroid Bennu launched in 2016 and arrived at Bennu in 2018. Bennu was selected as a destination for OSIRIS-REx  as it a carbon rich body that contains pristine material from the earliest days of the Solar System.  In fact, it's thought that Bennu was already formed within 10 million years of the Solar System's formation. Image credit: NASA/Robert Markowitz OSIRIS-REx spent a couple of years exploring the environment around Bennu and even landing on the asteroid to collect samples. The spacecraft returned to Earth, but didn't land. It passed by us on the way to its next next destination - the asteroid Apophis. It dropped off a sample canister which safely landed in the Utah dessert on the 23rd of September 2023. The samples collected from outside the main sample container or AGSAM (Touch-and-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism) were much greater than expected, 70.3g versus the planned 60g.  Curation and study of these precious materials has already begun. However, accessing the main sample material in the AGSAM  has proved somewhat more difficult. None of the tools rated by NASA for use in the extreme clean environment developed for study of these materials were able to remove the lid of the container! Two stuck fasteners prevented the opening.  Rather than slamming it on a desk or prying the lid off with a screwdriver in a rush to see what's inside, NASA developed additional tools, tested them and the procedure for removing the stubborn fasteners before finally successfully extracting them and opening the container this week. Next comes imaging and study of the materials in the container before their careful extraction and cataloguing and eventual distribution to institutions for research. NASA will make their results publicly available for scientists globally. More on this here.  If this seems like a lot to go through for some space rocks, remember these were formed when our Solar System was a tiny fraction its current age. Also...... The Peregrine Lunar lander splashed down in the Pacific ocean earlier today after major hardware failures prevented it landing on the Moon.  It took a "free return" path back to Earth after looping around the Moon   The Earth from the final image taken by Peregrine-1 as it returned for a crash landing in the Pacific Ocean.  The Peregrine-1 mission had ended. Hopefully the team will be looking at the data collected over the course of the last week or so to help make the next landing attempt a success. The first Lunar lander from Japan is expected to touch down in the next day or so. More soon.... Cheers, Earl White BINTEL

10th Jan 2024: Some amazing new products launch in recent days at the CES event in the USA - and they'll be arriving at BINTEL in the near future! Celestron Origin Intelligent Home Observatory The world's leading telescope maker, Celestron, has released their first Smart Telescope. Celestron has produced high-tech and computerised telescopes for many years, starting off with the original Celestron Compustar SCT telescopes in the late 1980's, through to the NexStar series in the 90's and the more recent StarSense Explorer and NextStar Evolution telescopes.  (At BINTEL, we been supplying our customers with these Celestron telescopes for decades.) So it's no surprise that Celestron has not only introduced their own Smart Telescope, but it also includes some amazing, high end features. What appeals to us and what features we feel sets the Celestron Origin apart include: 150mm aperture, f/2.2 RASA optical system. This is the largest of any Smart Telescope on the market today. Upgradability of the camera Handy external filter drawer Upcoming options for external guiding and EQ mounting for extended exposures Optimised for sharing images and displaying views on large screen TVs etc.   The full feature list of the Celestron Origin is very comprehensive. The Celestron Origin is due to arrive in the next couple of months at BINTEL and only in very limited numbers, although this situation is likely to improve as the year goes on.  This is definitely a high-end telescope for those who want the best in terms of features and image quality.  We'll be talking more about the Celestron Origin telescope closer to them being available. It certainly widens the range of Smart Telescopes on offer. Swarovski AX Visio 10X32 Binocular - the world's first "Smart Binoculars" You might have heard about Smart Telescopes over the last couple of years - telescopes with inbuilt guiding, cameras and image processing - but features like sophisticated species recognition via AI, photo and video processing,  along with object view direction are coming to binoculars. The first major feature of the new Swarovski AX Visio 10X32 Binocular is their ability to recognise a bird or animal that you're viewing. There over 9,000 different species and this includes comprehensive support for Australian and New Zealand wildlife. I was fortunate enough to try a pair of these new binoculars recently, and from out the front of the BINTEL showroom, they quickly identified a number of different bird across the road in Wentworth Park including the beloved  Australian white ibis AKA a "Bin Chicken". This feature is going to be super handy for birdwatchers especially as it allows them to catalogue what they've spotted and where and when they were seen. (Like all the advanced AX Visio features, this doesn't have to be used.) Swarovski posted a great article about using the AX Visio binoculars for birdwatching in the field that you can find here. They have great potential for changing the way bird watchers especially share discoveries with a small group and then further onto social media. All of these new features plus SWAROVISION optics for super crisp views. Next time - new Smart Telescopes from Unistellar and Vaonis too.  Cheers, Earl White BINTEL  

Space Launches 2024 is looking like a busy year on the launch front! 2024 kicks off with the launch on January 8 of the NASA Peregrine Mission 1 (TO2-AB) which will head to the Moon to investigate Lunar geology, magnetic field and the abundance of hydrogen in the surface rocks. It's not on the  first return to the Lunar surface by NASA since the Apollo program, but also the first launched by a commercial space company. China is planning to launch its Chang’e-6 mission to the Moon in later part of 2024. This is a Lunar sample return mission with the aim of return sample from the far side of the Moon - something we haven't been able to study before. October 2024 sees the launch of the Europa Clipper mission. The is expected to arrive at the giant planet Jupiter in 2030 and study its icy moon Europa. It's widely expected that a vast salt water ocean lies under Europa's planet wide crust of ice. This ocean contains more water than all the oceans on Earth combined and is one of the prime sites in the Solar System to search for life. The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA, is putting the final touches to it Martian Moon eXploration, or MMX, planned for launch around September 2024. This will explore the Martian moons of Phobos and Deimos.  We're unsure whether these two small moon were formed with their host planet Mars, or are captured asteroids from elsewhere in the Solar System. VIPER (Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover) is a Lunar Rover, planned for delivery to the Moon sometime late in 2024. It's designed to investigate the presence of water ice in the south polar regions of the Moon that are permanently in darkness. Illustration of VIPER prospecting for water ice on the surface of the Moon ESA’s Hera mission. Back in 2022, NASA's DART probe impacted the asteroid Dimorphos as part of the development of an Earth planetary defence system to guard about possible major impacts from space.  You can read our article about it here. Now DART has completed its mission, the European Space Agency's (ESA)  Hera probe due for launch in October 2024 will examine in detail the first test of asteroid deflection as well as performing the first survey of a binary asteroid system. Artemis II - taking humans back to the Moon.  Probably the most anticipated launch of 2024 will be the Artemis II mission planned for late this year.  The Artemis I mission in 2022 took astronauts into low Earth orbit and Artemis II will take humans beyond the Earth's orbit for the first time since the Apollo 17 in December 1972.  Artemis II won't land on the Moon or even perform a Lunar orbital insert manoeuvre, rather it will simply loop around Moon on free trajectory and return to Earth. (Those with a keen interest in space history will realise this is  a similar path that the nearly ill-fated Apollo 13 mission took.) Artemis III is the NASA mission to land humans on the Moon. While was originally planned for 2025, it's looking like it might take place in 2027 Total Solar Eclipse 2024 Another major astronomy story in 2024 will be the Total Eclipse of the Sun on the 8th of April 2024. While not visible here in Australia, it will be a BIG news as the path of the Eclipse crosses over continental North America. In the USA, it will pass over the heads of more than 30 million people. We'll be talking about this major event as it gets closer. If you re having trouble buying Solar filters and equipment at the moment - this is the reason why! Of course this rare event is simply a dress rehearsal for the Total Solar Eclipse which will roll directly over BINTEL in July 2028  :)  Full detail here. New Telescopes? On the mega telescope front, we're still a couple of years from "first light" of the ones under construction we mentioned in a previous blog post.  The closest to completion is probably Vera C. Rubin Observatory,  a massive, ultra wide field 8.4m class telescope being built in Chile. It will be completed in a 2024 with full scale testing to start in January 2025. While there are other 8m and larger telescopes already in operation, the Vera C. Rubin instrument will be able to scan the entire night sky every week in detail that hasn't been achieved before. The Vera C. Rubin Observatory under construction in Chile Part of the reason for imaging all of the sky in such detail is to look for transient astronomical events including GRB (gamma-ray bursts) novae, supernovae, comets and possibly even interstellar objects travelling through the Solar System such as ones found by conventional means in recent years. On the amateur astronomy side, we're expecting new developments to smart telescopes after some exciting product releases in 2023.  We'd say new imaging cameras and mounts systems are also highly possible.   Whatever is released, we'll be chatting about it for sure! Planets put on a show - again Saturn will be at its best in 2024 around the 8th of September, with excellent viewing from around late August to early October.  The rings of Saturn will also continue to appear even more edge on as viewed from Earth as the planet approaches its own equinox in 2025. Saturn taken by Andy Casely and posted to the BINTEL Society Facebook group.  Jupiter will be at its best for 2024 on the 8th of December. Like Saturn, it will be fantastic viewing and an an ideal for imaging for some weeks before and also after this date. Jupiter taken by Andy Casely and posted to the BINTEL Society Facebook group.  Mars fans will have to wait until January 2025 to see the red planet at its best. A slim chance, but hey, who knows.... There's more than a few astronomers who are eagerly awaiting the discovery of biosignatures on exoplanets - indicators in a planet's atmosphere of biological processes happening on the surface planet or perhaps even taking place in the atmosphere itself. Major searches are underway and the JWST especially can possibly observe and analyse what's in the atmospheres of  planets around  other stars. There's even been some such as UK astronomer and presenter of The Sky at Night, Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock, Dr Becky Smethurst from Oxford University and famous astronaut Tim Peake who have all stated  in the last few days that they feel 2024 will be the year that we announce a discovery along these lines. It would be major event  to state the obvious. We're certainly not going to include exoplanet biosignatures on our "likely to happen in '24" list, but will be keeping one eye on the news... Cheers, Earl White BINTEL 5th January 2024