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How (slightly) larger binoculars can help you see more  We had a talk in some previous blogs about how binocular and spotting scope magnifications are described and why this is important, especially for bird watching.  As a quick example, they take the form of: 8 x 42 Where the first number, in this case 8, is the magnification. The second number is the diameter of the front lens in mm. You'll also see spotting scopes and zoom binocular described something like: 20-60x80 This means the magnification "zooms" or ranges between 20 to 60 times, and the front lens is 80mm in diameter.  While we covered magnification for birders before, one question that gets asked by our birding customers here at BINTEL is "how important is the size of the lenses?" What main lenses in telescopes and binoculars actually do If you can get 8x25 and 8x42 sized binoculars and they both have 8x magnification, why do I need the bigger and more expensive pair? Many folks are under the impression that the front lenses in binoculars increase the size or magnify the view. That's true to an extent, but their real job is to collect all the light that falls on them, concentrate it and present it to your eyeballs. Apart from increasing the size of the image which we perceive as being "closer" to what we're observing, they also increase brightness and detail. I like to use the analogy of it being like a bucket being left out in the rain. The bigger the bucket, the more water you'll collect. Bigger optics collect more light and you'll see more. Exit pupil Ultimately the brightness of your view will depend on what's called the exit pupil. This is the size of the image that lands on your eyeball. It's given as the size of the binocular's main lens divided by the magnification. The exit pupil size for a pair of 8x42 binoculars would be 5.25mm, while for 8x50 it's 6.25mm. A 8x25 set of binoculars deliver an exit pupil of some 3.12mm. Your exit pupil is approx. 3-4mm during the day. Is will expand and open up as conditions get darker to around 5 to 7 mm.  (Another "benefit" of ageing is that the pupils in your eyes don't open up a much as they used....) During the day, an 8x25 pair of binoculars won't produce as bright and detailed image as an 8x42 (3.12mm vs 5.25mm) You'd notice the difference between them immediately.  There also won't be much difference in between the 8x42 and 8x50 binoculars (5.25mm vs 6.25mm exit pupil) during the day as your pupils will be only 3 to 4mm and simply won't be able to see the extra light. Ok, so what are the condition where larger binoculars are going to be give me better views? However, if you're planning on observing when the light isn't as bright such as early in the morning or dusk or even when weather conditions are poor, your wider pupils will pick up the additional light collected by larger, 50mm diameter binoculars. It's also handy when scanning around for what you'd like to observe.  New Nikon MONARCH M5 10x50 Binoculars It's worth mentioning that we're comparing binoculars of similar quality. The total amount of light let through and the level of detail that premium optics can deliver will be quite noticeable when compared to less expensive models.  On the down side, 50mm binocular are slightly heavier and this can be a consideration if you are hiking or travelling with a lot of other equipment in the field.  New Nikon PROSTAFF P7 12x50 Binoculars What's the difference between Nikon PROSTAFF P7 and the slightly more expensive Nikon MONARCH M5 binoculars? The PROSTAFF P7 offer clear, sharp viewing in a lightweight body. The MONARCH M5 adds in ED (Extra Dispersion) glass optics for even crisper images. Great for capturing fine details on our feathered friends. Bottom line: If you're mainly nature observing and birding during the day, an 8x42 or 10x42 pair of binoculars will work well. There will be a noticeable advantage in image quality, field of view and brightness compared to say 8x25 or 10x25 binoculars of similar optic quality. If you are planning on observing early in the morning or as it's getting dark in the evening (and this is often when some of most interesting wildlife behaviours occur) then upgrading your choice of viewing to an 8x50 or 10x50 size might be worth considering.  As always, there's no once size is best for XYZ activity.  That's why our expert team at BINTEL is always happy to chat at length about optics what would suit you and your lifestyle. Cheers, Earl White BINTEL 13th March 2026    

The planets align this weekend. What you can easily see and what's a bit tricky. An excellent way to welcome autumn Lots of news and social media posts over the last couple of weeks about the "Parade of the Planets" on the 28th of February 2026. There's a grain of truth to this, but most of what we've seen online is simply incorrect and misleading.  First of all, yes there's several planets that can be seen in the early evening sky.  In theory over the coming few days these planets would be visible: Mercury Venus Jupiter Saturn Uranus Neptune Plus, as an added bonus, the Moon Only Mars won't be able to be spotted. Unlike many of the AI images we've seen, the planets will not be neatly arranged in a line, evenly stretching across the sky.  Many social media posts have been featuring AI images. While this is great for clicks and likes, it's not what people are going to see. The last thing everyone here at BINTEL wants is for folks being disappointed with their astronomy experiences, especially if they're just starting.  These images below will give you an idea of what's in the sky this weekend and are generated by Stellarium. We'd encourage you to visit their website or download their app and use it to generate your own views of the night sky. The view from Sydney 28th February around 7.50pm local time Just after sunset, Mercury, Venus, Neptune and Saturn be in the sky, extremely low on the horizon and very hard to see given the glare from the setting Sun.  If you are going to try to see these planets through binoculars or a telescope, make sure the Sun has fully set to avoid accidentally looking at it directly. This could cause serious eye damage! The cross hatch in this image show's where the ice giant planet Neptune can be spotted around the same time.  Given how faint the planet is, and the extreme closeness to the horizon, we would suggest it would next to impossible to view for most people. The crosshatch shows where Uranus will be in the sky around 8.30pm tonight from in Sydney Jupiter will be a bright "star" close to the Moon and be visible most of the evening. A great sight through a telescope of any size and even binoculars will show its brightest moons either side of the planet. Using a telescope you could even spot the pale blue "dot" of the planet Uranus. Bottom line: While there will be a line-up of planets over the coming few nights, it will be very hard to see. This doesn't take away from this weekend's wonderful opportunity to catch Jupiter and the nearly full Moon in the evening sky.   Australia is helping to track our Universe in real time The Universe is constantly changing. Now we can see what's happening each night.  The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) at The Vera C. Rubin Observatory is really starting to produce some amazing results as it photographs the entire southern part of the sky each night, watching for changes both in our local Solar System and beyond. We've talked about this new observatory going back over a few years in a few blog posts and the first images released delighted the world last year. Now the telescope is commencing its main work, scanning the southern sky each night and spotting changes. Traditionally the Universe was thought of as never changing, that ran like a clock, with the occasional comet or shooting star thrown our way. Astronomers now know that it's instead intensely dynamic.  Discovering and cataloguing these changes is what the Vera C. Rubin Observatory does.  The amount of data being collected is also staggering. On a single night on the 26th of Feb 2026, Rubin discovered some 800,000 changes in the night sky. Once fully operational, it's expected this figure will climb into the millions. These changes include supernovae, variable stars, active galactic nuclei, and Solar System asteroids. It's estimated that the coming years Rubin will find some 6 million asteroids in the Solar System, 17 billion stars in the Milky Way and even take colour images of 20 billion galaxies. The task of handling this precious data is via a data broker called FINK. This is jointly run by Australia and France.  Dr. Anais Möller from Swinburne University in Melbourne heads up the FINK project in Australia.  Among the first 800,000 initial changes, Dr Möller’s team also identified about 100 supernova candidates. Alerts of cosmic events from FINK can used to trigger rapid follow-up observations on other facilities, like the ANU 2.3m telescope and the 3.9m Anglo-Australian Telescope in New South Wales. Can amateur astronomers get involved? Yes. I had a chat with Dr Möller who gave me some hints on retrieving data from the FINK Portal for members of the BINTEL community: "For LSST, you can use the search bar in our portal and use the tag “in_tns” to find potential SN candidates reported. If you click there you will see the latest data received. Many of these objects will be quite faint given Rubin sensitivity but I am sure there will be interesting objects for amateurs and by itself the data is amazing!'   Artemis II rolls back into the shed. Earliest launch date is now April 2026 We've been keenly following the progress of Artemis II mission which will return humans to the Moon for the first time since 1972. The Artemis program has suffered another setback which is going to cause another lengthy delay. We reported last week that the dress rehearsal for the mission had gone well, hydrogen leaks appeared to be resolved, and a launch date of early March seemed to be likely. Shortly after engineers discovered helium leaks in the Artemis II SLS Rocket. Helium is not used to fuel the rocket but rather is a way to flush out fuel lines.   Artemis II is now back in NASA's Vehicle Assembly Building undergoing further tests.  However.... NASA makes major announcements on when it will land humans on the Moon Breaking news this morning is that NASA have revamped the Artemis mission timeline and when it will return humans to the Moon's surface. Artemis III low Earth orbit test mission in 2027 After Artemis II gets off the ground, hopefully in the coming months, NASA will next fly and test its Moon landing hardware in low Earth orbit mission. For those of you familiar with the 1960's space program this is what was done in the 1969 Apollo 9 flight. Land on the Moon in 2028 NASA have now said they intend to land astronauts on the Moon in 2028 Land on the Moon at least once a year going forwards NASA will commence a steady program of a Lunar mission at least once a year. This is a developing story! You can read more about this new schedule and updates to the Artemis hardware at the NASA site here. Cheers, Earl White  BINTEL 28th February 2026    

Filters for colour astronomy cameras Duo band filters to help with nebula imaging We chatted last week about the Olympus OM-3 ASTRO camera from OM System and touched on how this camera allows light from emission nebulae through, instead of blocking it like most DSRL/mirrorless cameras.  Dedicated colour astronomy cameras like those from ZWO capture the light wavelengths from emission nebula (called Hα or Hydrogen Alpha or sometimes just H-Alpha) as well as another part of the light spectrum where emission nebulae, planetary nebulae and supernova remnants shine. This is around two doubly-ionized oxygen lines (496 and 501nm) called OIII which is the blue-green region. While colour astronomy cameras see the light from these nebulae and much more in the Milky Way, they also pick up various kinds of light pollution. This can overwhelm the details from deep-sky objects. One way to get around this problem and largely capture light from nebulae is by using a filter that lets the light from H-Alpha and OIII while blocking light from other sources.  These are often called Duo Band filters as they let in light from just two main parts of the spectrum and do their best to keep the rest out. This graph shows what light  TMB Pro Series Duo-Band Nebula Imaging Filter lets through, with the two peaks around the Ha and OIII regions.  What does this mean for taking astro images? If you're interested in taking photos of nebulae and have either a DSLR/mirrorless or a colour astronomy camera, low cost duo band filters are a handy way to bring out the details and beauty of these wonderful parts of the night sky.  As they don't let light through from many sources of light pollution, they help those in the city or suburbs where artificial light and sky glow are a problem. Any downsides? Yes. You won't see as many stars themselves in images as much of their light is blocked out. They're also not going to produce ideal images for objects that produce light across a wide part of the light spectrum such as galaxies.  UV/IR Cut Filters for planetary images The problem: sometimes astro cameras can see too much! Another type of filter commonly used with colour astronomy cameras are UV/IR Cut Filters. These types of cameras are sensitive not only to the entire visible light spectrum but also to a little bit either side of the light that we can see.  This goes into the ultraviolet at one end, and in the infrared at the other. Infrared or IR especially focuses slightly different due to its longer wavelength and can wash out some the finer details on planets.  Light transmission from a TMB UV/IR Cut Imaging Filter showing how it sharply cuts off light from either end of the light spectrum to only through visible light IR also reduces the sharpness over entire image. With planets, we take lots of shorter exposures rather than longer ones in order to minimize the effects of atmospheric blurring and shakes. Image processing software then just uses the sharper frames and doesn't use the blurrier ones. Anything that helps this process adds to quality of the final image and these affordable filters are an ideal add-on if you intend to take photos of planets with a full colour of any sort.  Hubble spots a dark matter galaxy - say g'day to CDG-2  One of the darkest galaxies ever discovered Just about all galaxies shine quite brightly and we can view them either because of the light from their millions or even billions of stars. But how do we observe galaxies that are largely made up of dark matter that doesn't reflect or emit light? Using the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) astronomers have now discovered a galaxy some 300 million light years away called Candidate Dark Galaxy-2 (CDG-2) which seems to be comprised almost entirely of dark matter. How was this galaxy found? Using a combination of the Hubble Space Telescope, ESA’s Euclid space observatory, and the ground-based Subaru Telescope in Hawaii astronomers were able to isolate four globular clusters. These are ancient tightly bound star clusters, often found on the edges of galaxies. For example, our own Milky Way galaxy has over 150 known globular clusters, with some such as NGC 5139 or Omega Centauri being among the most spectacular objects in the sky for both visual observers and astrophotographers alike. For this new discovery known for now as CDG-2, the team headed up by David Li of the University of Toronto, Canada had worked on identifying very low surface brightness galaxies. The finding of just four globular clusters indicated that they were embedded in a larger galaxy that emitted almost no light. CGD-2 is the first galaxy found just by the observation of its globular clusters alone. The galaxy is estimated to have a total light output of approx. 1 million Sun-like stars with the 4 globular clusters providing about 16% of this. By comparison, the light put out from the Milky Way's globular clusters is about 0.1–0.2% of the entire galaxy. “This is the first galaxy detected solely through its globular cluster population,” said Dr. Li. “Under conservative assumptions, the four clusters represent the entire globular cluster population of CDG-2.” The globular clusters found in CDG-2 are not bright enough to be observed in your telescopes however. Read more here. Artemis fuelling test is a success Now aiming for a 6th of March 2026 launch Great news to wake up to this morning; the full loading and unloading of fuel into the SLS rocket for the Artemis II mission was a success! The leaks found during the previous testing that had caused the scrubbing of the launch earlier this month seem to have been largely resolved, although NASA admits there is still more work to do. The launch date for the four crew members to fly to the Moon will be NET (No earlier than) 6th March 2026. This means that it's been 19,426 days since humans last flew to the Moon and just over 13 days until we go again! Read more here. Cheers, Earl White BINTEL 21st February 2026

OM SYSTEM OM-3 ASTRO - what's so special about it? There's been a LOT of interest in the news this week about the release of the new OM SYSTEM OM-3 ASTRO camera.  This is an astronomy version of their popular OM-3 mirrorless camera. It has much the same features of the OM-3 with some important changes.  There are several features in this new camera that make it of interest to astrophotographers, but we'll cove how it "sees" the night sky a bit differently to normal cameras. One thing that many people starting off with using DSLR or mirrorless cameras for astrophotography is what these cameras are built for compared to what they'll see when attached to a telescope or lens pointed at the night sky is quite different.  First of all, even through a large telescope, what the camera will see is quite dark. The second thing to consider is that the wavelengths of light where some of the most spectacular deep-sky objects can be best seen is often blocked by traditional cameras. There is a good reason for this! What's Hα or Hydrogen Alpha light? First up, a tiny bit of astrophysics. (I promise, this is quite easy!) The light we "see" from the Sun is normally called visible light. The light wavelengths go from deep purplish through to dull red. It's produced by the nuclear fusion processes that power the Sun and the wavelengths we see are only a small part of the light the Sun sends our way.  Some of these wavelengths are blocked by the atmosphere and don't reach the surface of the Earth to help protect us. Numerous animals can see light in different colours past the deep purplish ultra violet and into beyond the deep red near infrared that is simply not visible to human eyes. Other stars also produce wide spectrums of light. Astronomers can tell a lot about how a star works by carefully studying and analysing their light, but even a casual glance at stars will show them as being different colours and this is even more obvious in a telescope. There are large regions in the Milky Way where new stars are being formed.  These are vast clouds, mainly of hydrogen gas, that will eventually collapse, compress and produce the newest members of the stellar community. These clouds or nebula are also often stunning to observe and photograph.  Clouds of hydrogen gas no matter how large don't shine on their own.  They rely on light from nearby stars to reveal them to us here on Earth.* If they're close enough, they'll simply reflect the light they receive. These are called "reflection nebula" and the colour from these varies depending on what sort of star lights them up and what makes up the nebula. If a cloud of gas doesn't reflect the light but absorbs it, over time something has to give! What happens is that the atoms in the gas "drop back" to a lower energy level while sending out a light photon. This process always produces light of the same wavelength or colour regardless of the stars that the hydrogen in the nebula has absorbed energy from. The wavelength is 656.3nm and it's called  Hα or Hydrogen Alpha or sometimes just H-Alpha. This is in the deep red part of the visible spectrum.** Standard cameras block this part of the spectrum to help improve skin tones, natural light and to generally give photos a natural balance.  However, by doing so they block out some of the light from these wonderful emission nebulae.  They're interesting to astronomers to view because of their size and complexity, as well as being fascinating parts of the Universe for astrophotographers to capture.  It's not just the Milky Way either. Photos of distant galaxies also feature large patches of bright, pinkish red light. These are where star formation is taking place and we're seeing the Hydrogen Alpha emissions from these areas. One of the main features of the new OM SYSTEM OM-3 ASTRO camera is that it doesn't block Hα light in the same way the standard version does. Here are a couple of handy images released by the OM SYSTEM of the region around the famous Great Orion Nebula (M 42) to highlight the differences: Shot with OM-3M Zuiko Digital ED 75mm F1.8 40sec | F2.8 | ISO3200 Equatorial mount used Shot with OM-3 ASTRO M.Zuiko Digital ED 75mm F1.8 40sec | F2.8 | ISO3200 Equatorial mount used You can see right away the extra detail is in the image taken with the OM-3 ASTRO version! To give you an idea how much of the sky is revealed in Hydrogen Alpha, these frames span several times the size of the full Moon. You can find out more about this new astro camera here. NASA News: Non-biologic Processes Don’t Fully Explain Mars Organics We've chatted before about NASA announcing that their Perseverance Rover had found strong indications of past life on Mars and only last week we mentioned that due to budget cuts, NASA was leaving behind curated samples on the surface of Mars that could answer the question one way or another.  NASA's Curiosity Rover taking a selfie on Mars in 2018 In another tantalising but major announcement this week, NASA has stated that samples collected by its Curiosity Rover contained an abundance of organic materials that cannot be fully explained by non-biological processes.  Materials like these, often called "organics", are the building blocks for life and we see signs of them throughout in the Solar System and deep space. While they're produced by biological processes here on Earth, they can also be made through other non-life means. They are not signs of life in  themselves. NASA's Curiosity Rover had collected samples on Mars*** and analysed them using its onboard lab. The original conclusion was that there weren't produced by life, however further investigation of the amount and size of the organics found in mudstone called  "Cumberland" cannot be explained by known geological processes. It's a another case of "More studies about how organics break down on Mars need to be carried out before any final conclusions of life being behind the result ".  Read more at the NASA site here. Artemis II fixes are being tested Finally for this week, NASA has now fixed the hydrogen leaks spotted during the dress rehearsal for the Artemis II that delayed the launch of their Moon mission beyond the expected Feb 6th date. Further tests are underway, with another full rehearsal including loading and unloading of all propellants due soon. More here. Cheers, Earl White  BINTEL 14th February 2026 *There are regions called dark nebula, which don't shine from the light of nearby stars. They in fact block out light from more distant stars. For example, on one side of Southern Cross on a dark, Moon free night, you might be able to make out even with your eyes a dark region that stands out from the bright Milky Way behind it.  **This is a very brief overview of how emission nebulae work! For more details, I'd suggest visiting this page at the COSMOS site at Swinburne University.  ***If you're interested, signs of organic molecules collected by Curiosity include: - Aliphatic hydrocarbons like decane, undecane, dodecane (largest, possibly fatty acid fragments). - Aromatic hydrocarbons such as benzene and toluene. - Sulphur-bearing thiophenes. - Chlorinated compounds like chlorobenzene. - Methane and small chains (e.g., propane, butene    

Artemis II delayed due to hydrogen leaks during a dress rehearsal for launch I think everyone had their fingers (and possibly toes!) crossed that all would go well with the wet dress rehearsal by NASA earlier this week so the launch of the Artemis II mission to the Moon could proceed.  This entails loading the entire load of liquid hydrogen onto the rocket, checking systems and tanks, and then draining them again. Additional checks are then carried out to ensure that the Artemis II spacecraft will be certified safe to launch. After some initial delays, the NASA team identified a number of challenges, especially around the loading and storage of liquid hydrogen. Because of the need to evaluate the data and fix and issues, the earliest that they will be able to launch Artemis II is now March 2026.  NASA's administrator, Jared Isaacman, commented "As always, safety remains our top priority, for our astronauts, our workforce, our systems, and the public. As noted above, we will only launch when we believe we are as ready to undertake this historic mission. This is just the beginning. It marks the start of an Artemis program that will evolve to support repeated and affordable missions to the Moon, in line with President Trump’s national space policy. Getting this mission right means returning to the Moon to stay and a future to Artemis 100 and beyond." Read more here. Could there be further delays? Yes.  The first Artemis I rocket was plagued by delays, taken some seven wet dress rehearsals from March 2022 until it was finally launched in November 2022. There were several techniques developed by NASA to help overcome the various liquid hydrogen leaks and hopefully issues will be resolved more quickly this time around. John Honeycutt, chair of the Artemis II Mission Management Team. said "When you’re dealing with hydrogen, it’s a small molecule. It’s highly energetic. We like it for that reason. And we do the best we can.” Stay tuned! Budget cuts sees Mars samples left on the planet's surface. A few months ago, NASA  announced that there were strong indications that their Perseverance Rover had found what looked like signs or biosignatures that life once existed on Mars. (You can read about their findings in a blog article here.) What was found wasn't truly definitive.  The science lab onboard Perseverance simply doesn't have the capabilities to perform the deep analysis to confirm whether or not these sample did in fact contain biosignatures. This wasn't something that took the scientists by surprise. They built into Perseverance the ability to leave behind samples collected for later retrieval by another spacecraft or possibly by human astronauts landing on the red planet. The rover has now drilled into the surface of Mars and from carefully selected areas, left sealed cannisters containing precious samples that might reveal whether or not life did indeed exist once on another planet. Illustration of the Perseverance Rover on the surface of Mars with samples of Martian soil. Image via NASA/JPL A large number of spacecraft have flown to Mars. Some crash landed into the surface such as Beagle or lost, some remaining in orbit and others successfully touching touch on the Martian surface. However, none have made the return trip from Mars back to Earth. The actual samples left on Mars by Perseverance. Image via NASA/JPL-CALTECH/MSSS This Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission would be a major combined NASA/ESA undertaking requiring the development of a swag of new technologies and spacecraft.   You can read more about the MSR at the NASA website here. The ambitious and exciting program has run into a major snag. Due to budget cuts passed by the US Congress last month, the MSR program is effectively now dead in the water and will not proceed.  That's right. There are curated samples of the contain possible biosignatures ready for collection and will now be left to collect (Martian) dust as there are not the funds to go there and retrieve them. More here. Sydney University Student reverse engineers cosmic dust in a lab It was great to see the amount of press from all parts of the world that Sydney University PhD student, Linda Losurdo, has received this week for her working on synthesising cosmic dust.  Linda Losurdo at the laboratory Sydney University Cosmic dust is abundant across the Universe and used to be a bit of a pain for astronomers as vast clouds of cosmic dust obscured some distant objects in visible light. Since the development of infrared astronomy, the importance of cosmic dust in the complex history of the Universe and even for the development of life is being better understood. While the Earth is constantly being bombarded by cosmic dust much of it burns up in the upper atmosphere and that particles that do make it to the surface are next to impossible to find.  Ms. Losurdo used mix of nitrogen, carbon dioxide and acetylene and subjected them to intense electrical currents resulting a carbon rich dust that mimicked the cosmic dust and contained many of the organic compounds found throughout the Universe. “We no longer have to wait for an asteroid or comet to come to Earth to understand their histories,” Ms Losurdo said. “You can build analogue environments in the laboratory and reverse engineer their structure using the infrared fingerprints. “This can give us huge insight into how ‘carbonaceous cosmic dust’ can form in the plasma puffed out by giant, old stars or in cosmic nurseries where stars are being born and distribute these fascinating molecules that could be vital for life. “It’s like we have recreated a little bit of the Universe in a bottle in our lab.” You can read more about how this achieved by Ms. Losurdo and even close up images of cosmic dust made in the lab at the Sydney University news website here. SASI Astronomy Course Finally for this week, I was chuffed to be asked back by the Sutherland Astronomical Society (SASI) to be their first guest speaker this week for 2026 and it was a wonderful evening at their observatory down by the Georges River in Oyster Bay in southern Sydney. It was a great reminder that if you want to learn more about Astronomy, the Introduction to Practical Astronomy Course run by SASI in August. This multi-week course covers things like what's in the southern sky, setting up telescopes and understanding optics, intro to the Big Bang, new developments in astronomy and space plus lots more. You can find out more here. Highly recommended! Cheers, Earl White  BINTEL 7th February 2026

Artemis II in on the launch pad. What's next? NASA's Artemis II mission took another major step forward this week as its SLS (Space Launch System) rocket with the Orion crew capsule arrived at Launch Pad 39B at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.  NASA has a range of launch dates from the 6th of February onwards available for launch. Artemis II on its launch pad. Image via NASA/Keegan Barber Assuming this mission is a success, with the crew of four astronauts looping around the Moon and returning safely after their 10-day spaceflight, when does NASA intend to land humans on the Moon again? Artemis III. This next Lunar mission planned by NASA is Artemis III. This aims to return humans to the Moon's surface, something that NASA last achieved in December 1972. It will land two astronauts to a region near the Moon's south pole for a period of about a week ,while two others will remain in orbit. A number of spacewalks on the Lunar surface are planned. The reason the south pole is a destination for both Artemis III and robotic landers to explore is that that water has been discovered in craters hidden from sunlight. This is a valuable resource for extended Lunar stays. The original plan was for astronauts to land on the Moon using the SpaceX Starship HLS (Human Landing System). This is a "Lunar Lander" version of the SpaceX Starship. Starship HLS.  Image via SpaceX Given the  ongoing issues with the Starship program NASA has been investigating other commercial suppliers the landing craft for Artemis III. Refuelling in-orbit  Artemis and other programs are aiming for more permanent human presence on the Moon's surface. This will entail not just landing and returning crews, but also the establishment of bases, laboratories and even power supplies. As an example, only a few days ago NASA and US Department of Energy announced their plans for nuclear reactor on the Moon by 2030. Hoisting such large payloads out of Earth orbit and towards the Moon are going to require larger rockets and a major weight component of these is the fuel. Artemis III and future missions will have fuel brought up into Earth orbit by other rockets. They will then refuel by transferring propellants and oxidisers from one or more launches before heading to the Moon. Refuelling in orbit is something that hasn't been done before. The mechanics of moving large amounts of  volatile fluids between two vehicles in a vacuum in microgravity environment is something that needs to be mastered before Artemis III heads to the Moon. Ok, when? Despite all these challenges, Artemis III is scheduled for lift-off in 2028.  Comet C/2026 A1 (MAPS) The first potentially bright comet for 2026 has been discovered! Comet C/2026 A1 (MAPS) imaged by Alain Maury and Georges Attard on the 17th of January 2026 It was found on the 13th of January 2026 at a distance of approx. 308 million kms from the Sun. It's Kreutz sungrazer, which means it will pass close to the Sun. This new discovery is also likely a fragment of a much larger comet. Many of the other "Great Comets" have been sungrazing comets. Close approaches to the Sun can cause large amounts of the frozen gases and water from comets to evaporate or "sublimate" into space, resulting in one or even two cometary tails. These can sometimes be millions of kms long and from Earth, stretch across the night sky.  They can also break up entirely as they get close to the Sun. Perihelion, the closest approach to the Sun for C/2026 A1 is early April 2026. If it survives perihelion, this comet might be become a bright object in the night sky. We'll leave Comet C/2026 A1 (MAPS) for another week or two to see what further observations might say about it  Meanwhile, you can get current rise and set times for Comet C/2026 A1 (MAPS) for major Australian cities here.  Please note that it is still extremely faint.  It looks like Mars effects Earth's ice ages  What's a Milankovitch cycle? Scientists know that the Earth undergoes long periods of extreme cold weather with much warmer periods between. We're currently in a warmer, interglacial period called the Holocene. This started almost 12,000 years. The Holocene has seen the entire history of human society, civilisation, agriculture, technologies, art, sciences and more rise during this period.  Prior to this, our own species alongside a number of other human species did struggle to survive and thrive given the Earth's climate The next ice age is due in about 10,000 years for those keen on keeping their diary up to date*. Ice ages and interglacial periods occur due to a combination of factors including the eccentricities of the Earth's orbit and the slight movement or precession of the poles among others. These combine to produce Milankovitch cycles that describes the regular ice ages and periods of warmth between. They are the results of the small changes to the tilt and wobble of the Earth's orbit that occur over long periods. Even these tiny changes influence the amount of solar radiation that arrives on our planet producing warming and cooling eras. There are several Milankovitch cycles, such as that's an influence of Jupiter and Venus and takes around 430,000 years and this tracks with the spread of ice sheets. Astronomers have now found another influence on these long-term cycles: the planet Mars. While Mars is small and distant, it does seem to have a major influence in both the Earth's climate and even the evolution of life.  “I knew Mars had some effect on Earth, but I assumed it was tiny,” said Professor Richard Kane, professor of planetary astrophysics at University of California Riverside. “I’d thought its gravitational influence would be too small to easily observe within Earth’s geologic history. I kind of set out to check my own assumptions.” Professor Kane then ran a series of computer simulations of the inner Solar System's behaviour over a long term to check the variations of Earth's orbit and based on this, how much sunlight reaches our planet's surface. The 430,000 year cycle stayed no matter the involvement of Mars in these simulations. However, when Mars was removed, one cycle that takes 100,000 years and another longer 2.3 million cycle disappeared entirely. “When you remove Mars, those cycles vanish,” Kane said. “And if you increase the mass of Mars, they get shorter and shorter because Mars is having a bigger effect.” Climate has a long term impact the spread and development of animal and plant species humans.  “Without Mars, Earth’s orbit would be missing major climate cycles,” Kane added. “What would humans and other animals even look like if Mars weren’t there?” More here. Cheers, Earl White BINTEL 24th January 2026 *There's a non-zero chance that climate change brought on by human greenhouse gas emissions will kick the can down the road for the next ice age. It's "due" to begin sometime in the next 10,000 years when the Holocene ends, however there's a lot of debate as to when this will happen, or even if it will happen on human timescales.  

We bid a sad farewell in 2025 to the printed versions of the popular Astronomy Australia annuals.  These had been a fond companion for astronomers of every level across the world for decades. Our friends at Quasar Publishing have now made a PDF, cut-down version of the annual for 2026 free to download. You can download Astronomy 2026 here. Quasar have also made PDF downloads of previous year's editions available for download as well. Download Astronomy previous years here The Quasar Astronomy annuals were always favourite here at BINTEL and we keep some on display in our Glebe store. These are fantastic resources that been made available to the astronomical community and a special thanks to Quasar for putting them online. Cheers, Earl White BINTEL  19th January 2026

The star Betelgeuse has a companion Head outside tonight and check out constellation of Orion, with the famous "tea pot" in the centre. One of the "shoulders" of Orion is a bright red star, the supergiant Betelgeuse. Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and ground based observatories announced this month that they've confirmed that Betelgeuse has a small companion star which has been named Siwarha. Rather than seeing the smaller star directly, it was detected by seeing the "wake" it left in the outer atmosphere of Betelgeuse during its orbit. An Illustration of Siwarha orbiting Betelgeuse. Image via NASA, ESA, Elizabeth Wheatley (STScI); Science: Andrea Dupree (CfA) “It’s a bit like a boat moving through water. The companion star creates a ripple effect in Betelgeuse’s atmosphere that we can actually see in the data,” said Andrea Dupree, an astronomer at the CfA, and the lead study author. “For the first time, we’re seeing direct signs of this wake, or trail of gas, confirming that Betelgeuse really does have a hidden companion shaping its appearance and behaviour.” One of the puzzling things about Betelgeuse has been changes in brightness over long periods of time. The confirmation Siwarha can help explain these changes and help understand the evolution of red giants. "With this new direct evidence, Betelgeuse gives us a front-row seat to watch how a giant star changes over time. Finding the wake from its companion means we can now understand how stars like this evolve, shed material, and eventually explode as supernovae.” continued Dupree.  You won't be able see Siwarha your telescope. Apart from it not being able to be spotted with amateur equipment, it's currently behind Betelgeuse. When it emerges into our line of site in 2027, astronomers plan to resume observations.  But if you have a look at Betelgeuse tonight, remember there's another star busily ploughing through red giant's outer atmosphere. Read more at the NASA site here. NASA to roll out rocket for Artemis II moon mission on January 17th 2026 As we've talked about in previous blogs, humans are returning to Moon as part of the Artemis program. This is NASA's project to not just land humans on the Moon and return them to Earth along the lines of the Apollo program in the 1960s, but rather the start of a permanent presence of humans on the Moon and as a stepping stone for further exploration of the Solar System including Mars. Artemis II fully "stacked" and awaiting crew for a mission simulation on the 20th of December 2025. Image via NASA/Joel Kowsky With final assembly Artemis II and the Orion capsule complete, it's due this weekend to commence the 12 hour journey from the Vehicle Assembly Building to Launch Pad 39B. “We are moving closer to Artemis II, with rollout just around the corner,” said Lori Glaze, acting associate administrator for NASA’s Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate. “We have important steps remaining on our path to launch and crew safety will remain our top priority at every turn, as we near humanity’s return to the Moon.” Once at Launch Pad 39B, Artemis II will undergo further extensive testing including a complete "wet dress" rehearsal which includes loading of all propellants.   Launch: when? There's a number of launch windows for Artemis II in February 2026. They start off with a possible launch date of NET (No Earlier Than) of the 6th of February.  If testing and preparation indicates more time is needed then there's a possibility of the 7th, 8th, 10th, and 11th of that month, with further dates coming up in March and April. As the launch gets closer, we'll be delving into the mission profile and aims and also touching on Artemis III which is due to return humans to the Moon's surface in the coming years.  Read more about the rollout of Artemis II here. Hubble Spots an entirely new type of deep-sky object: Say hello to Cloud-9 Sometimes not finding something is where discoveries are made! We've all heard of nebulae, galaxies, globular cluster and a wide range of other deep-sky object we see in the Milky Way and further out into intergalactic space, galaxies quasars and more. Astronomers have thought for some time there could be large "clouds" of hydrogen gas that for some reasons did not go on to form galaxies. These Reionization-Limited H I Cloud, or a "RELHIC" are ancient fossils left over from the earliest days of the Universe. This image shows the location of Cloud-9, which is 14 million light-years from Earth. The diffuse magenta is radio data from the ground-based Very Large Array (VLA) showing the presence of the cloud. The dotted circle shows where no stars have been found. Image via Joseph DePasquale (STScI) “This cloud is a window into the dark universe,” said team member Andrew Fox of the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy/Space Telescope Science Institute (AURA/STScI) for the European Space Agency. “We know from theory that most of the mass in the universe is expected to be dark matter, but it’s difficult to detect this dark material because it doesn’t emit light. Cloud-9 gives us a rare look at a dark-matter-dominated cloud.” Astronomers have thought that some clouds of gas spotted previously might have been one these "failed galaxies" but it's taken data from Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys to establish that these regions have no stars in them. Cloud-9 is one of several clouds astronomers have been studying. It's about 4,900 light years in diameter, with a mass of about a million Suns based on the radio waves observed.  Researchers have calculated that Cloud-9's dark matter mass to be about be about five billion solar masses. Read more about this new type of astronomical object here. The fastest rotating asteroid  We chatted about the initial observations from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in a blog article back in June. Part of this first data release was the discovery of some 1,900 new asteroids. Further analysis of these new asteroids found 19 super and ultra fast rotating asteroids, with one being the fastest spinning over 50m ever seen. The fastest spinning main belt asteroid is 2025 MN45. This is some 710m across and spins every 1.88 minutes. For this an incredible rate of rotation for comparatively large object.  Only by taking multiple images over a very short space of time, which is something that the LSST Camera at the Vera C. Rubin is capable of capturing, could these speeds be established. Why do we care about how fast an asteroid is spinning? There' two main reasons. First of all, all bodies in space, from galaxies to planets to even small space rocks tend to rotate, and this is a result of accreting or gathering the material they're made from. They also spin faster as they encounter other bodies through gravitational interactions or even collisions.  2025 MN45 is likely to have been near or hit a decent number of other objects over the course of its history and this helps astronomers piece together more of the early history of the Solar System. Secondly, it helps us understand the composition of asteroids like 2025 MN45 simply because it's not flying apart as it spins!  “Clearly, this asteroid must be made of material that has very high strength in order to keep it in one piece as it spins so rapidly,” says Sarah Greenstreet, NSF NOIRLab assistant astronomer and lead of Rubin Observatory’s Solar System Science Collaboration’s Near-Earth Objects and Interstellar Objects working group. “We calculate that it would need a cohesive strength similar to that of solid rock. This is somewhat surprising since most asteroids are believed to be what we call ‘rubble pile’ asteroids, which means they are made of many, many small pieces of rock and debris that coalesced under gravity during Solar System formation or subsequent collisions.” Find out more here. Google Co-founder funds a range of new observatories New data and observations to be made freely available  Illustration of the Lazuli Space Observatory In the 19th and 20th Century, many of the world's largest telescopes were funded by wealthy individuals who wanted to leave a legacy. American philanthropists especially enabled the building of large telescopes such as the 40" Yerkes (still the largest refractor ever built), the 100" telescope at Mt. Wilson and the 200" Hale Reflector at Mt. Palomar which helped discover our place in the Universe, plus many others. More recent observatories have largely been built by consortiums of major universities or even national space agencies due to their complexities and costs.  Last week the co-founder of Google, Eric Schmidt and his wife, Wendy, announced the funding of four major new observatories, with all of them due to become operational by 2029. The Argus Array is a collection of 1,200 11" sized telescopes working together to perform like a 8m class telescope. This will aim to image the entire night sky every few days so changes and event can be captured in minutes or even minutes. LFAST: The Large Fiber Array Spectroscopic Telescope combines groups of 76-cm telescopes observing in the near infrared.  There's a prototype of this observatory already up and running The Deep Synoptic Array (DSA) radio telescope scope and is made up of  1,650 dishes in a radio-quiet valley in Nevada, USA. It aims to scan the sky faster than any current observatory. What will probably get the most attention is the Lazuli Space Observatory, which is a 3m sized space telescope and will have around 70% more light collecting power the Hubble Space Telescope, but with a much lower cost. “We are going to build a philanthropic, three-meter, off-axis telescope with capabilities that are approaching Hubble,” Pete Klupar, executive director of the Lazuli project at Schmidt Sciences, said during a session at the 247th meeting of the American Astronomical Society to announce the observatory program. “And we’re going to do it in three years, and we’re going to do it for a ridiculously low price.” Do you remember SETI@home?  For many years, millions of people around the world ran the SETI@home screensaver on their PC while it analysed data from the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico to search for any strange signals that might point to intelligence elsewhere in space. If you ran SETI@home back in the day, did you ever wonder if anything was found? This was an early form of distributed computing where people loaned their computer processing power to work on a larger, complex problem.  There were around 12 billion signals that were momentary blips of energy at a particular frequency coming from a particular point in the sky according to computer scientist and project co-founder David Anderson. These were further refined to around million and then down to a final 100 signals that can't easily be explained.  These targets are now being investigated by the China's FAST (Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope) , a massive radio telescope in the hope of finding the data again. The results are FAST aren't in yet, but researchers aren't expecting to find any signs of intelligence in the data. “If we don’t find ET, what we can say is that we established a new sensitivity level. If there were a signal above a certain power, we would have found it,” said Anderson. “Some of our conclusions are that the project didn’t completely work the way we thought it was going to. And we have a long list of things that we would have done differently and that future sky survey projects should do differently.” There’s no way that you can do a full investigation of every possible signal that you detect, because doing that still requires a person and eyeballs,” he said. “We have to do a better job of measuring what we’re excluding. Are we throwing out the baby with the bath water? I don’t think we know for most SETI searches, and that is really a lesson for SETI searches everywhere.” Read more at the University of Berkley here. Cheers, Earl White BINTEL 17th of January 2026

2026 is certainly shaping up as an exciting year for the astronomy and space community! Humans are heading back to the Moon for the first time since 1972 Possibly the most exciting event for the first part of 2026 is the Artemis II mission due to launch NET (No Earlier Than) February 2026.  That's right; people are flying to the Moon next month! Artemis II Crew. Image via: NASA/Aubrey Gemignani Four astronauts will launch from the famous Launch Complex 39B at the Kennedy Space Center and spend around 10 days in their Orion capsule. Around 24 hours after successful insertion into Earth orbit and system checkouts, their spacecraft will perform at TLI (Trans Lunar Injection) burn that will send the crew on their way to the Moon. This will be the first time since the Apollo 17 mission in December 1972 that humans have left Earth orbit. Artemis II doesn't have enough fuel to insert Orion into orbit around the Moon and then perform another burn to escape the Moon's gravity and return to Earth.  Rather it will loop around the Moon just the once, using a free-return trajectory that doesn't require any propellant. Orion will be at approx. 7,4000 kms to the Moon at its closest approach.  (For space history fans, this mission profile is not dissimilar to the flight path of Apollo 13.)   While no landing, let alone time spent in Lunar orbit will be attempted, this is an important step in a permanent human presence on the Moon. Read more about Artemis at the NASA site here. Blue Moon Mk1 - the largest Lunar lander ever built Another major Moon mission is the expect launch in the first half of 2026 of the Blue Moon Mk1 aboard the New Glenn mega rocket.  This is due to land near the Shackleton Crater at the Moon's south pole. It's designed to be a cargo ship, capable of delivering approx. 3 tonnes of supplies to anywhere on the Moon's surface and is larger and heavier than Apollo era Lunar Landers which landed and returned two humans to the Moon from Lunar orbit. Read more here. Supermoons in 2026: there's three of them kicking off tonight! A "Supermoon" is where the Earth and Moon are closest together in their orbits and because of this, the Moon appears slightly larger in the sky, especially in the early evening.   They're great spectacles and well worth checking out. The first Supermoon is tonight, 3rd of January 2026 in Australia, so head outside if the weather is clear. Total Lunar Eclipse March 3-4, 2026 There will be a Total Lunar Eclipse visible in a large part of Australia in early March 2026. This is where the entire surface of the side of the Moon visible from Earth is covered by the Earth's shadow, turning a dull red and sometimes called a "Blood Moon".  It's a slow moving event and easily observed through a telescope or binoculars.  The Total Lunar Eclipse in March as seen from Sydney check it out here where you can also see the times for your location. Jupiter at Opposition January 10th An opposition is the best time to see a Solar System planet as it's when the Earth and the planet are closest or "opposite" each other.  The best time for the year to see Jupiter is around the 10th of January where it rises in the early evening sky and be visible all night.  Jupiter as seen from Sydney on the 10th of January 2026 around 10.30pm local time. Image via Stellarium. Jupiter won't be hard to miss as it will be the bright "star" in that part of the sky and will appear to twinkle less.  Oppositions are also slow events, and planets are ideally placed for viewing in the weeks before and after the date. No need to rush out on the night or worry that you'll miss it. Another bright comet? While 2025 will be remembered as a great year for comet viewing with multiple visitors to the inner Solar System including one from deep space, there's some hope that Comet C/2025 R3 (PanSTARRS) might also become bright enough to be seen with just your eyes. We'll be keeping a close eye on this one! You can keep track of it here. Cool Telescope Tech Smart Telescopes continue in 2026 to make astronomy and astro imaging more accessible for everyone! We've already seen the upcoming availability of the ZWO Seestar S30 Pro and the super compact DWARF mini. These are both perfect for travelling and easy storage and the image quality from these new little telescopes is stunning.  We expect to see even more new products throughout the year as telescope makers continue to open up the Universe to everyone to discover and wonder at. Image stabilised spotting scopes For bird watchers and nature viewers, for long distance observing there's always been a challenge juggling the handheld usability of binoculars and the use of more powerful spotting scopes that require a tripod to avoid shakes and hand movements.  2026 sees the roll out of the new Swarovski Balance spotting scopes that have inbuilt image stabilising tech.  We're expecting these to find a home with folks who are after the best possible optical quality and rock steady views. If you get a chance, swing by BINTEL to try one out in person. Cheers. Earl White BINTEL 3rd January 2026       

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