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Two hundred years ago: 29th April 1826. A night of discovery from Parramatta  There's a "fair" amount of light pollution in the middle of Parramatta, about 20km west of Sydney, in 2026. However, wind the clock back 200 years to this time of the year to a  remarkable evening of discovery at Parramatta Observatory by astronomer James Dunlop.  First of all he observed a new nebula (NGC 4945), and then some 30 minutes later another patch of cloud in the sky known as NGC 5128. We now know that both of these discoveries are not patches of patches of star-forming gases, but rather massive galaxies millions of light years away from the Milky Way.  James Dunlop’s sketch of NGC 5128 (Figure 20) from 1828. Credit: Dunlop/Robertson et al. 2010. At the time these were the only two galaxies in the far southern sky recorded by astronomers aside from the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds.  Here's a more modern take on NGC 5128 taken by Chi Chan and with a Celestron EdgeHD 9.25 Telescope and a ZWO ASI286MM camera. NGC 5128 is the 5th brightest galaxy in the night sky and is great for both astro imagers and visual observers, with its central dark lane being visible even in fairly small telescopes.  Where can I see NGC 5128 at the moment? Just like James Dunlop spotted this lovely galaxy 200 years ago in our Sydney autumn, you'll be able to see NGC 5128 in the south eastern sky. The view from Sydney around 7.30pm showing NGC 5128 (labelled C 77 in this image) near the Southern Cross. It will rise higher in the night sky as evening progresses.  You can spot it as a small, fuzzy patch with binoculars. Larger telescopes such as a 6" Dobsonian will show the dark central band which is the result of galactic mergers. Why are comets green? And why their tails are not. Glenn Pickford posted his image of Comet Panstarrs to the BINTEL Society Facebook group. Check out his post here. There are some simply beautiful images being captured this week of Comet C/2025 R3 (PANSTARRS) or simply Comet Panstarrs as it's being called. This is an Oort Cloud comet, meaning a ball of loosely bound dust, gases, water and other material is making what could be its first trip into the inner Solar System from a vast region that extends into interstellar space.  You might see media reports about it being a "once in a lifetime experience" and that's true of this particular comet. Its orbital period seems to be around 170,000 years and I doubt any of us will be around to see it again, no matter how good your diet and skin care routine is. However, comets like these are visible once every few years and we were lucky enough last year to even have two visible in the same part of the sky at once! Binoculars are ideal for looking at comets and the BINTEL Society is a handy way to pick up tips and ideas for photographing them as well.  One question that does pop up is "Why are the heads of some comets green?" In fact up until a few years ago, we didn't know why! It's a fascinating story about  Solar radiation breaking up molecules that it only just created. These dicarbon molecules glow bright green, but themselves don't hang around that long and are soon broken up. They don't have time to fall away from the head or nucleus of a comet and spread into space as the comet's tail. They fade away before they have time to make it that far. That's why the region close to the comet's nucleus might appear green but the tail won't be. You can read more about how the team from the University of New South Wales discovered this in a BINTEL blog article from a couple of years ago.   One thing to remember when observing comets is that while these green colours are often easily captured in photos, you won't see them with your eyes when looking at them through a telescope or binoculars. New evidence of organic materials found on Mars Seven organic molecules detected for the first time on Mars Mars rover, Curiosity, taking a selfie in 2022. Image via NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS NASA announced recently another set of findings that point toward the possibility of past life existing on the surface of Mars. After drilling into a rock called "Mary Anning 3”, named after an English fossil collector and , scientists found the most diverse collection of organic molecules ever found on Mars. The rocks on the surface of Mars where Curiosity collected samples in October 2020. Image via NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS Twenty-one carbon-containing molecules were identified in the samples, seven of them were detected for the first time on Mars.  It should be pointed out that organic molecules or "organics" are not themselves direct signs of life. They are the "stuff" that life is made up of or the results of life processes. They can also be produced by non-biological reactions and processes. At the moment, we have no direct way of knowing what led to the growing list of organic molecules being found on Mars. Organics are found elsewhere in the Solar System and in gas clouds in deep space. “That detection is pretty profound because these structures can be chemical precursors to more complex nitrogen-bearing molecules,” said the paper’s lead author, Amy Williams of the University of Florida in Gainesville. “Nitrogen heterorcycles have never been found before on the Martian surface or confirmed in Martian meteorites.” “This is Curiosity and our team at their best. It took dozens of scientists and engineers to locate this site, drill the sample, and make these discoveries with our awesome robot,” said the mission’s project scientist, Ashwin Vasavada of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “This collection of organic molecules once again increases the prospect that Mars offered a home for life in the ancient past. What does this mean for the chances of one day confirming life on Mars? These results add to the growing number of organics and other chemicals found on Mars that might have been produced by past life. They've been collected from regions that were once covered by water as indicated by the local geology.  The issue is that no hardware currently on the surface of Mars has sufficient onboard technology to carry out the sorts of tests to definitely confirm that once was life was indeed present at these sites. It's going to take either "boots" on the ground where specialist astronauts can carry out the sorts of experiments needed, or sufficient samples returned to Earth.  Until then these discoveries offer tantalising hints of what might have existed on the Red Planet.  You can read more at the NASA site here. Cheers, Earl White BINTEL 6th May 2026  

Tele Vue eyepieces have a reputation that precedes them. If you've spent any time at a star party, on an astronomy forum, or chatting with folks at our shop counter, you've probably heard someone say something like "just get the Tele Vue" with a knowing nod. They're not cheap, and we get asked all the time whether they're really worth the money. Short answer: yes. Here's the longer version. Quick summary: Tele Vue eyepieces are designed and quality-tested in New York by a company founded by a former NASA optical engineer. Every single eyepiece is inspected at f/4 before it ships. The range covers everything from 50-degree Plossls to 100-degree Ethos eyepieces, and they hold their value better than almost any other accessory in astronomy. The man behind the glass Al Nagler founded Tele Vue Optics in 1977 with his wife Judi, and the company started serving amateur astronomers in 1979. But Al wasn't just a bloke who liked telescopes. Before Tele Vue, he spent years at Farrand Optical designing infinity display simulators for NASA's Gemini and Apollo programs. We're talking about the optical systems that trained astronauts to dock spacecraft and land on the Moon. The simulators used a mirror eight feet wide and lenses three feet in diameter to project realistic starfields and lunar surfaces for the astronauts to practise with. When Al turned that level of optical expertise toward telescope eyepieces, the results were pretty dramatic. The first Nagler eyepiece arrived in 1980 with an 82-degree apparent field of view. At the time, most eyepieces offered around 40 to 50 degrees. People started calling it "the space walk eyepiece" because looking through one felt like floating in space rather than peering through a tube. It was a genuine turning point for visual astronomy. Sadly, Al passed away in October 2025 at the age of 90. But his legacy is enormous. As Terence Dickinson wrote in The Backyard Astronomer's Guide, "Al Nagler has introduced more innovations in telescope eyepiece design than anyone else in the history of amateur astronomy." That's quite a statement, and it's hard to argue with. Just weeks before his 90th birthday, the PUNCH satellites launched carrying Tele Vue designed objective lenses, putting Tele Vue optics into orbit for a NASA solar observation mission. What actually makes Tele Vue eyepieces different? A few things set them apart, and it starts with the glass itself. Tele Vue uses high-index lanthanum and fluorite-type glasses that can cost up to 15 times more than ordinary optical glass. The company's philosophy is "how can we make it better" rather than "how can we make it cheaper." You can feel that when you pick one up. Every eyepiece gets fully multi-coated optics with blackened lens edges to reduce internal reflections. The barrels are chrome-plated rather than anodised, which provides a smoother surface and better durability over the long term. Anti-reflection threading inside the barrel kills stray light that would otherwise reduce contrast. These are the kinds of details that add up when you're at the eyepiece trying to tease out faint detail in a galaxy or split a tight double star. How does Tele Vue test every eyepiece? This is one of the things that really sets Tele Vue apart. Every single eyepiece that leaves the factory gets tested on a proprietary 5-inch f/4 refractor that Tele Vue designed and built specifically for quality control. They call it the MPT (Multi-Purpose Telescope). Testing at f/4 is quite demanding because faster focal ratios expose optical flaws that slower systems would hide. If an eyepiece can deliver sharp, flat images at f/4, it'll perform well in just about anything. No other eyepiece manufacturer does 100% inspection at this level. Most companies test a sample from each batch and call it done. Tele Vue tests every one, both cosmetically and optically. They had to design their own test equipment because nothing on the market met their standards. The focal length control is so precise that if you bought a Nagler eyepiece twenty years ago and pair it in a binoviewer with a brand new one of the same model, they'll match. Their eyepieces are manufactured in Japan and Taiwan by dedicated partner factories that have long-term relationships with Tele Vue and produce no competing products. The optics are then shipped to Chester, New York, where they go through Tele Vue's own inspection process before being released. It's a belt-and-braces approach, and it's why you very rarely hear about a dud Tele Vue eyepiece. Which Tele Vue eyepiece is right for you? Tele Vue makes six main eyepiece families, and each one is designed for a slightly different purpose. You can see the full specs on TeleVue's website, but here's the rundown. Ethos (100 degrees) The Ethos is the flagship. A 100-degree apparent field of view means you get an immersive, wrap-around view that feels like looking out a window rather than through a tube. Available from 3.7mm up to 21mm, these are the eyepieces that people describe as a "space walk" experience. They have 15mm of eye relief across the range, which is comfortable for most observers. If you're doing deep sky observing and want the widest possible true field with pinpoint stars right to the edge, the Ethos is hard to beat. The 3.7mm and 4.7mm models push that to 110 degrees. Nagler (82 degrees) The eyepiece that started the wide-field revolution. The current Nagler range spans several generations (Type 4 through Type 7) and covers focal lengths from 3.5mm to 31mm. The 31mm Nagler Type 5 is legendary for deep sky work, giving you a massive true field of view in a 2-inch barrel. Naglers deliver 82 degrees of apparent field with excellent edge correction. The Type 7 models offer 19mm of eye relief, which is a nice improvement over the earlier generations. For Dobsonian owners who track objects manually, these wide-field eyepieces are a real game-changer because objects stay in view much longer as the sky drifts past. Delos (72 degrees) The Delos is a favourite among observers who wear glasses. Every model has a generous 20mm of eye relief, and the optical design shares DNA with the Ethos, just with a slightly narrower field. Available from 3.5mm to 17.3mm in 1.25-inch barrels (plus a 24mm in 2-inch), these are fantastic for planetary and lunar observing where you want a sharp, contrasty image with comfortable viewing. Many experienced observers reckon the Delos is just a touch sharper than the Ethos at the centre of the field, which makes them brilliant for planets. DeLite (62 degrees) Think of the DeLite as the Delos's lighter, more affordable sibling. Same 20mm eye relief across the whole range, same build quality, but a 62-degree apparent field that keeps the weight and price down. Available from 3mm to 18.2mm, these are a brilliant entry point into the Tele Vue lineup if you want premium optics without the premium weight (and price) of the wider-field designs. They're also handy if you're building a set of eyepieces on a budget and want to start with something really excellent. Panoptic (68 degrees) The Panoptic has been a staple of the Tele Vue range for decades. These are available in longer focal lengths from 19mm to 41mm, which makes them ideal for low-magnification, wide-field sweeping. The 41mm Panoptic in particular is a classic for scanning large star fields and open clusters. Eye relief varies from 13mm on the 19mm model up to a very generous 27mm on the 41mm. If you're after a rich-field view of the Milky Way or big targets like the Magellanic Clouds (a real treat from Australia), the Panoptics are a superb choice. Plossl (50 degrees) The humble Plossl is where Tele Vue actually started in the eyepiece business, and their version of this classic 4-element design is still one of the best you can buy. Available from 8mm to 55mm, they offer a sharp 50-degree field at a fraction of the cost of the wider-field designs. The 32mm Plossl is one of the most recommended "first upgrade" eyepieces in astronomy, and for good reason. It's simple, sharp, and works well in just about any telescope. A great starting point. Nagler Zoom (3-6mm, 50 degrees) Also worth a mention: the Nagler Zoom covers 3-6mm with a click-stop mechanism and maintains Tele Vue quality throughout the zoom range. It's a handy eyepiece for planetary observing when you want to dial in the perfect magnification for the seeing conditions on any given night. Are Tele Vue eyepieces worth the price? We won't pretend they're cheap. An Ethos 21mm will set you back around $1,400 and even a DeLite starts north of $500. But there are a couple of things worth considering. First, a good eyepiece will outlast your telescope. You might upgrade your scope two or three times over the years, but a Tele Vue eyepiece goes with you. They're built to last decades and come with a lifetime limited warranty for the original owner. Second, they hold their value remarkably well. If you ever decide to sell a Tele Vue eyepiece, you'll get a fair chunk of your money back. Try that with a budget eyepiece. Third, and this is the big one: you actually see more. A sharper, wider, higher-contrast view means you'll pick up fainter details, resolve tighter doubles, and enjoy a more comfortable experience at the eyepiece. It's the difference between looking at the night sky and being immersed in it. We're Tele Vue's official Australian dealer, so we carry the full range. If you'd like advice on which Tele Vue eyepiece would suit your scope and your observing style, have a look at our Tele Vue range online or pop into the shop and we'll sort you out.

Artemis II splashes down! A perfect return to Earth around 10:07am Sydney time. The world has been thrilled by the four NASA astronauts as they spend around ten days travelling to the Moon, looping around the far side of our large natural satellite and returning home with a textbook landing in the Pacific Ocean.  Can you track future Artemis missions to and from the Moon with your telescope?  Short answer: you sure can! There was a lot of interest in people using their telescopes to image the Artemis II mission on its journey to and from the Moon. Professor Karl Glazebrook from Swinburne University sent me this fascinating short animation of Artemis II on its journey taken from his home in suburban Melbourne using a ZWO Seestar S50 Smart Telescope. The square box outlines the spacecraft as it moves against a background of stars. Here is another Seestar S50 image from the same location:   He also produced an Artemis II tracker app that you can access here: https://astronomy.swin.edu.au/~karl/artemis2_track.html It allows you to wind the mission timeline back and forward to see where Artemis II was located in the sky, plus some notes on resources used to construct it. A very handy tool! Efforts like these certainly bode well for tracking future missions to the Moon. If you'd like to see what really large telescopes like the 3.9m Anglo-Australian Telescope at Siding Spring near Coonabarabran can produce, check out the link that Karl sent me this morning.   Parts of Artemis II have flown into space before Some of the launch hardware has been to space before on the Shuttle program. Some of the rocket engines on the recent launch of Artemis II had previously flown on NASA Space Shuttles. Image via NASA It's interesting to discover that of the four main RS-25 rocket engines used in the SLS rocket that sent Artemis II to the Moon, three had been flown into space before when they were attached to Space Shuttle orbiters. One of them, Engine 2047 flew on 15 missions including one to dock with the Russian space station, Mir.  All of the hardware had been thoroughly checked and upgraded with new components and software upgrades. The core of these engines however remains unchanged. If you have a reliable and proven piece of hardware it makes sense to keep using it! Sadly, as the SLS is not a reusable rocket, all four of these engines are now at the bottom of the ocean.   Find out more about what hardware was reused on Artemis II here  Comet news. Yes, it's broken up There were high hopes for Comet C/2026 A1 (MAPS)  NASA image of Comet C/2026 A1 (MAPS) showing some debris is it passed the Sun Astronomers were holding their breath as this recently discovered comet looped around the Sun, with hopes it would be a very bright sight in the night sky as it headed back out into the depths of the Solar System. It was a part of a group of comets known as "Kreutz sungrazers" which are all thought to be parts of a much larger comet that broke up some time ago.  Because their orbital paths take them so close to the Sun, they are very prone to breaking up due to the extreme Solar radiation and particle winds they encounter. As comets, even large ones such as Comet C/2026 A1 (MAPS), are loose collections of dusts and ices they are easily destroyed with their materials scattered into the inner Solar System. This isn't the first one of these types of comets which we've mentioned in this blog before that suffered this fate. If they do survive the part of their orbits that takes them close to the Sun, there's a high chance they'll be a spectacle in the weeks following. Quite a few of the "Great Comets" over the last few centuries have been Kreutz sungrazers and we're well overdue for one to put on a show for the world. There's a great animation of the comet's close and fatal encounter with the Sun here. Australia loses access to some of the world's most outstanding telescopes Less than ideal news to wrap up the week The Federal Government has decided that Australia will not join the European Southern Observatory (ESO) at the conclusion of its current Strategic Partnership. This will include not having access to the upcoming ELT (Extremely Large Telescope) heading towards completion in Chile. Progress on the ELT in Feb 2026. Image via ESO There's no doubt the loss of access to the world's best telescopes will hinder astronomy in Australia.  “If we are no longer able to be part of world-class international facilities, then we’re going to lose those types of capabilities.” said Professor Brian Schmidt from ANU who was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2011 for helping to discover the rate at which the Universe is expanding is accelerating.  Next week...news from NEAF NEAF or The Northeast Astronomy Forum & Space Expo is the largest astro gear and tradeshow on the planet. It's on this weekend in the USA and we'll have all the latest news, product releases other goodies that will be revealed. Stay tuned! Cheers, Earl White BINTEL 11th April 2026    

NASA defines a new direction Permanent base on the Moon and nuclear-powered rockets to Mars! In what was one of the most pivotal announcements from NASA in recent decades, the US space agency is making major realignments to their plans for missions to the Moon and some exciting plans for sending rockets to Mars. At the NASA Ignition event this week a number of key programs were announced.  First of all, the planned Lunar Gateway, a station in orbit around the Moon like the ISS (International Space Station) orbits the Earth, has effectively been cancelled and a permanent base on the Moon's surface to be set up instead. This will happen in three phases. First to test hardware and technology on the Lunar surface, then to set up a semi-permanent station on the Moon and finally to establish a long-term, permanent Lunar base. This will mean that humans will return to the Moon and then always remain, much like the ISS has now seen people always in orbit for over 25 years. Astronauts will travel to the Moon every 6 months, with the frequency of missions increasing over time. The building of a full time base on the Moon will mean more than just exploration of the Lunar surface. It offers the opportunity to learn about living and thriving on another planet.  NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said “We aren’t just returning to the Moon. We are building the railroad that allows the private sector to follow.” When? The first Moon landing by humans since 1972 is due to take place in 2028. There will also be a further 30 robotic missions to the Moon starting in 2027. The USD$20 billion program will have the full time Moon base operational by 2036. The next flight to the Moon should be the delayed Artemis II mission due for launch this week on April 1st 2026. As we've mentioned many times in this blog, this will be the first time that humans have left Earth orbit since Apollo 17. Also announced was the Space Reactor-1 (SR-1) Freedom mission, a nuclear-electric powered rocket set to fly to Mars in 2028. This will be the first time this type of propulsion technology has been tested in deep-space. While it won't get to the red planet any faster than a traditional chemical rocket, it will be an important test of what could become a handy method to transfer hardware to other more distant parts of the Solar System. The main payload of SR-1 will be Skyfall, a small fleet of Ingenuity class helicopters that will continue exploring Mars. You can read more about this expansive program at the NASA website here. Life could exist on rogue moons with a few ifs and maybes  We chatted a few years ago about rogue planets. You can read about it here. These are planets that have formed around stars and been ejected by their host system. Astronomers estimate they're quite numerous too, with some suggesting there are as many in the Milky Way as stars themselves. One possible thought is "could life develop on a rogue exoplanet?"  And yes, while life might find a warm niche to begin and thrive for extended periods of time, even as long the Earth has been able to provide, it will be dark. Chemical processes and bioluminescence from life might be able to produce small amounts of light, but they can't in any way compare to the amount of light from a star such as our Sun. The good ol' conversion of hydrogen into helium through nuclear fusion that occurs in a main sequence star has a lot going for it! Apart from light and warmth, life as  we experience here on Earth also requires liquid water. This is also a bit hard to find a planet without direct heat from a nearby star and likely close in temperature to absolute zero in deep interstellar space. An artist's impression of a moon around an rogue exoplanet.  Image via D. Dahlbüdding  However (and there's always a "however" in astronomy!) researchers have suggested that moons around rogue planets could keep oceans of liquid water for over four billion years through tidal effects with their host planets and thick hydrogen atmosphere. One of the results of being thrown out of a star system is that any moons that a planet has could be that they move into highly elliptical orbits. This would put stresses and strains on the moon, compress and decompress it and in doing so, heat it up enough to keep any water on its surface from freezing over. Combine this with a dense atmosphere of molecular hydrogen under certain conditions acting as heat trap and the environment for life to form and develop might exist.   “Our collaboration with the team of Prof. Braun helped us recognize that the cradle of life does not necessarily require a sun,” says David Dahlbüdding, doctoral researcher at LMU and lead author of the study. “We discovered a clear connection between these distant moons and the early Earth, where high concentrations of hydrogen through asteroid impacts could have created the conditions for life.” While these combinations might be rare, the vast numbers of rogue planets floating free in the Milky Way might show another pathway to life as well as studying how life arose on Earth.   "These environments are interesting to model because they push planetary modelling into unusual regimes, but they also serve to understand the environments in which potential life precursors emerged on Earth", said Dr. Tommaso Grassi, an MPE Scientist More on this interesting proposal here. What did our own Solar System look like as it formed? WISPIT 2 means we now might have a clue VLT images of two planets forming around the young star WISPIT 2 Image via: ESO/C. Lawlor, R. F. van Capelleveen Astronomers have so far found over 6,100 exoplanets, around about 4,575 stars, but have just spotted a planetary system being formed around another star system for the second time. Even better, the newly found system around WISPIT 2 shows a pattern of rings and gaps pointing towards more than one planet in the process of being born.  “WISPIT 2 is the best look into our own past that we have to date,” says Chloe Lawlor, PhD student at the University of Galway, Ireland, and lead author of the study published today in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.   This newly discovered exoplanet system is only the second known, after PDS 70, where two planets have been directly observed in the process of forming around their host star. WISPIT 2 has a very extended planet-forming disc with distinctive gaps and rings. "These structures suggest that more planets are currently forming, which we will eventually detect.” Lawlor says.  "WISPIT 2 gives us a critical laboratory not just to observe the formation of a single planet but an entire planetary system," says Christian Ginski, who is the study co-author and researcher at the University of Galway. The first planet around WISPIT 2 called WISPIT 2b was found in 2025 and appears to have a mass of around five times that of Jupiter and about 60 times as far away from WISPIT 2 as the Earth and Sun are.  There are even hints of a third planet being formed, with it maybe around the mass of Saturn. With new, larger telescopes, there's hope that it might be imaged directly.  Ginski commented that “with ESO’s upcoming Extremely Large Telescope, we may be able to directly image such a planet.”  As usual, it's worth pointing out that this new star is beyond what you'll see with your own telescope.  Next week: fingers crossed we'll be keeping track of the Artemis II crew as they travel to the Moon over the Easter long weekend. Cheers, Earl White BINTEL 28th March 2026  

Nikon's new Action binoculars are here, and they fix the one thing the Aculon A211 was always criticised for. The eye relief on the old Aculon was pretty poor for glasses wearers, and we heard about it constantly at the counter. Nikon has sorted that out properly with the new range, and made a few other meaningful improvements while they were at it. The Aculon A211 is officially discontinued. The Action series is its replacement, with seven models covering the range from compact 8x42s through to a 16x50 and a 10-22x zoom. The Nikon Action series replaces the Aculon A211 with eye relief of 15mm or more across most models (up from 11.6mm on the old 10x42), wider fields of view on several models, and an aluminium alloy chassis. Seven models are available from 8x42 to 16x50, plus a 10-22x zoom. Available now at Bintel. What Changed from the Nikon Aculon A211? The biggest change is eye relief, followed by a wider field of view on several models and a new aluminium chassis. These aren't cosmetic updates, they address the main complaints customers had with the Aculon. On the 10x42, the real field of view has gone from 6.0 to 6.8 degrees, which is a pretty meaningful improvement at 10x magnification. Three models in the range now have an apparent field of 60 degrees or more (the 10x42, 12x50 and 16x50), putting them in wide-field territory. That's genuinely hard to find at this price point. The body has changed too. The Aculon used polycarbonate construction; the Action switches to an aluminium alloy chassis with rubber armouring. It adds a little weight (790g on the 42mm models, 935-950g on the 50mm models) but the feel is quite different in the hand. More solid, better grip, and the rubber eyecups are now multi-click so you can lock in your exact position. Are the Nikon Action Binoculars Good for Glasses Wearers? Yes, most models in the Nikon Action range are well suited to glasses wearers, which is a big improvement over the Aculon A211. The old 10x42 had just 11.6mm of eye relief, making it uncomfortable for anyone wearing glasses. The new 10x42 offers 16.1mm, and most of the range comes in at 15mm or more. The 7x50 is the standout at 19.6mm of eye relief, and the 8x42 sits at 17.3mm. The only model that falls short is the 16x50 at 13mm, which is still better than the old Aculon but less generous than the rest of the lineup. If eye relief is your main concern, the 8x42 or 7x50 are the picks. Which Nikon Action Binocular Is Best for Birdwatching? For most birdwatchers, the 8x42 is the one to go for. It is hard to go past this format as an all-rounder: eight times magnification is stable enough to hold comfortably for long periods, the 42mm objective collects plenty of light for most conditions, and the 8-degree real field of view makes it easy to track a bird moving through bush or scrub. The 17.3mm of eye relief means glasses wearers are well looked after too. You can find it here: Nikon ACTION 8x42. If you want a bit more reach, the 10x42 is a good option. The wider FOV compared to the old Aculon 10x42 is a real improvement here. Popular for birding in open environments where you're often scanning across a wider area or watching birds in flight. For early morning or late evening sessions where light is low, the 7x50 is worth a serious look. At 7x magnification with a 50mm objective, the exit pupil comes out at just over 7mm, which is about as much light as your eye can actually use. It's also popular for marine use for the same reason. What About the Higher Magnification Models? The 10x50 and 12x50 both bring more light gathering than the 42mm models, which suits observers who want to use their binoculars in lower light or pick out finer detail at distance. The 12x50 is particularly interesting because despite the higher magnification it still delivers a 60-plus degree apparent field of view, which is not something you often find at this price. The 10x50 is a more relaxed handheld option if 12x feels a bit much. The 16x50 is for specific use cases where you really need that extra magnification, spotting sport at distance, watching wildlife across a paddock, that sort of thing. At 16x, a tripod adapter (the Nikon TRA-2 or TRA-3) is pretty much essential for comfortable extended use. Are Zoom Binoculars Worth It? Zoom binoculars are worth it if you genuinely need a single pair to cover multiple magnifications and are happy to trade a little optical sharpness for that versatility. The Action Zoom 10-22x50 lets you step from 10x right up to 22x with a smooth zoom mechanism, which sounds appealing. There are situations where it comes into its own, identifying something in the distance and then zooming in for a closer look, or switching between scanning and detailed observation without swapping binos. The trade-off is that image quality at any fixed magnification won't quite match a dedicated fixed model at the same price, and the field of view narrows significantly as you push towards 22x. For most birdwatchers, a fixed 8x42 or 10x42 will serve better. But if versatility is genuinely your priority, it's a solid option. Buy Nikon Action Binoculars in Australia We've got the full Nikon Action range in stock now at Bintel. If you've been a fan of the Aculon A211 or have been holding off waiting for a better option at this price point, the Action series is a pretty compelling step up. The eye relief improvement alone makes a meaningful difference for a large portion of buyers, and the wider fields of view on the 10x42 and 12x50 are a real bonus. Have a question about which model is right for you? Pop into the BINTEL shop or give us a call. We're always happy to talk binoculars.

Building blocks of life found on another asteroid Just over a year ago we talked about the discovery of some of the building blocks for life being found in samples returned from the asteroid Bennu from the OSIRIS-REx mission. (This is the one where the  lid was "stuck" on the sample jar!) Now researchers have found thymine, nucleobases adenine, guanine, cytosine, and uracil which are the foundations for both RNA and DNA and from which all life on Earth is formed. These were discovered in a sample of the asteroid Ryugu and returned to Earth by Japan's Hayabusa 2 in 2020. Carbonaceous asteroids or "C-type" asteroids like Ryugu are common in the asteroid belt and are targets for exploration as they contain pristine organic materials from the earliest period of the Solar System. "Organics" are not signs of life, but they are what life is formed from. We observe them throughout the Solar System as well in vast quantities in interstellar space. Organic materials have also been collected from other sources, including the famous Murchison meteorite. Did the foundations of life arrive from space? Another finding of organic materials on an asteroid, this time from Ryugu, certainly boosts the certainty that this might be the case. It also points to organics being widespread throughout the Solar System.  A detailed, although not too technical overview on these results can be found here at astrobiology.com If you'd like to read the full scientific article at Nature, click here Hubble captures the break up of Comet C/2025 K1 (ATLAS) You might remember we chatted about a number of comets that graced our skies in 2025, including when two were visible in the same camera frame! Several of our BINTEL customers managed to capture this and we featured their images in our blogs and newsletters.  Image from Comet C/2025 R1 (SWAN) and Comet C/2025 K1 (ATLAS) captured near Mars by Glenn Pickford on the 21st of September and featured in my blog post a few days after. The smaller comet near the bottom left of the frame is the one that has broken up. One of these comets, C/2025 K1 (ATLAS), has broken up into smaller pieces and in a amazing stroke of luck, was being observed by the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) while it was happening! The event happened in November 2025 and the strange thing is the comet wasn't the target of the observation by Hubble.  “Sometimes the best science happens by accident,” said co-investigator John Noonan, a research professor in the Department of Physics at Auburn University in Alabama. “This comet got observed because our original comet was not viewable due to some new technical constraints after we won our proposal. We had to find a new target—and right when we observed it, it happened to break apart, which is the slimmest of slim chances.”  Sequence showing the break up via NASA, ESA, Dennis Bodewits (AU) It was also some time before the break up was discovered on the Hubble images.  It appears to have broken into at least four separate objects, each with their own coma and tail, with further fragmentation likely.  While I was taking an initial look at the data, I saw that there were four comets in those images when we only proposed to look at one,” said Noonan. “So we knew this was something really, really special.” One of the interesting things is that astronomers have been trying to catch detailed observations of cometary disintegrations but scheduling precious telescope time has always been an issue. Basically, there's no way to work out when it will happen. It's been tried before and has never been successful.  The approx. location in the Solar System where the comet broke up “The irony is now we're just studying a regular comet and it crumbles in front of our eyes,” said principal investigator Dennis Bodewits, also a professor in Auburn University’s Department of Physics.  We always like to point out whether astro events like these could be seen with your own telescope. While the fragments of Comet C/2025 K1 (ATLAS) are now on the way out the Solar System and unlikely to return, they're beyond seeing in your own gear. Read more at the NASA website here. Eleven new moons for Saturn Brings the total to 285 Astronomers using the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope at Maunakea, Hawaii have discovered 11 new moon of the gas giant planet, Saturn. Layout of some of Saturn's major moons. Image via NASA Saturn already had the largest number of known moons of any planet in the Solar System and this discovery pushes the number even higher.  Given the complex environment around Saturn this number is likely to continue to grow as more discoveries are made. Sadly, you won't be able to observe these newly found moons even with the telescopes we sell at BINTEL as they are too faint. They are also yet to receive any official names. You can read the announcement made this week at the Minor Planet Center here. Artemis II rolls out after leak fixes Astronauts enter quarantine once again.  It's been a long process, but this week NASA commenced what it hopes to be the final roll out of Artemis II ahead of the launch from the 1st of April onwards.  NASA’s crawler-transporter 2 will carry the 11-million-pound stack, including the mobile launcher, at about 1 mph* along the four-mile route from Kennedy’s Vehicle Assembly Building to the launch pad. The journey can take up to 12 hours. Meanwhile the four astronauts have again gone into quarantine in preparation for the flight.  The entire "stack" will need to go through another round of full propellant loading and unloading, sometimes called a wet rehearsal, ahead of the launch and I think all space fans are crossing their fingers for successful flight to this Moon this Easter. Memories of Halley’s Comet in 1986? Finally for this week, we're coming up on the 40th anniversary of Halley's Comet being visible in 1986.  I'm sure many of our umm, mature, members of the BINTEL community might have some fond memories or even images they'd be happy to share around to mark the occasion.  Get in contact with us if you do. Cheers, Earl White BINTEL 21st March 2026 *It's NASA, so sometimes they still use imperial measurements for general public announcements like this!

Do planets ever collide? Looks like astronomers have spotted the signs of exoplanets colliding Collisions between celestial bodies have been known about for some time. On a large scale, we've observed black holes colliding or merging that send out massive gravitational waves across the Universe and are observed by detectors such as LIGO. Locally, we see signs of rocky bodies impacting on the Moon and the Earth and even Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 breaking apart and slamming into Jupiter in 1994. They were large-scale impacts early in the Solar System. The Moon is thought to the result of a proto-planet called Theia hitting the Earth some 4.5 billion years ago. As planetary systems around stars move past their early formation period, such large-scale impacts become rare. It's been a long time since anything like this has occurred in the Solar System, which from our point of view isn't a bad thing! If they were happening among planets around other stars, would we be able observe them today? Astronomer Andy Tzanidakis from the University of Washington was combing through light curves of the star Gaia20ehk about 11,000 light years away in the constellation of Puppis in the southern sky when he noticed something strange. This is main sequence star and considered to be quite stable.  “The star’s light output was nice and flat, but starting in 2016 it had these three dips in brightness. And then, right around 2021, it went completely bonkers,” said Tzanidakis.  “I can’t emphasize enough that stars like our sun don’t do that. So when we saw this one, we were like ‘Hello, what’s going on here?’” What seems to be happening was large quantities of dust and rocks passing in front of Gaia20ehk causing its light to dip and fluctuate. They were traced back to likely major impacts between rocky planets orbiting their host star. Star Gaia20ehk in Pupis, seen here in the centre of the orange crosshairs in the inset image. Image via NASA/NSF NOIRLab “It’s incredible that various telescopes caught this impact in real time,” Tzanidakis said. “There are only a few other planetary collisions of any kind on record, and none that bear so many similarities to the impact that created the Earth and moon. If we can observe more moments like this elsewhere in the galaxy, it will teach us lots about the formation of our world.” What's also exciting about this unique discovery is that it points to way to track and observe other collisions between exoplanets, with it likely forming a basis for observations with the newly-commissioned Vera C. Rubin Observatory. More on this exciting announcement here. We've changed the orbit of an asteroid! Not just the asteroid's moon, but the entire system You might remember a little while ago the NASA DART mission impacted the "moon" Dimorphos, (just over 160m in diameter) which orbits the larger asteroid Didymos and changed it path. This was done as a demonstration of a possible planetary defense system in case a large body heads directly towards Earth.  Hubble Space Telescope image of the  Didymos-Dimorphos asteroid system a few days after the DART impact. Image via NASA, ESA, Jian-Yang Li (PSI), Joe Depasquale (STScI) Now follow up observations have found that the entire system has had its orbit around the Sun changed by the DART impact. This is the first time that humans have altered the orbit of any celestial body. While DART only whacked into Dimorphos, as the two bodies are gravitationally bound, it has changed the obits of both of them. “This is a tiny change to the orbit, but given enough time, even a tiny change can grow to a significant deflection,” said Thomas Statler, lead scientist for solar system small bodies at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “The team’s amazingly precise measurement again validates kinetic impact as a technique for defending Earth against asteroid hazards and shows how a binary asteroid might be deflected by impacting just one member of the pair.” Impacts on Earth by rocky bodies are rare but do happen. Having tools to move incoming threats even by a small amount might help avoid catastrophic damage.  Read more via the NASA article here. Site for the first Chinese astronauts on land on the Moon narrowed down  Ever heard of  Rimae Bode? While NASA is pushing ahead with an aggressive timeline to return humans to the surface of the Moon around 2028, China has its own plans for a mission to land sometime in 2030.  There's been much discussion about a landing near the Moon's south pole where water ice and other resources might be found, this has issue with communications and navigation. Researchers have now identified a region called Rima Bode, much closer to the Moon's equator, for the first China crewed landing. The Rima Bode crater region on the Moon. Image via NASA "Rima Bode is a high priority ‘sweet spot,’” says Jun Huang, a planetary geologist at the China University of Geosciences in Wuhan and co-author of the new study. “Think of it as a prime piece of lunar real estate: its location near the equator provides much flatter, safer terrain for landing, along with constant sunlight for power [during the lunar day] and a direct line of sight to Earth for easy communication.” The crater region contains impacts and features that range in age from 4.07 billion years to as young as 510 million years and is rich in geological features. And yes, you should be able to spot this area with at least a 6 or 8 inch aperture telescope.  Here's where you'll find it -  The red star indicates where Rima Bode is located. Image via Nature Astronomy Read more about this possible landing site here. And finally for this week, Artemis II has a new launch date: April 1st 2026 Hydrogen fuel leaks and helium fuel system leaks now fixed Astronomy and space nerds have been keenly waiting on the launch of Artemis II, the first spaceflight to return humans to the Moon since 1972. Artemis II. Image via Cristóbal Herrera/EPA NASA announced this week that system problems which have delayed the launch of Artemis II over the last couple of months have now been resolved. A projected launch date of the 1st of April 2026 US time is now planned. (Yes, I know....going to be a lot of comments about that one) Fingers crossed no further delays occur!  Cheers, Earl White  BINTEL 14th March 2026 PS: Happy Pi Day!

Bar-tailed Godwits in flight, Manawatu Estuary, New Zealand. These are the same birds that winter on Australian tidal flats. Image: Wikimedia Commons   Back in our spring edition we wrote about the arrival of migratory shorebirds on Australian shores. Birds that had flown from Arctic and sub-Arctic breeding grounds, some of them non-stop for five or six days, landing on our tidal flats thin and worn and ready to feed. By October most of them had settled in along our coastlines, and through the southern summer they've been doing exactly that, eating, moulting, rebuilding. Now it's March, and the preparations for the northward journey are well underway. The Bar-tailed Godwits, Red Knots, Curlew Sandpipers, Red-necked Stints, Ruddy Turnstones, Whimbrel, Eastern Curlew, and others that have been part of our coastal landscape since spring are now in the final stages of getting ready to leave. A lot of them are in the best plumage they'll show all year, breeding colours earned for the northern hemisphere spring, and they are feeding with a focused intensity that is noticeably different to the pace of midsummer. The birding at good tidal sites in March is very good. It's also finite, because once the departure begins in earnest, the numbers thin quickly. What you'll actually see The plumage transformation this time of year is one of the things that surprises people who haven't visited a shorebird site in autumn before. Bar-tailed Godwits in breeding dress are warm rufous across the neck and underparts, a long way from the pale brownish-grey of a bird that arrived in September. Red Knots in full breeding plumage are brick-red from face to belly. Curlew Sandpipers in breeding colours are deep chestnut across the body. These are not subtle changes. Side by side with the same species in non-breeding plumage, they look like different birds. The species mix is also shifting. Some of the less common species that were present through the summer are still around in small numbers, and this is a time when working through a flock carefully can turn up something unexpected. It's worth taking your time rather than just ticking the obvious species and moving on. The Bar-tailed Godwit's northward departure is worth pausing on. Birds leaving south-eastern Australia fly non-stop to the Yellow Sea staging grounds, roughly ten thousand kilometres, without landing. To do it, they increase their body weight by more than fifty percent in the weeks before departure, converting almost all of that mass to fuel. The bird you're watching probe a mudflat in front of you might be two weeks from one of the longest non-stop flights made by any animal. Where to go Shorebird site quality comes down to the extent and quality of intertidal mudflat, and disturbance levels. The well-known sites are well-known because they've produced birds consistently across many years of observation. On the east coast, the Hunter Estuary and Kooragang Island in NSW are among the most reliable sites in the country. Corner Inlet in Victoria holds good concentrations of godwit and knot through March. The Coorong in South Australia covers a vast area of tidal habitat with consistent diversity. In Queensland, the Cairns Esplanade foreshore puts a wide range of species at close range on most mornings, and it's accessible even for visitors without a car. In Western Australia, Roebuck Bay at Broome is the benchmark. Large tidal range, extensive mudflat, and species diversity among the best in Australia. Eighty Mile Beach to the south is larger and less visited. If you can get to either of those in March, it's worth prioritising over almost anything else. Working with the tide A shorebird site at low tide can look nearly empty. Birds spread out across the exposed mudflat to feed and can be very distant, sometimes several hundred metres from shore, visible only as dots. At high tide, the water covers the feeding areas and pushes birds into tight roosts on sandbars, elevated margins, and patches of higher ground, often at much closer range. These two states are different experiences, and that difference matters. The approach that tends to work well is arriving two hours before high tide, watching the feeding flocks contract towards shore as the water rises, then settling in to observe the roost at high water when birds are packed together and accessible. The first feeding session after the tide begins to drop is also productive. First light and a rising tide together is about as good as shorebird birding gets. How to work a roost A high-tide roost looks uniform at first glance. Hundreds or thousands of birds packed together, mostly sleeping or preening, appearing similar in size and colour on a casual scan. The unusual species in that flock are just sitting in there with the common birds, and the only way to find them is to go through the flock methodically, checking each bird. The things worth checking are body size relative to immediately adjacent birds, bill length and shape, and leg colour. A Ruff among Red-necked Stints is considerably larger than everything around it, but you won't register that unless you're comparing it to its neighbours. Lesser and Greater Sand Plovers require close structural attention. A scope is what makes this kind of work possible at any real distance, because the identifying features of difficult shorebird species live at a resolution that binoculars at a hundred and fifty metres don't deliver. It's worth submitting your counts The East Asian-Australasian Flyway, the migration system connecting Australian coastlines to Arctic breeding grounds through south-east Asia, is under significant pressure from ongoing tidal flat reclamation along the Yellow Sea coast. Critical staging sites that shorebirds depend on for both legs of the migration have been lost or degraded at a scale that has driven clear population declines across several species over the past two decades. Australian observers contribute to the international monitoring that documents these trends and supports habitat protection arguments in the countries where the damage is occurring. If you read a leg flag or wing tag at a shorebird site, report it to the Australasian Wader Studies Group at awsg.org.au. Your counts and sighting records submitted through eBird feed into this work as well, and they're worth doing carefully.

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