News

  Welcome to the highlights of our Southern Skies for April 2025! It's now well past the autumn equinox in Australia and New Zealand. The Sun is moving into the northern parts of the sky, and the days are getting shorter. Venus is in the early morning sky. Saturn is now starting to appear in the pre-dawn skies.  Jupiter and Mars are still visible just before sunset, although they will gradually sink into the Sun's glare at sunset over the coming weeks.  1st of April is the traditional April Fool's joke day...although with the world as it is the moment, even the best of them had trouble keeping up with reality! 5th of April is First Quarter Moon.  As always, the Lunar phase we suggest for new telescope users as being the best time to start observing the Moon as the Sun is low in the sky from the Lunar surface and produces dramatic shadows and highlights across the Moon's mountains and craters. Mars in Gemini Look outside towards the northwest early in April to spot the unmistakable red glow of the planet Mars nestled in the constellation of Gemini which is also known as "The Twins." The view from Sydney around 8.00pm in the second week of April 2025 The Twins refer to the brightest stars in Gemini, Castor and Pollux, named after two twins in Greek mythology. These stars form the heads of the twins. The brightest of the two is Pollux, even though the slightly dimmer Castor has the label of "Alpha" in the constellation which is normally reserved for the numero uno in terms of how bright a star is. This due to a measurement error back in the day when stars catalogues were being drawn up. Despite being called the twins, the two stars are very different. Castor is actually a six-star system some 52 light years away. It's quite a fascinating and complex collection of binary stars. Orange coloured Pollux is a giant star, 34 light years away. Despite them appearing close to each other in the sky, the "twins" are actually only close due to their line of sight view from Earth.  13th of April - Full Moon. The entire Lunar surface that faces Earth is in full daylight and brightly lit.  Did you know that the Moon reflects back into space just 12% of the light it receives from the Sun? In other words, its "Albedo" is 0.12.  This explains why Moon rocks brought back to Earth by Apollo missions are so dark, yet the Full Moon appears so bright. If the Moon had the same Albedo as the clouds around Venus - 0.7 - it would several times brighter. 20th of April - An Easter treat: a planetary nebula. Hopefully the Easter Bunny will have delivered the goods and you'll be relaxing over the long weekend.  Where to find the planetary nebula, NCG 3132 around 9.30pm on Easter Sunday in the southwestern sky as seen from Sydney High up in the sky is a planetary nebula called NGC 3132, known as the "Southern Ring Nebula" or the "Eight-Burst" Nebula.  A planetary nebula is the shell of gas ejected by large, red giant stars towards the end of their lives. Star like these around one to eight times the mass of the Sun, with larger stars producing supernova. They're not planets at all - they appear like faint ghosts of the large Solar System planets and were called this by early telescopic astronomers.  You'll be able to spot NGC 3132 even in a small telescope. Stepping up to a 6" or 8" Dobsonian will reveal more details.  21st of April is Third Quarter Moon.  Like the first quarter, a perfect time for Lunar observations with the Sun in the sky on the Moon's surface producing dramatic shadows that highlight features.  The Southern Cross high in the sky - great viewing for binoculars At little bit later in April and a few hours after dark, the famous constellation of the Southern Cross or Crux is riding high in our Australian skies. The view south around 10.30pm Sydney time on the 21st of April 2025 Nearby are the familiar two bright pointers to the constellation of Southern Cross or "Crux". If you head out before the Moon rises a bit after 11.30pm, you'll discover it's an ideal time to explore the dense star clouds of the Milky Way as they run through this part of the sky and into the nearby constellation of Carina. There's large collection of deep-space objects within our home galaxy that are easily spotted even with a small telescope, but don't forget just about any pair of binoculars will also worth using on this part of the sky. Both of two Magellanic Clouds can be seen and appear like a detached parts of the Milky Way and are also worth spending time on.  They're galaxies, home to billions of stars and large regions of star formation. We'll be talking about galaxies in an upcoming blog entry. 25th of April - pre-dawn Solar System treat. If you're rising early to attend ANZAC Day Services you'll be greeted by a wonderful alignment of the crescent Moon, Saturn, Venus and even Mercury- all shining brightly in the pre-dawn sky.  The orbit of Venus has taken it away from the sky near the setting Sun and is now a bright "morning star" - after the Sun and Moon it's the brightest object in the sky.  The Moon, Venus, Saturn and Mercury on the 25th of April around 5.30am as seen from Sydney It will also be an opportunity to spot the Solar System's innermost planet, Mercury. The small rocky world is often hard to observe due to its closeness to the Sun and can only be low spotted in the pre-dawn or dusk skies. 27th of April - New Moon There's no Moon visible in the night sky: the perfect time for deep-sky observing or astrophotography.  Cheers, Earl White  BINTEL 4th April 2025  

The North East Astronomy Forum  - NEAF 2025 -  is the world's largest gathering for astronomy and space fans.  There's always new products and announcements and 2025 was no exception! We'll be adding to this post over the coming days, keep checking in. ZWO  The release of new Smart Telescopes continues and ZWO have announced the first of their Pro series, the Seestar S30 Pro telescope. What's new compared to the current Seestar S30? The main upgrade is the addition of the Sony IMX585 (Starvis 2) to the main camera as well as a Sony IMX586 to the wide angle camera. (The Seestar S30 has two cameras and optical systems.) The main lens in the Pro is now a four element APO in place of the three element design. There's also been an upgrade of internal storage to 256Gb. Fans of Milky Way wide angle astrophotography will be chuffed to learn that the wide angle camera on the Seestar S30 Pro is now fully capable of capturing deep-sky views up to 84 degrees wide in full 4K resolution.  Combined with the new EQ (equatorial) mode with Polar Alignment assistance that's been rolled out to all ZWO Seestar owners, the new S30 Pro is likely to be the astronomy tool to capture expansive images our wonderful southern skies. Bear in mind these S30 telescopes are tiny critters and easily fit in a shoulder bag  - many folks might the S30 Pro a possible replacement for a heavy DSLR camera and lens, star tracker and tripod when travelling to grab Milky Way shots. In fact, there will a be dedicated Milky Way mode in the Seestar app as well as a star trail mode. Head of ZWO, Sam Wen, posted some test images taken with the main camera and upgraded sensor of the Seestar S30 Pro. This is an image of the Lagoon and Trifid Nebula (M8, M20) region in the constellation of Sagittarius. This is the result of just 4 minute of exposures, highlighting the potential of this new telescope.  We'll have pricing and availability of the Seestar S30 Pro soon, but it will be a few months away. ZWO also announced the ASI585MC Air and the ASI2600MC/MM Air.  These are all-in-one cameras that now include a built-in ZWO ASIAIR  This enables the camera to handle the entire telescope mount control, astro object tracking, telescope focusing, image processing and more via phone or iPad/tablet app.  Small but super handy upgrades for astro imagers from ZWO is their new 30F5 Guidescope that's already been announced, as well as the new ZWO EAF that now has an internal battery and on-board buttons, reducing the need for an external hand controller. Celestron made their product announcements ahead of NEAF and were highlighting their new releases on their stand. The Celestron 6" RASA (Rowe-Ackermann Schmidt Astrograph) is a compact, widefield telescope that's dedicated to astrophotography. The fast f/2.2 optical system can take wide angle, highly detailed deep-sky images in minutes. You can read more about the RASA 6" on the BINTEL website here. This new telescope has a great combination of portability and optical design to make it a popular choice for serious astrophotographers, especially when you need to travel to dark sky sites.  Cheers, Earl White  BINTEL 6th April 2025

NASA/ESA/CSA's JWST (James Webb Space Telescope) captures Neptune's auroras for the first time In exactly the same way highly energised particles from the Sun cause spectacular displays in the upper atmosphere here on Earth, the same process happens on the outer Solar System planets.  Images released this morning from NASA of the Aurora on the outer ice giant planet, Neptune. Astronomers had seen displays like these on Jupiter, Saturn and even Uranus, but Neptune had evaded confirmation until now.  One of the curious things about the aurora on Neptune is the planet's magnetic field that has a strange tilt away from its axis. On Earth, northern sand southern lights usually occur closer to the pole and away from the equator. On Neptune they are seen much further away from the pole. If this was on Earth, you'd be heading to Queensland to see "the lights" and not Norway. Read more on this announcement here.  Boeing to take another crack at sending its Starliner spacecraft to the ISS (International Space Station) Following on the landing last week of NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams after their extended stay on the ISS, aerospace company Boeing have stated that the problems that prevented the crew from returning to Earth onboard their Starliner capsule have been solved. Boeing have now confirmed that an uncrewed Starliner flight to the ISS will take place before another crewed mission is attempted. Starliner at the ISS. Image via NASA “What we’d like to do is that one flight and then get into a crew rotation flight,” explained Steve Stitch, NASA's commercial crew program manager. “So, the next flight up would really test all the changes we’re making to the vehicle, and then the next flight beyond that, we really need to get Boeing into a crew rotation. So, that’s the strategy.” Bear in mind the Starliner capsule that originally took Suni and Butch to the ISS in 2024 returned to Earth and landed safely under remote control.  Read more about the possible return of Starliner to the ISS here. How NASA is testing Space Suit materials on the surface of Mars What's the best way to try out to see how a material handles a tough environment? Tie it to the outside of your car and drive around with it for a while to test wear and tear? The Perseverance Mars Rover and the spacesuit materials it's been testing for the last four years. Image via: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS It's pretty much what NASA has been doing with its Perseverance Rover on Mars. Since landing in 2021 tasked with looking signs of ancient life and further examining the Martian surface and environment, it's also carried a number of auxiliary experiments. One of these is to test a range of fabric and material swatches to see how they handle being on Mars.  “This is one of the forward-looking aspects of the rover’s mission — not just thinking about its current science, but also about what comes next,” said planetary scientist Marc Fries of NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, who helped provide the spacesuit materials. “We’re preparing for people to eventually go and explore Mars.” Scientists are about to move onto studying the results of these tests to help design spacesuits that will have to last years in the Martian environment.   Read more here. Saturn's rings have disappeared...well sort of. Did you see media reports or online posts this week about how Saturn's rings have "disappeared"? It's not exactly untrue! Saturn orbits the Sun tilted on its axis in a similar way to the Earth does. It means at some parts of its orbit or "year" the southern part of the Saturn will be pointed more towards the Sun (similar to the summer we've just been through in Australia) and at other times the northern regions will be pointing that way. (i.e. like a northern hemisphere summer) At exactly halfway or at Equinox, Saturn will point evenly at the Sun.  (We had our own Equinox only last week.) The rings of Saturn are enormous, spanning almost three quarters of the distance from the Earth to the Moon.  They're also very thin. In fact, they're probably the flattest structure we know of in the entire Universe. When Saturn goes through Equinox, its rings are pointed right at Earth edge on. Saturn during a previous ring crossing. Image via  NASA/ESA/STScI/Amy Simon Imagine a playing card -easy to see but almost disappears from view from when you view it edge-on. This is what we're seeing with Saturn's rings and the event is called a ring crossing.  Saturn is very close to the Sun in the sky at the moment and hard to observe. When it emerges from the Sun's glare you'll start to see more of the rings towards the end of year, but you'll really have to wait a couple of years before they're back to being "the rings of Saturn" as we know them. From an astronomer's point of view, it's not all bad news. It's easier to view Saturn's moons as they cross the planet if the rings are more edge on. The Cassini spacecraft also observed Saturn's rings from above during an Equinox in 2009.  Cassini at Saturn in 2009  showing the view from directly above the rings. Note the shadows. - Image via NASA By measuring the length of the long shadows cause by tiny variations in the complexities of Saturn's rings and a bit of simple trigonometry, researchers were able find these features were sometimes only a few metres high - on a flat surface some 280,000 kms wide. A favourite summer constellation, Orion, is about to leave our skies One of the most familiar and wonderful summer constellations, Orion, is about to leave our night skies for the upcoming cooler seasons.  The view from Sydney on the 29th of March 2025 around 8.00pm - and yes, Orion will appear to be on its side. Image via Stellarium Over the next few weeks, you'll notice Orion, as well as The Pleiades open cluster and the planet Jupiter will be lower and lower in the skies as it gets dark, only to reappear in the early morning skies in the coming months. The coming weeks will be your last chance to see or photograph The Great Orion  Nebula (M42) for a little while. We'll be touching on what you'll see in April and beyond next week! Cheers, Earl White BINTEL  29th March 2025

The BIG space news this week has been the return to Earth of the two NASA astronauts, Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, who took the initial  Boeing Starliner capsule for what was supposed to be an eight day mission that turned into a nine month long sojourn aboard the ISS (International Space Station).  There were a few folks wondering that if astronauts like these need to be stretchered off their spacecraft after landing, following months in space, how are Mars astronauts going to function after landing when they've spent 7-9 months travelling to the red planet?  It's something that's often seen when astronauts return from extended stays in space. NASA Astronaut Sunni Williams following her splashdown this week. Image via NASA BINTEL had a chat with the Dr. Jon Clarke, president of the Mars Society Australia about this: "The footage is a bit misleading.  I had several conversations with a regular visitor to Australia,  Dr Vadim Gushin of the Institute of Bio-Medical Problems in Moscow, about this topic.  If the astronauts do their exercises they have no major problems, despite some muscle wastage, bone density loss, and obviously the need to readjust their vestibular systems.  Case in point, Shannon Lucid, who walked down the Shuttle stairs after six months on Mir, or the Russian cosmonauts such Musa Manarov who at the post flight media conference when asked how he felt after a record stint in orbit, did a one-arm handstand." This means astronauts are likely to be back on their feet and ready to explore the Martian surface not long after landing, even after their long journey.  "That said, they are often a bit wobbly, which is why they keep them seated. The medicos, according to Dr Vadim, also want to keep them as inactive as possible for their preliminary assessment to be as close to in space conditions as possible." continued Dr. Clarke.  JWST (James Webb Space Telescope) photographs four giant planets around the young large star, HR 8799. Astronomers have known for some years that HR 8799 is the home to a number of planets.  The first of these were discovered  in the infrared part of the spectrum with the Keck and Gemini telescopes in Hawaii.  Now the JWST has directly photographed the four giant planets orbiting HR 8799. The four planets around HR 8799 shown are above. Please note this is a direct image of them taken with the JWST, not an illustration or computer simulation. The "star" over HR 8799 blocks the light from the star itself to help image the much dimmer planets.  Astronomers also found evidence of carbon dioxide in these planets' atmospheres, indicating they were formed much like our local gas giants Jupiter and Saturn. A smaller, solid core gradually attracted gas over time. You can read more about this fascinating discovery here. Four planets found around the second closest star to Earth Most people would know that Alpha Centauri is the closest "star" to Earth. It's visible as the lower of the two pointers to Southern Cross and shines with a slight yellowish colour. Even a small telescope will show that Alpha Centauri is a double star, with two bright stars close together in the eyepiece. There's a much fainter companion to these two - Proxima Centauri, which can't be spotted so easily.   The closest single star system, or what could be described as the "second closest star to Earth" is called Barnard's Star. This is a small red-dwarf, much smaller and cooler than our Sun, and more than twice its age at over 10 billion years old. It was discovered by E. E. Barnard at Yerkes Observatory in 1916 - and we've now been trying to find planets around it for over a hundred years. An illustration of Barnard's Star as seen from one of its planets. International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/P. Marenfeld There's been some debate over the years about whether Barnard's Star has any planets orbiting around it, however new results from Gemini North telescope in Hawaii have now identified four rocky planets.  These are all much smaller than the Earth, orbit quickly around Barnard's Star, and all are also far too hot to support life like we know it on Earth.   These new planets were found using a technique called radial velocity method, which measures extremely small "wobbles" in the host star's movement which allows astronomers to not only infer the existence of planets, but also confirms their number and even their mass. There's a full press release here that goes into the new discovery in more detail. These newly discovered exoplanets have not been observed directly, and are beyond the current imaging capabilities of any Earth or space based telescope.  First images from the world's largest radio telescope: it works but it's just getting going. The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) Observatory hopes to make major contributions to our knowledge of some of the "big" questions about the Universe, including the formation and evolution of galaxies, fundamental physics in extreme environments, even exploring the origins of life. Still under construction at sites in Australia and South Africa, it will eventually consist of  hundreds of dishes and thousands of antennas. The SKAO’s facilities will be the two most advanced radio telescopes on Earth. The first image from an early working version of the SKA-Low telescope, using just 1,024 of the planned 131,072 antennas. The bright "stars" are in fact distant galaxies. The Full Moon is shown to indicate how much of the sky is contained.  The project this week released a wide field image taken using only a small percentage of SKA-Low's final capabilities. SKA-Low is one of two telescopes under construction by the SKA Observatory (SKAO) and is located in Western Australia.  This new image covers an area of some 25 square degrees or about as much as 100 full Moon. It shows around 85 of the brightest galaxies in that part of the sky, however it's only an initial test. Sebastian Neuweiler from the SKAO and CSIRO told BINTEL: "The first image was produced using data collected from the first four connected SKA-Low stations, which together comprise 1,024 of the eventual 131,072 antennas of SKA-Low, spread over a distance of just under 6 km." "By 2026/2027, another 16,000 antennas will make SKA-Low the most sensitive radio telescope of its kind in the world and enable it to detect over 4,500 galaxies in the same area of the sky." "By 2028/2029, SKA-Low will count over 78,000 antennas and be able to detect more than 23,000 galaxies in this field. The full SKA-Low telescope will count more than 130,000 antennas, spread over 74 km. Deep surveys performed of this area of the sky from 2030 will be able to reveal up to 600,000 galaxies." SKA-Low Lead Commissioning Scientist Dr George Heald commented: “The quality of this image was even beyond what we hoped for using such an early version of the telescope,” Dr Heald said.  “The bright galaxies we can see in this image are just the tip of iceberg. With the full telescope we will have the sensitivity to reveal the faintest and most distant galaxies, back to the early Universe when the first stars and galaxies started to form. This is technically difficult work and the first step to unlocking the awesome science that will be possible.”   Read more via the SKAO website here as well as an excellent article at The Conversation here.  It's staggering to think what we'll learn when this magnificent facility is completed in 2029.  Cheers, Earl White  BINTEL 22nd March  2025  

As always, lots of news about astronomy and space this week. New moons discovered around Saturn. Heaps of them. The Solar System planet with the most spectacular set of rings, the gas giant Saturn, has long been known to have a large number of moons.  This number essentially doubled this week with the announcement of the discovery of a further 128 moon orbiting Saturn.  These are small, only a few kms across and oddly shaped. They're not large enough to form themselves into a spherical shape under their own gravity. We also might have problems coming up with new names for them all. Read more in our article here.  The world's largest digital camera installed in a remarkable telescope The 3,200 megapixel LSST Camera, weighing over 3 tonnes, has been installed on the Simonyi Survey Telescope at the Vera. C. Rubin Observatory in Chile. Apart from its size, the LSST Camera is part of one of the most ambitious scientific facilities every constructed by humans. The aim of the Vera. C. Rubin Observatory is not just to photograph and observe the southern night sky, but to capture a complete photographic record every few nights. This means that rather than spending years gradually photographing and observing different objects in various parts of the sky, this new LSST Camera will capture a virtual movie of the sky over a 10 year period.  By comparing the sky night to night, it will be able image a range of Transient Phenomena - new comets, supernovae, black hole binaries; gamma-ray bursts and X-ray flashes which are thought to be from the death of massive stars.  It's likely to spot new comets, and no doubt find many more interstellar objects passing through the Solar System such as Oumuamua and Comet Barisov.  Full testing of the Vera. C. Rubin Observatory is expected to commence soon and images to be released to the public shortly afterwards.  Read more about the LSST here.  A super massive blackhole found in the middle of the Large Magellanic Cloud. The galaxy next door is also packing a super massive black hole - and it likes to throw stars into intergalactic space! Large Magellanic Cloud  or LMC  - visible in our southern night skies as a misty patch several times the size of the Full Moon Last year we mentioned in a BINTEL blog article that the Large Magellanic Cloud or LMC is no longer considered the largest satellite galaxy of our home, the Milky Way. You can read about this here. Rather than orbiting the Milky Way, it's just passing by. While the LMC will not spend the next few billion years orbiting the Milky Way and instead chart its own course, the encounter has left the smaller LMC quite scarred and disrupted.  Now astronomers are suggesting that the LMC has a super massive black hole at its centre much like Milky Way does.  It's thought that most largish galaxies contain these, but there's never been one directly observed or identified in the LMC. (While we can't "see" a black hole as, by definition light can't escape its event horizon, we can observe the effects on stars, and interstellar gas clouds that such massive objects and their gravity cause. This was how the super massive black hole in the centre of the Milk Way, Sgr A*, was discovered.) What's been observed in the LMC are hyper velocity stars. There are stars that are travelling through the LMC at such high speeds they will eventually fly away from the galaxy and beyond. They've effectively reached "escape velocity" for the LMC. A probable mechanism for these fast stars is a nearby encounter with a massive object. These stars accelerated towards the black hole, but their path and distance from it was far enough away to stop the stars from going into orbit, or even descending towards the blackhole's event horizon. NASA uses similar fly-by techniques to speed up spacecraft headed into the Solar System by performing flybys of the Earth, Moon, Venus and even Mars! An artist's impression of a star being yeeted out of the LMC by the galaxy's supermassive blackhole at its centre. Image via: CfA/Melissa Weiss "It is astounding to realize that we have another supermassive black hole just down the block, cosmically speaking," said Jesse Han of the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA), who led the new study. "Black holes are so stealthy that this one has been practically under our noses this whole time." The LMC's central black hole is around 600,000 times the mass of the Sun. The Milky Way's own central massive black hold is around 4,000,000 the mass of the Sun. More on this fascinating topic here. Cheers, Earl White BINTEL  15th March 2025  

Earlier today, astronomers announced that the ringed planet Saturn now has some 247 moons after a further 128 were discovered.  This means that Saturn has more moons than all the other planets in the Solar System combined. These new moons are between 2 to 4km wide and possibly formed by the collision of larger moons in the distant past. Many are also irregular or "potato shaped" and not round like many of the planetary moons we're used to seeing. Saturn with several of its larger moons captured by Izaak Cerneaz using a Celestron 8" SCT telescope and posted to the BINTEL Society Facebook Group here. These new discoveries were made by Edwin Aston and his team with the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope using a technique familiar to many amateur astronomers in Australia and New Zealand: taking many hours of exposures and then stacking the images together. One of the new moons of Saturn -image via Edwin Aston et al. The moon is the "dot" in the middle of the image. Are these moons or just bits of rock in orbit around a the planet? There is a vast number of small objects in the Solar System with more being found. Should these new, smaller space rocks be called "moons", simply because they're in orbit around a major planet?  “I don’t think there’s a proper definition for what is classed as a moon. There should be.” said Dr. Ashton.  “With current technology, I don’t think we can do much better than what has already been done for moons around Saturn, Uranus and Neptune." continued Dr Ashton. Do these new moons have names yet? These new moons have been recognised by the Minor Planet Center (MPC), although for now they're just numbers in a catalogue and haven't been assigned formal names. With so many new moons discovered, the MPC might have to get a bit creative with naming as they've likely run out of classical Greek, Roman and even Norse gods to name them after! Some of the new moons of Saturn announced recently at the Minor Planet Center. You can read more about these spread over several bulletins starting here. Can I see these newly discovered moons of Saturn in my telescope? First of all - and we get asked this all the time - new discoveries like this are normally beyond the reach of the types of telescopes that our BINTEL customers use. While you will be able to see Saturn, its rings and many of its largest moons, these newly discovered ones won't be seen.  It does raise some interesting questions about just how chaotic the early period of formation of the Solar System. With Saturn tricky to see as it disappears in the evening twilight, when it reappears in a few months time in the early morning sky, you'll be able to view it through your telescope knowing the chunks of rock orbiting around the ringed planet have just doubled in number - with possibly many more out there! Cheers, Earl White  BINTEL 12th March 2025

It's been a hectic and busy few days for astronomy and space exploration tech. Probably the largest single event was the 8th launch of SpaceX's Starship yesterday. This is the largest rocket even flown - larger even than NASA's Saturn V rocket that took humanity to the Moon in the 1960s - and it a major part of plans to land people on Mars in the coming decade. This flight launched successfully and the booster was captured back the launch pad, however like the previous mission, the Starship spacecraft itself exploded after a few minutes of flight.  After 8 launches of this massive rocket, no payload the size of a Corgi has been placed into orbit. See more here. Roll on Starship 9! A far more successful space mission was the Lunar landing of Blue Ghost 1 by Firefly Aerospace. Blue Ghost on the Moon with us all on the blue dot in the background. Say cheese This is a private mission carrying a range of instruments and scientific packages. It was FIrefly Aerospace's first attempt at landing on the Moon.  The second Moon lander from Intuitive Machines touched down software on the Lunar surface on the 8th March 2025, however it appears like their previous spacecraft, to have tipped over in its side. (I'm not an engineer, but it seems to me that if tall, spindly landers like those from IM fall over and the wider, squat lander from Firefly nails it on the first attempt, you might want to get someone in to look at that...) IM-2 on its side on the Moon's surface Only a few hours ago, NASA announced that they had received some data from IM-2 before the mission ended. On March 5th 2025, NASA also announced that it was shutting off two of the remaining instruments on the Voyager 2 spacecraft to preserve dwindling power and to help extend its mission as it journeys further into interstellar space. An artist’s concept depicts one of NASA’s Voyager probe. Image via: NASA/JPL-Caltech The Voyager-1 and Voyager-2 probes were launched in 1977 and provided our first up close glimpses of the Solar System's ice and gas giants before travelling further into space. This power down will hopefully keep the electricity generated from the decay of plutonium in their systems flowing for while longer: “The Voyagers have been deep space rock stars since launch, and we want to keep it that way as long as possible,” said Suzanne Dodd, Voyager project manager at JPL. “But electrical power is running low. If we don’t turn off an instrument on each Voyager now, they would probably have only a few more months of power before we would need to declare end of mission.” If you read our article a few weeks ago about Open Star Clusters and how to view them with your telescope, I mentioned that while we know of about 1,000 open star clusters in the Milky Way, many more are hidden by cloud of gas and dust. It now looks like astronomers have just found another nine open clusters! More details in the fairly technical article here. These newly found clusters won't be able to spotted in your telescope but don't worry - there's still plenty that you can discover and explore. A couple of years ago you might have spotted a BINTEL article about rogue planets. These are planets that have either formed around a star and then been ripped away from their host system or might have even formed in deep space. They're estimated to exist in vast numbers throughout the Milky Way and likely in other galaxies as well. You can read more here.  On the 3rd of March, a team of astronomers announced the discovery of SIMP 0136, a free-floating "super Jupiter" only 20 light years away. An artist's impression of SIMP 0136 - please note this cannot be imaged like this using any telescope Using the James Webb Space Telescope, the team was not only able to identify SIMP 1036, but it also found it seems to exhibit weather characteristics that cannot be explained by the planet's clouds of gas alone. A really fascinating object and you can read more here. As always, astronomy is a constantly evolving science with new and often puzzling discoveries always being made. Cheers,Earl White BINTEL 8th March 2025    

The 1st of March marks the start of Autumn in Australia and New Zealand. In the northern hemisphere autumn starts at the equinox, which can vary by a day or two. We start autumn on the 1st of the month to help farmers to keep consistent calendars to assist with crop plantings. The first week of March sees  Jupiter and Mars still fairly high in the sky as it gets dark. Both planets are past the best time of the year to observe them but still worth taking a peek at them with a telescope.  7th March is First Quarter Moon. The Moon will be visible as the Sun sets and dips below the horizon towards the middle of the night. Many folks starting out in astronomy often don't realise that this the time to observe the Moon, as the low angle of sunlight across the Lunar surface will highlight craters, mountains and much more.  9th March the Moon and Mars appear close together in the sky . View from Sydney on the 9th of March 2025 around 10.00pm local time.  10th March is a good time to catch the famous M45 open cluster which is also known as The Pleiades or The Seven Sisters before it disappears from our night skies until the warmer months return.  The Pleiades as seen in the north western sky around 8.30pm from Sydney on the 10th of March This is a young, open cluster of stars about 100 millions years old and known to cultures throughout the world since ancient times. There's seven stars easily visible to your eyes and many more can be seen with binoculars or a telescope. You can read more about open clusters in this BINTEL article here. (This cluster will only be together for another 250 million years, so you'd better get a wriggle on to catch it!) 14th March is Full Moon. Get your Moon Filters out! 20th March 8.01pm Sydney time is the Autumn Equinox  The is one of two times in the year when each part of the Earth's surface receives roughly the same amount of sunlight and the night and day are about the same length. The Sun crosses into the northern part of the sky.  The autumn equinox for us here or the spring equinox for northern hemisphere readers. Image via timeanddate.com 22nd March is last quarter Moon 29th March is New Moon Effectively this is when the entire side of the Moon that's always pointed towards is engulfed in darkness during the long Lunar night. It's also a good time to catch the constellation of Orion before it spends the next few months in the daytime sky, hidden from view, before returning in spring. Orion appears on its side as it does this time of the year, along with Jupiter and Mars. The view from Sydney 29th March 2025 around 8.00pm What can't be seen from Australia: March 14th a total Lunar Eclipse occurs which will not be visible from Australia. March 29th a Partial Solar Eclipse will be visible from locations in the Northern hemisphere. There's a lot more in the sky in March! Please comment with any events you'd like to mention and I'll add them to this article. Cheers, Earl White BINTEL  1st March 2025    

During March 2025, Sky-Watcher have some of their most popular telescope and DSLR star tracker mounts reduced in price. Here's a few suggestions!  AZ-EQ6 - Dual EQ and AZ Mount with tripod - now $2,499 This is the heavy duty version of the long serving EQ6 platform that has been used by astrophotographers around world for many years to produce stunning astro images as well as a stable platform for serious visual observing for extended periods.  The "AZ" part of the name refers to the mount ability to be used in both standard equatorial EQ mode as well as AZ or altazimuth setup. Using this, two optical tubes, mounted side by side, can be attached. For example, a SCT on one side and a wide field refractor on the other.  A full height, metal tripod is included as well as a SynScan hand controller. You can plug in a PC to control the mount via a USB cable and there's also an optional Wi-Fi adaptor.  As the SynScan protocol used in Sky-Watcher mounts is an industry standard, the range of supported apps and PC applications is extensive. Full details here. Star Adventurer Pro 2i Kit - now $549 The Star Adventurer series were the "star tracker" mounts that popularised taking wide field portraits of the Milky Way and other large scale structures in the night sky. There's a vast collection of deep-sky astro objects with colours and fascinating features that are just beyond the abilities of our eyes to see - they're revealed surprisingly easily by DSLR camera with long exposures. The problem is that while the DSRL is taking an image, the world turns and the sky above us moves -resulting in blurry or streaky astro images.  Star trackers like the Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer moves with the sky, keeping the image still while your DSRL captures the ancient photons from distant parts of the Milky Way or even further beyond.  Even a basic DSLR kit with a starter lens will let you make beautiful starry photos - and with experience and other wider field lenses etc, the potential for producing remarkable art is almost unlimited.  You will need a tripod to mount the Star Adventurer mount and camera. If you already have a sturdy tripod as part of your photographic kit it's likely to work well, otherwise have a chat with us about tripod option. The other thing to note is that's several Star Adventurer "kits", the astro, the photo version. This is the high end Pro version with all the accessories you will need such as a counterweight, a wedge and mounting rails. Full details here   Star Adventurer Mini Pro Kit - now $399 This is the smallest of the Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer model range. Unlike the large 2i models, this Star Adventurer Mini has motor drives on both RA and DEC axes, meaning it's a full "GOTO" mount capable to moving to any part of the night sky and tracking astro objects once they're found.  One of the appeals of this Mini kit is Wi-FI support as well - meaning you can control your mount with a phone or iPad/tablet. It's small than the 2i series and would be well suited as a travel companion for one of the new generation of compact mirrorless cameras. We're also scratching our heads to see if we can remember ever selling a full Wi-Fi GOTO telescope mount for $399 before.... Full details here MiniAZ  GOTO Wi-Fi mount and tripod -  now $599 This popular mount is designed for turning small telescopes into full GOTO systems. Using the SynScan app you can locate and then track objects in the night sky.  We'd suggest it will carry telescopes up to about a 130mm (5") Newtownian style reflector or a small refractor. The mount is also lightweight, making it ideal for travel, and a matching tripod is included.  As it uses the same protocol as larger Sky-Watcher mounts, the same wide of selection of programs and apps can be used the smallest of their GOTO mounts. It's a fun mount if you're keen on experimenting and tinkering - lots of YouTube videos about this system. (The Sky-Watcher Mini AZ is the same as AZ-GTi, and the AZ-GTe is lower specification version of the mount.) While Sky-Watcher suggests the the Mini-AZ is NOT suitable for astro imaging, many folks have used it to take photos. Full details here If you have any questions about these Sky-Watcher mounts, please drop BINTEL a message. There's only limited stock of some of these available in Australia.  Cheers, Earl White BINTEL  28th February 2025  

There's lot of talk in the media and online about yet another planetary alignment that's happening on the 28th of February (or the 1st of March Australian/NZ time) and won't happen again for another 400 years.  Why shouldn't we be getting excited over this date? First of all, the planets move around the Solar System at a fairly leisurely pace. The Earth as you'd know takes about a year to complete an orbit around the Sun and even the innermost planet Mercury takes around 88 days. Beyond Earth, Mars and the other outer planets takes even longer. The outermost planet Neptune take some 165 Earth years to complete a Solar orbit.  What this means is the any planetary events such as alignments or oppositions (when a planet is at its closest to Earth for a while) are great viewing the weeks leading up the event and after as well. They are not one of those "blink and you'll miss it" sort of astronomical events. The seven planets that are part of this 28th February/1st March "planetary line up" - Saturn, Mercury, Venus, Neptune, Uranus, Jupiter and Mars will indeed be visible in the sky so yes, that bit of the reports are correct. They'll also be lined up for many days before and many days after that date. Saturn and Mercury appear close to the Sun in the sky and will dip below the horizon while still in the glare of the sunset. This makes them very hard to spot.  Neptune which cannot be seen without a telescope will set with them. Venus will set a little while after sunset and will appear in the early evening sky as a blazing white star. Jupiter and Mars are visible even to you eyes alone for well into the night. Both are spectacular with a telescope! Uranus will also be in the sky after sunset but you will need a telescope to see it. You won't be able to see it with your eyes alone.  Where the Solar System planets will appear on the 1st March around 7.15pm Sydney time. Please note the Sun will be in the sky at this time. There will be seven planets in the sky early in the evening, some of which will be tricky to spot. They are also spread out over a large section of the sky and not in a neat straight line that the term "alignment" suggests.  Ok, so what's the good part? First of all, any news about celestial events is good news -  people looking up at the night sky will hopefully lead to a lifetime of discovery and wonder.   This "event" might be overblown by some outlets in terms of the number of planets visible, how rare it is and the date it's happening. On the plus side, there's still some of the most spectacular Solar System planets on show and this coming weekend the Moon is also setting early in the evening - meaning the night sky is not affected by moonlight and ideal for planetary viewing.  It's well worth heading outside and looking up, especially with a telescope.  If you don't have one, this Celestron StarSense Explorer LT70 AZ not only is a great way to kick off your astronomy journey, it even uses your mobile phone to show you the around the Universe.  You can find out more about this telescope here. Another larger telescope that will provide even better views of the planets and ideal for starting deep-sky observing is the saxon  6" Dobsonian. Dobsonian telescopes renowned for providing excellent value for money and this saxon "Dob" is a classic example of this. Read more about it here. We're big fans of using binoculars for astronomy here at BINTEL but planets are quite small in sky and you won't really see much more detail if you look at them through binos. While you're out there. Observing planets through a telescope is often what leads many folks into astronomy.  There's nothing quite like looking at a bright "star" which turns out to be Saturn with its rings or Jupiter with moons when you view it through a telescope. While the planets are spectacular, there's only a handful of them and there's a lifetime of deep-sky astro objects to explore within our Milky Way galaxy and even beyond.  Here's some guides to get you started: You've seen the planets, what now? A guide to the night sky in the coming months A guide to the night sky in the coming months part 2 - Globular Clusters A guide to the night sky in the coming months part 3 - Open Clusters and star colours These only touch the surface and there's more guide on topics like double stars and galaxies that will be our website shortly. If you'd like more information about some cool things are the sky every week, make sure you sign up for the BINTEL newsletter via our webpage.  We feature current sky and nature events, product updates and news as well the latest in astronomy and space missions. Cheers, Earl White  BINTEL 26th February 2025