For any telescope to perform at its best, the optical elements must be aligned. With its magnifying secondary mirror, a Schmitt-Cassegrain is particularly sensitive to collimation. This process can be made quite simple by using a Duncan Mask which is very easy to make yourself and it removes the ambiguity of whether you have the optical elements precisely aligned. Click to read more
How wonderful would the look on a young child’s face be when they see Santa flying over your house on Christmas Eve? A little bit of astronomy and the International Space Station can make it happen. Click to read more
On December 9th 2013, the International Dark Sky Association (IDA) announced that it has designated two new International Dark Sky Places in the United Kingdom, including one representing the largest land area of protected night skies in all of Europe. Click to read more
A nova has erupted in Centaurus to a reported magnitude +5 to the west of Alpha and Beta Centauri. John Seach in Australia discovered on December 2nd with a DSLR patrol camera at magnitude +5.5. The nova is almost exactly centred on a star of magnitude +15. Click to read more
There has been a rapid drop in molecular emissions from comet ISON combined with a huge increase in dust, which indicates that ISON may have completely disrupted. Click to read more
Images taken of Comet ISON in the last few days by scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research and the Wendelstein Observatory of the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Germany suggest that one or more fragments may have detached from the main nucleus of Comet ISON which may explain the recent outburst of activity reported last week. Click to read more
I am a deep space junkie. But modern city living means light pollution often gets in the way of observing DSOs. Over the last 12 months I have undertaken a project to observe hundreds of double stars and I have selected my top 35 choices for colour contrast which in my opinion present a striking and memorable view in the eyepiece. Click to read more
The HST has imaged an asteroid, P/2013 P5 twice, 13 days apart which shows 6 comet-like tails giving the appearance of spokes on a wheel. The investigators published their findings in the 7th November issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters. Click to read more
Two teams report in Nature their analysis of the Chelyabinsk meteorite estimating the energy to be 500kt equivalent of TNT and find a common origin, 2km diameter asteroid 86039 (1999NC43) located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Click to read more
A statistical analysis of all the data accumulated by the Kepler mission has been conducted to reach an estimate of the number of Sun-like stars that have potentially habitable Earth-size planets orbiting them. Their conclusion is “22% of Sun-like stars harbour Earth-sized planets orbiting in their habitable zones.” Click to read more
