Astronomy

Uranus shows off its bright North Polar Cap on 12 September this year. Image: Luigi Morrone. Uranus, the seventh planet from the Sun, comes to opposition on 13 November at 17h UT, located among the stars of Aries. At its vast distance of 2.8 billion kilometres (18.74 astronomical units), more than twice as far away as Saturn and between four and five times Jupiter’s distance, sunlight reflected from the ice-giant planet takes around 2.7 hours to reach Earth. Yet Uranus shines bright enough, at magnitude +5.7, to be faintly visible to the naked eye and appears large enough in apparent diameter for a small telescope to show a perceptible and recognisable blue-green disc. Uranus is easy to find through a pair of binoculars at just over 2° south of magnitude +4.3 delta Arietis, some 12° north...

Hubble Space Telescope image of SN1987A in the Large Magellanic Cloud. Credit: NASA A supernova explosion is a cataclysmic explosion that marks the violent end of a massive star's life. During the event, the star releases immense amounts of energy, often outshining the combined light from all the stars in the host galaxy for a very brief period of time. The explosion produces heavy elements and spreads them out among the stars to contribute to the formation of new stars and planets. The closest supernova in recent years occurred in the Large Magellanic Cloud in 1987 (SN1987A) and now, a team of astr...

A pair of recent studies conduct in-depth analyses of Jupiter-sized exoplanets, also known as Exo-Jupiters, and were published in Nature Communications and The Astronomical Journal, respectively. The study published in Nature Communications was conducted by an international team of researchers and examines how Exo-Jupiters could be more common than previously thought, while the study published in The Astronomical Journal was conducted by one researcher and examines exoplanetary system, HD 141399, and how it is comprised entirely of Exo-Jupiters with no additional planets. These two studies hold the potential to help astronomers better understand the formation and evolution of gas giant exoplanets, which are exoplanets that are between the size of Jupiter and Saturn. It is currently estim...

The Antlia ALP-T dual-band colour imaging filter comes in a dustprotecting envelope placed in a foam-based plastic case. This provides good protection for the filter. Four magnets allow the lid to snap into place. Image: Nik Szymanek. There has been a radical change in the way that astrophotographers image the night sky. Step back ten years and the majority were using monochrome CCD cameras fitted with a selection of LRGB and narrowband filters housed in an electronic or manual filter-wheel. Although producing super results, great dedication was required in terms of the time needed to secure enough data through the filters, and a willingness to invest in expensive hardware. With the astonishing influx of high-quality cameras equipped with CMOS sensors (both colour and monochrome), a rapid...