Archive – Page 353 – Astronomy Now

Mighty Jupiter meets the Moon in the early morning

15 October 2014 Mark Armstrong

The coming together of a bright planet with a thin crescent Moon is an event well worth seeing, even if you have to set the alarm clock for an early wake up.

Good Morning Mercury

14 October 2014 Astronomy Now

Forget about Mercury’s evening appearance in the first half of this month – it is its morning apparition towards the end of October and into November that is the cause of celebration.

Dwarf Planet Eris at Opposition

14 October 2014 Astronomy Now

The trans-Neptunian dwarf planet Eris, discovered in 2005, comes to opposition in October. This distant, deep-frozen little world is within the reach of amateur CCD imagers.

Ultra-bright pulsar is an X-ray mystery

13 October 2014 Keith Cooper

Blinding bursts of X-rays are coming from a supercharged pulsar lying in a galaxy 10 million light years away, more powerful than any pulsar ever seen before. The discovery, by NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, challenges what we thought we knew about these extreme objects.

NASA Science Briefing: Comet Siding Spring at Mars

13 October 2014 Astronomy Now

NASA holds a news conference to discuss the close encounter of Comet Siding Spring with Mars. On October 19, 2014, the comet will pass 139,500 kilometers (88,000 miles) from the red planet.

Intelligent alignment: Celestron’s StarSense AutoAlign

10 October 2014 Steve Ringwood

Enter the StarSense AutoAlign: a device that replaces your eye and the often inexact judgement of the glutinous mass behind it.

From Dust to Life

10 October 2014 Astronomy Now

As its subtitle suggests, this book sets out to describe ‘The Origin and Evolution of the Solar System’ as seen through the work of generations of scientists who have contributed to the picture we now have.

Deep sky challenge: Skull Nebula

9 October 2014 Owen Brazell

Discovered by William Herschel in 1785, NGC 246 is a large planetary nebula in a star-poor area of Cetus. It must have been quite challenging for him to find as he often used high powers and small fields when searching for nebulae.

Total eclipse of the Moon across two continents

7 October 2014 Astronomy Now

One of nature’s greatest offerings can be seen on the 8 October when the Moon fully enters the Earth’s dark shadow and experiences a total eclipse.

Telescope grooming kit: Orion six-piece optics cleaning pack

6 October 2014 Steve Ringwood

Cleaning optics should always be approached as a careful, precise, military-style operation; this corralled armoury includes cleaning fluid, dust removal brush, a VariAir 200 compressed air unit, lens tissues and cotton swabs.