Category Archives: Astronomy

A new generation of optically "fast" telescopes, connected to compact high-resolution video cameras, is poised to disrupt amateur astronomy in a good way.

Such "video astrographs" can transform our lonely pursuit into a much more social hobby. These new scopes can also bring magnificent, colorful, magazine-quality astrophotography within reach of modest budgets even for those of us living near light-polluted cities.

Leading this new era of happy disruption: Celestron's Rowe-Ackermann Schmidt Astrograph (RASA, pronounced "RAHZ'suh"). The RASA is purpose-built to capture wide, flat fields of starlight without introducing false color and without smearing or stretching any individual star's appearance (the dreaded "coma" problem).

It's called an "astrograph" because it's designed solely for photography. Think of it as a giant camera lens. You cannot use it for visual astronomy; there's no hole in which to plop an eyepiece! RASAs come in three aperture sizes. We looked at the most affordable RASA 8-inch (20 centimeters).

Related: Best telescopes for the money 2020 reviews and guide

The other heroes of this joyful revolution are new video cameras made by ZWO, Atik, QHY, Meade, Orion, Altair, Celestron and others. These compact, high-resolution cams easily fit onto the RASA's front plate, just where the image comes together ("prime focus"). Their compact, generally cylindrical bodies block very little of the view.

The RASA gathers light so quickly, it takes only a few seconds for software to begin to build a stunning image on a live video monitor. And the view continues to improve as the data build. For live video astronomy, it's best to use a color camera.

Buy Celestron RASA 8 on Amazon.com | $1,699.99

Capture wide-field, deep-sky images in seconds with Celestron's 8-inch Rowe-Ackermann Schmidt Astrograph. The telescope has incredibly fast optics and an ultra-stable imaging system. It does not include a tripod and mounting system.

Aperture:203mm (8") |Focal Length:400mm (15.74") |Focal Ratio:f/2.0 |Length:628mm (24.7") |Weight:17 lbs. (7.7 kg) |Spectral range:390-800nm

Say the word "video" and most people think of something moving on a screen. But video astronomy is not about seeing motion in the sky. True, every star in the universe moves. Our own sun along with planet Earth is slashing through spacetime at about 220 kilometers per second, or 490,000 miles per hour. The fastest stars those booted out by supernova blasts or slung around by supermassive black holes rip along at more than 1,500 km/s. Our human eyesight evolved to catch motion: Threatening predators, enticing food, treacherous situations, sexy people. But most stars are so far from one another, they don't seem to move on time scales humans can easily notice. So why shoot starlight on video?

Video is a stream of still images. If you stack them up rather than stringing them out you can use software to build up the brightness, bring up the color, subtract out the self-noise of the camera. If the telescope is "fast," those images can quickly add up to a glorious ghost of stellar nebulosity, materializing on a monitor, right before your eyes: The births and deaths of stars revealed. Something deeply moving on a screen after all!

You'll frequently see a telescope described by its "f-number;" "f/11, f/6" and so forth. That's it's "focal ratio" it's the number you get if you divide the focal length (distance from the main mirror or lens to the point where the image comes into focus) by the aperture (diameter of the main mirror or lens).

The lower the f-number, the "faster" the telescope will collect light, so the brighter the image will be. But it also means the field of view will be wider and the magnification lower. Faster instruments are thus better for photographing big dim targets, like galaxies and nebulas, which tend to be more diffuse. Slower optics are better for small bright targets like planets, lunar features and star groups. The RASA, at f/2.2, is a speed demon, fuzzy object grabbing machine!

Long before the novel coronavirus washed across our planet, we amateur astronomers were experienced practitioners of social distancing, though not by choice or necessity. Astronomy has not exactly been the most communal of activities. One spends a long while setting up, plugging-in, aligning, calibrating, star-finding, pointing, focusing and fiddling. These require concentration, which means not interacting with people very much.

Even before we needed to keep 6 feet (2 meters) of distance from one another, it wasn't that easy to coax friends or family members out into the cold to wait their turn at the eyepiece. They were inclined to be nervous about damaging your expensive 'scope; self-conscious about the folks waiting behind them. They were often bent over and uncomfortable adapting their bodies to our oddly angled rigs. So, they usually took much less of a good long look than they really wanted. This was hardly conducive to collective enjoyment. What should have elicited a "WOW!" too often turned into a "meh."

Video astronomy also called "electronic-assisted astronomy" changes all that. A live monitor connected to the telescope, or a live feed to the Web, instantly brings back the fun. With the RASA, "a laptop, and a camera is all you need," Dylan O'Donnell told Space.com from his Byron Bay Observatory in eastern Australia. An internet marketer by day, and a topnotch astrophotographer by night, O'Donnell publishes the extremely helpful STAR STUFF YouTube channel.

"If you wish to use a portable device, like a phone or a tablet," he said, "the ZWO ASI Air (Wi-Fi camera controller), or an equivalent, can make portable astronomy a little bit easier than lugging around a computer." With such a rig and good internet connectivity, you can live-stream the wonder of the universe to many people isolated behind closed doors.

Even before we needed to keep 6 feet (2 meters) of distance from one another, it wasn't that easy to coax friends or family members out into the cold to wait their turn at the eyepiece. They were inclined to be nervous about damaging your expensive 'scope; self-conscious about the folks waiting behind them. They were often bent over and uncomfortable adapting their bodies to our oddly angled rigs. So, they usually took much less of a good long look than they really wanted. This was hardly conducive to collective enjoyment. What should have elicited a "WOW!" too often turned into a "meh."

Video astronomy also called "electronic-assisted astronomy" changes all that. A live monitor connected to the telescope, or a live feed to the Web, instantly brings back the fun. With the RASA, "a laptop, and a camera is all you need," Dylan O'Donnell told Space.com from his Byron Bay Observatory in eastern Australia. An internet marketer by day, and a topnotch astrophotographer by night, O'Donnell publishes the extremely helpful STAR STUFF YouTube channel.

"If you wish to use a portable device, like a phone or a tablet," he said, "the ZWO ASI Air (Wi-Fi camera controller), or an equivalent, can make portable astronomy a little bit easier than lugging around a computer." With such a rig and good internet connectivity, you can live-stream the wonder of the universe to many people isolated behind closed doors.

As a member of Team Celestron, O'Donnell was one of the first to put the RASA through real-world, gotta-get-the-shot demanding paces. "I have used the RASA for live video style astronomy and these f/2 scopes are perfect," he said. "Some software like SharpCap and [Howie Levine's] Astro Toaster can provide live stacking features, which will build up an image from short exposures fairly quickly on-screen, while removing the noise and making astronomya much quicker, more visceral experience. At outreach events this techniquecan be very impressive with a projector!"

Watch Dylan O'Donnell mount a camera on the RASA 8.

When we are able to congregate again, this formerly lonely, arcane hobby can quickly become an enjoyable shared experience like a cool concert or the big game on a wide screen. Just please check, if you're planning on doing this at a classic star party, that your bright monitor will be allowed. Don't you dare despoil the dark for visual observers!

Astronomical get-togethers don't have to exist only in real time and real space. Social media shifts the star party through the fourth dimension: Posting the proud astrophoto you just made by stacking and tweaking last night's imaging run is a wonderful conversation starter.

Beyond grabbing live images for a display, video astronomy on the RASA can also dredge ancient light waves from the abyss much faster than nearly every other telescope. To get the sharpest images of the deep sky, it's best to switch to a monochrome camera and capture one portion of the spectrum at a time ("narrowband imaging").

The RASA 8's relatively small aperture means you can't use big motorized filter wheels; you have to manually insert single filters along the optical path to your camera. But this can be very worthwhile if you live under light pollution; so-called notch filters and sky filters can subtract artificial light from your images of the sky.

If you grab a number of exposures in sets, each optimized for recording key wavelengths, your final stacked astrophoto can reveal structure in the universe that was invisible to the largest observatories on Earth 40 years ago.

Thanks to the RASA's optical speed, you can do in 2 hours what other instruments can barely manage over two nights. And such a system can get good images under surprisingly light-polluted locations near cities. O'Donnell's "RASA 8 First Light Review" video will show you just what's possible.

Even though the RASA is fast, you still need it to accurately track a point on the sky. That demands a motorized mount under computer control.

Start by performing the best polar alignment you can. Then, "you really want to be guiding and dithering if possible," O'Donnell said, "so you'll need a guide-scope and camera connected to your imaging computer."

To "dither" means to slightly nudge the telescope in a different random direction each time you start a new exposure. This makes it easy to find and kill bad pixels (from the camera's sensor), satellite streaks (there are soon to be many more of these!), or any other consistent artifacts when you stack the shots to make your final composite.

Beyond dither, there's drizzle. A technique originally developed to perfect the historic Hubble Deep Field images is now available to you, the amateur astrophotographer. Drizzling technically known as "variable pixel linear reconstruction" can be invoked at the image-processing stage to restore information lost to under-sampling (one can only expose for so long). Drizzling on your image data can correct small geometric distortions caused by variability in the optics; the astrograph and the camera are excellent, but not perfect:

"One of the reasons the RASA 8 works so well is because the sampling is so good for popular cameras," O'Donnell said. "However, as the field is so wide, stars appear quite small and may feel blocky." But dither (as you're shooting) and drizzle (as you're stacking) can repair the downside damage done by wide-field image capture. Watch O'Donnell break down the whole workflow into simple, easy steps in his video, "Taking Photos of Space."

RASA Optical Tube Assemblies (OTAs) just the telescope itself, no mount, no tripod of three different dimensions are currently available: The RASA 8-inch (20 cm) can be found for about $1,700. Stepping up to the RASA 11-inch (28 cm) will cost around $3,500. You can watch O'Donnell's RASA 11 review video here.

At the high end, Celestron has also developed the research-grade 36 cm (14-inch) aperture RASA targeted to institutions, companies and agencies involved in space surveillance. Many of these big RASAs work to monitor space junk that can damage communications data satellites. Others stalk comets and near-Earth asteroids. A few are at work examining galaxies and galactic clusters.

Buy Celestron RASA 8 on Amazon.com | $1,699.99

Capture wide-field, deep-sky images in seconds with Celestron's 8-inch Rowe-Ackermann Schmidt Astrograph. The telescope has incredibly fast optics and an ultra-stable imaging system. It does not include a tripod and mounting system.

Aperture:203mm (8") |Focal Length:400mm (15.74") |Focal Ratio:f/2.0 |Length:628mm (24.7") |Weight:17 lbs. (7.7 kg) |Spectral range:390-800nm

Beyond price, the RASA 8 can claim two more advantages: It has a wider field of view than its siblings, letting you seize big celestial vistas, like the Orion Nebula, in a single frame. "That 400-millimeter focal length results in quite a wide field of view," O'Donnell told Space.com, "so unless you're looking at Andromeda, this telescope is less of a galaxy hunter and more of a big nebula monster!"

And the RASA 8 is also eminently transportable. The smaller 8-inch OTA can be used on a less expensive smaller mount, atop a more compact tripod; making it easier to get your rig out to dark-sky sites for better images or to travel your sky-sharing machine at star party locations.

The RASA 8's smaller size, though, limits the size of the camera you can fit to it. Your old DSLR is too big. So, probably, is a full-frame video sensor. In fact, the RASA 8 is pretty much limited to APS-C (Advanced Photo System type-C) cameras of the popular Micro Four Thirds format. But there are a lot of them to choose from

To pick the right camera for your needs, it's best to work with a qualified astronomy store. The area at which the RASA 8 can focus is quite tightly bound; your camera's sensor must be in that zone and only certain cameras will succeed. We worked with expert reseller David Barrett at High Point Scientific to configure our rig.

The vast majority of stars even most of those in our own galaxy can't be seen without a telescope collecting their light and a camera storing that light. Stare as you might into the night, you won't see what a "time exposure" can record. To see color and find structure in the cosmos, you must collect that light over time, storing it as a long-exposed image and, perhaps, stacking many such images. With a typical "optically slow" telescope, this can take many hours outside often over several nights and more inside, processing and tweaking at the computer. Astrophotography has, up until now, taken great patience and almost monastic meditation characteristics with which few of us are abundantly blessed.

Telescope optical designs each have differing capacities to gather photons (or particles of light) from far away. The faster a scope can grab them, the less Earth has time to rotate. The RASA can grab a basic monochrome ("black and white") image of any of the better known "fuzzies" (such as the Andromeda Galaxy or the Orion Nebula) in about a minute, with no need to guide the scope. A typical Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope (SCT) of the same aperture will need at least 13 minutes to get a similar image. And the SCT will need to be precisely polar-aligned and actively tracking the whole time, as Earth noticeably rotates.

In camera terms, the RASA is like a lens rated at f/2.2. That's very "fast." Only the highest quality prime lenses used by cinematographers typically deliver that performance. By comparison, the average SCT or Richey-Chretien ("R-C" like the Hubble Space Telescope) works no faster than f/10. Telescope designers use a more precise T-number, which takes into account light stolen by internal structures. The RASA is a T/2.5 system; a typical SCT does no better than about T/11.

Magnification is not the RASA's strong suit. Each of the three RASAs is a wide-field light bucket, best for bagging large, dim objects like nebulas and large (nearby) galaxies, but also for discovering asteroids, comets and locating human-made space junk. It's not for planets. If you're interested in investigating for yourself if Jupiter's Great Red Spot is really shrinking, get hold of a good apochromatic refractor.

Related: Best telescopes for beginners 2020 guide

At first, the idea seems kludgy: You plop a blob of video camera in the middle of the front end of an expensive telescope, so it sticks out into the night like a narwhal's tusk. Add to that the insult of a couple of draped cables: data (video) and power. Aren't you obstructing the most vital part of the light-collector? Well, no, you're not. A hybrid "catadioptric" telescope takes light in around the ring of its big "corrector plate" at the front, then bounces it off a large mirror at the back. In the more familiar Schmidt Cassegrain (SCT) or Maksutov Cassegrain (Mak-Cas) telescopes, that light is bounced one more time, off a small secondary mirror, and exits through a hole in the primary mirror where your eyepiece lies waiting.

With no eyepiece, RASA has no need for such a hole. Part of the genius of the Rowe-Ackermann Schmidt Astrograph (and its ancestors, the Fastar and HyperStar camera retrofits) is to bring the image to prime focus after just one bounce. So that's where you put your camera. You can't put an eyepiece there; your head would block most of the aperture.

The back-shell of the RASA contains an electric fan and a separate flow-through vent-port to help bring the optics into thermal equilibrium with the world around them. Differences in temperature across the glass surfaces can play hob with your focus, making your star field look like it's printed on Silly Putty. The RASA's fan gets 12-volt power from a battery pack or your power tank; that's one of several cables you'll need to run.

You'll also need to cable the camera. Outside of smartphones, there aren't yet many small, wireless high-quality video cameras. Perhaps with 5G network sprouting up everywhere (soon!), demand for such a "little beastie" will develop. Until then, we'll have cables in our fields of view. Those wires will introduce diffraction spikes into your images. But if you dress your cables out at 90 degrees, you'll get that classic four-pointed spiky star effect, which a lot of viewers find pleasing.

As the Apollo 11 crew was headed for the moon, the first charge-coupled device (CCD) image chip was being developed at Bell Labs in New Jersey. CCDs soon replaced the fragile and finicky tubes in video cameras. I first saw one applied to a telescope in 1985, at the observatory complex on Mauna Kea in Hawaii.

Modern barrel CCD astrophotography cameras are spectacularly "quiet" (low visual noise), especially when actively cooled. But they suffer from occasional "hot" pixels (individual full-white errors of quantum accumulation). And they will sometimes "bloom" (introduce a shaped glow) across the frame. CCDs take wonderfully detailed images, but they take a while to do so.

Gaining on CCDs in quality and available at lower cost are CMOS (Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor) sensors. They tend to be noisier than CCDs. But that noise is of a different, more subtle character. And CMOS sensors can be made smaller than CCDs, with much higher pixel densities. The cameras in your phone are CMOS. CMOS logic is fast; a quicker exposure through a telescope means a lower chance that motion-tracking errors will build up to distort your celestial portraits.

If your main focus (a poor pun) is on planets, Earth's moon or the sun, you'd be well advised to look to a CMOS solution first. Just please note that wide-field OTAs like the RASA are not good at small targets. If you crave distant galaxies and have, perhaps, a bit more disposable income for your astrophotography hobby look into one of the higher end scientific CCD cameras, which operate at 16 bit-depth.

Whether CCD or CMOS, shooting stars with dedicated video cameras gives you the advantage of active cooling, which reduces electronic noise. Your old DSLR doesn't have a fan (and it's too big to use on the RASA 8 anyway.)

Starting in the 1930s, a few professional observatories built large telescopes with cameras inside them. Designed by the Estonian optician Bernhard Schmidt, these instruments boasted fast focal ratios and very wide-field views. But changing the film was cumbersome. And servicing the camera meant taking most of the telescope apart.

The ability of these "Schmidt cameras" to seize broad swaths of sky quickly enabled many asteroid discoveries, supernova surveys and captured the earliest clues to the existence of the attractive force of dark matter and repulsive force of dark energy.

Starting in the 1970s, many of these grand old instruments were upgraded with some of the first CCD detectors in place of the film cameras. At first, CCDs were very expensive; in many cases, custom made. (One of the largest Schmidt cameras, the 48-inch (1.2 m) Samuel Oschin Telescope at the Palomar Observatory in California, has been upgraded with five successive CCD generations.)

In the late 1970s, telescope manufacturers serving the amateur market began to offer Schmidt optical tubes with 35-mm film holders inside, advancing amateur astrophotography beyond the self-made, bespoke rig level.

As the new century approached, and CCDs further displaced film, Celestron introduced its Fastar camera, designed to retrofit stock Schmidt-Cassegrain telescopes (SCTs). Owners would amputate the telescope's small secondary mirror, replacing it with the Fastar. This meant they could no longer observe by eye, but could concentrate starlight on the Fastar's 320-by-240-pixel CCD; quite primitive by today's 3,840-by-2,160-pixel ("4K") standards, but amazing for the time.

In the early 2000s, the owners of Starizona, an astronomy enthusiasts' store in Tucson, Arizona, propelled the hobby of astrophotography forward with the innovative HyperStar retrofit kits. Owners could now attach their new DSLR (Digital Single-lens Reflex camera), or small CCD video camera, to their SCT. Wide-field electronic images, garnered by fast telescopes with short focal lengths, were now possible. But only certain telescopes could be converted. Smaller apertures would be useless with big DSLR cameras hanging on the front, blocking light. And it wouldn't have made good business sense for Starizona to create a kit for every existing type and size SCT in service.

Around 2013, the Celestron Co. came to an internal consensus that a dedicated fast, wide, astrograph a telescope tube built specifically as a camera "lens" could open astrophotography to many more amateur observers. Pioneering designs by David Rowe, and innovative improvements from Mark Ackermann, challenged Celestron's engineers to bring an affordable mass-produced astrograph to market. Rowe and Ackermann were honored as the "R" and "A" in RASA. And the RASA 11 was born.

Driven by consumer demand for better digital cameras and imaging smartphones, video sensors continued shrinking even as they grew in pixels. This spawned the clutch of less-massive, purpose-built astrophotography cameras available today. With smaller bodies generally cylindrical in shape such cameras obscure less of the telescope's working area, making it possible for Celestron to offer the RASA design concept in a more affordable 8-inch aperture footprint.

Remember those grand old Schmidt tubes with the film cameras inside? Now, as video cameras contract, it's possible the next generation of consumer telescopes, beyond RASA, might put the camera back inside the tube, more or less permanently mounted. Ubiquitous 5G network connectivity could make the camera, the astrograph OTA and the computer-driven tracking mount all completely wireless.

Time will tell. In the meantime, fast (f/2) wide field telescopes like RASA, and compact, 4K video cameras are here now, producing wonderful images that are easy to post and distribute. Every one of us is a stakeholder in the universe. Help your friends to claim their share.

This article was prepared using the following equipment:

Follow the author @DavidSkyBrody. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

See more here:

Video astronomy: Bring the universe to your friends with Celestron's RASA 8 telescope - Space.com

There are very many references to the Sun, Moon, stars, planets, meteors, etc., in Vedic literature before 1500 BCE. The Sun is the Lord of the universe, and the Moon shines by the Suns light. The Earth is described as a sphere.

Even casual observations of the sky would reveal that there are three clear time-markers in the sky, namely, a day, a lunar month and a year. All the major civilisations tried to understand the correlations among these time units. A verse in Rigveda says: The wheel (of time) formed with 12 spokes, revolves round the heavens, without wearing out. O Agni, on it are 720 sons (that is, days and nights).

So, a year has 12 months and 360 days. Later in Taittireeya Samhitaa, there is a clear mention of a solar year of 365 days. The names of the 12 months are given in this Samhitaa as: Madhu, Maadhava, Shukra, Shuci, Nabhas, Nabhasya, Isha, Urjaa, Sahas, Sahasya, Tapas and Tapasya. Now a lunar month is nearly 29.5 days, and 12 lunar months make 354 days. To align the lunar months and the solar year, there would be an extra intercalary month or adhika maasa called samsarpa in some years.

In the Rigveda, it is stated that God Varuna charted a broad path for the Sun in the sky. This obviously refers to the ecliptic, which is the path of the apparent motion of the Sun around the Earth in the sky, in the stellar background. It is inclined to the celestial equator, which is a large circle in the sky in the plane of Earths equator. This is depicted in the picture on the right.

Here S1, S3 are the equinoxes, S2 is the summer solstice, and S4 is the winter solstice. Vedic literature describes the apparent half-yearly northern (Uttaraayana; from S4 to S2), and southern (Dakshinaayana; from S2 to S4) motions of the Sun, and equinoxes in Taittireeya Samhitaa, Aitareya Braahmana and other texts.

The Moons sidereal period is nearly 27 days, and its path is only slightly inclined to the ecliptic. Then it is convenient to divide the ecliptic into 27 equal parts called nakshatras. This concept is essentially Indian, and the names of the 27 nakshatras, Ashvini, Bharani, ... Revati are also listed in the Taittireeya Samhitaa. The Samhitaa also refers to a five-year yuga cycle, wherein the Sun and the Moon return together at the same position in the sky after five years. All in all, there are rudiments of a calendar with 12 months in a year, inclusion of intercalary months appropriately, and 27 nakshatras as markers of the Moons movement. But it is not formulated mathematically and there are no clear rules.

It is in Vedaanga Jyotisha, ascribed to sage Lagadha, that we have a quantitative calendrical system, with a five-year yuga. One of the verses in it says: When the Sun and Moon occupy the same region of the zodiac together with the asterism of Vaasava (Shravishthaa), at that time begins the yuga, the synodic month of Maagha, the solar month called Tapas, the bright fortnight (of Maagha) and their northward course (Uttaraayana). So, winter solstice is at the beginning of Shravishthaa (Delfini) constellation. This corresponds to some time between 1370 BCE and 1150 BCE, though the text could have been composed a little later.

In the Vedaanga Jyotisha calendar, one has a yuga with five years, 60 solar months, 62 lunar months and 1,830 civil days. There are two adhikamaasas in five years. The concept of a tithi, which is 1/30 of a lunar month, is mentioned, perhaps for the first time. Vedaanga Jyotisha is the first text in India to give simple arithmetical algorithms in calendrical astronomy for finding tithi, nakshatra, the positions of the Sun and the Moon in the sky, and so on. There is nothing on planetary motion.

Compared to the actual value of 365.2564 days for a sidereal year, the Vedaanga Jyotisha value is 366 days. It has been suggested that this was for ease of calculations, with corrections introduced appropriately.

The Vedaanga Jyotisha gives a formula for the duration of day time (sunrise to sunset), according to which it is 12, 15 and 18 muhoortas, when the Sun is at the winter solstice, equinox and summer solstice respectively (one muhoorta is 48 minutes). The formula is reasonably correct for a latitude around 28.

The Kaatyaayana Sulbasutra (composed around 5th century BCE) describes the determination of the east and west directions from the shadows of a gnomon. Data for the annual and diurnal variations of a gnomon-shadow, given in Arthashastra and many Jaina and Buddhist texts around 300 BCE, seem to be based on observations. Recent research indicates that an eclipse cycle of nearly 18 years was in vogue even before the Vedaanga Jyotisha.

There is a long gap between 300 BCE and Aryabhateeya, the first extant text on full-fledged mathematical astronomy in India, composed in 499 CE. However, there were 18 siddhaantas earlier, five of which were summarised in Varaahamihiras Pancasiddhaantikaa composed around 520 CE. Exciting research on pre-Aryabhatan astronomy is going on.

M S Sriram

Theoretical Physicist & President,Prof. K.V. Sarma Research Foundation

(This is the fourth article in the series on Indias contributions to science and technology)

(sriram.physics@gmail.com)

See the article here:

The wheel with 12 spokes: Astronomy in ancient India - The New Indian Express

The sun could come from a large, loose-knit clan or a small family thats always fighting.

New computer simulations of young stars suggest two pathways to forming the solar system. The sun could have formed in a calm, large association of 10,000 stars or more, like NGC 2244 in the present-day Rosette Nebula, an idea thats consistent with previous research. Or the sun could be from a violent, compact cluster with about 1,000 stars, like the Pleiades, researchers report July 2 in the Astrophysical Journal.

Whether a star forms in a tight, rowdy cluster or a loose association can influence its future prospects. If a star is born surrounded by lots of massive siblings that explode as supernovas before a cluster spreads out, for example, that star will have more heavy elements to build planets with (SN: 8/9/19).

To nail down a stellar birthplace, astronomers have considered the solar systems chemistry, its shape and many other factors. Most astronomers who study the suns birthplace think the gentle, large association scenario is most likely, says astrophysicist Fred Adams of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, who was not involved in the new work.

But most previous studies didnt include stars motions over time. So astrophysicists Susanne Pfalzner and Kirsten Vincke, both of the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn, Germany, ran thousands of computer simulations to see how often different kinds of young stellar families produce solar systems like ours.

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The main solar system feature that the pair looked for was the distance to the farthest planet from the star. Planet-forming disks can extend to hundreds of astronomical units, or AU, the distance between the Earth and the sun (SN: 7/16/19). Theoretically, planets should be able to form all the way to the edge. But the suns planetary material is mostly packed within the orbit of Neptune.

You have a steep drop at 30 AU, where Neptune is, Pfalzner says. And this is not what you expect from a disk.

In 2018, Pfalzner and her colleagues showed that a passing star could have truncated and warped the solar systems outer edge long ago. If thats what happened, it could help point to the suns birth environment, Pfalzner reasoned. The key was to simulate groupings dense enough that stellar flybys happen regularly, but not so dense that the encounters happen too often and destroy disks before planets can grow up.

We were hoping wed get one answer, Pfalzner says. It turned out there are two possibilities. And they are wildly different from each other.

Large associations have more stars, but the stars are more spread out and generally leave each other alone. Those associations can stay together for up to 100 million years. Compact clusters, on the other hand, see more violent encounters between young stars and dont last as long. The stars shove each other away within a few million years.

This paper opens up another channel for what the suns birth environment looked like, Adams says, referring to the violent cluster notion.

The new study doesnt cover every aspect of how a tight cluster could have affected the nascent solar system. The findings dont account for how radiation from other stars in the cluster could erode planet-forming disks, for example, which could have shrunk the suns disk or even prevented the solar system from forming. The study also doesnt explain certain heavy elements found in meteorites, which are thought to come from a nearby supernova and so could require the sun come from a long-lived stellar family.

I think [the research] is an interesting addition to the debate, Adams says. It remains to be seen how the pieces of the puzzle fit together.

Pfalzner thinks that the star cluster would break apart before radiation made a big difference, and there are other explanations for the heavy elements apart from a single supernova. She hopes future studies will be able to use that sort of cosmic chemistry to narrow the suns birthplace down even further.

For us humans, this is an important question, Pfalzner says. Its part of our history.

Link:

Pinning down the suns birthplace just got more complicated - Science News

London's Royal Observatory has announced its shortlist for its prestigious Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition, and the photos are out of this world.

Multiple photos featuring the night sky, planets, stars, galaxies, and aurorae made the shortlist. This year's competition has a new award, the Annie Maunder Prize for Image Innovation, which is awarded to the person that can "transform images already captured and display the wonders of the universe in a fresh light," according to RMG.

The competition allows adults to enter all categories. Photographers under 16 can submit photos for the Young Astronomy Photographer category.

The overall winner of the competition wins 10,000 (about $12,570), and in each category, the winner receives 1,500 (about $1,880), the runner-up receives 500 (about $628), and the highly commended gets 250 (about $315).

Take a look at the stunning shots from the Astronomy Photographer of the Year Shortlist 2020.

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33 spectacular photos from the Astronomy Photographer of the Year shortlist - Insider - INSIDER

Everybody is curious to know about the universe but in the process of knowing it, we also learn and develop some superstitious beliefs. Shweta Kulkarni was also curious to know more about the universe but she channelled her interest in the right direction. That's how she was able to start the digital platform AstronEra. This 24-year-old, who is a Royal Astronomical Society fellow, tells us about her interest in the subject, "I was only 16 years old when my parents bought me my first telescope. I would show my friends the stars and other interesting things in the sky. They were really impressed with me. Gradually, I read more and learnt more about astronomythrough various platforms. When I was 18, I co-founded a non-profit organisation called Astron-SHK."

While educating youngsters about astronomy, she met several experts like Dr Govind Swarup, Professor Jayanth Narlikar and many others. That's when she got the idea to create astronomy-based videos, which eventually won her international fame. Shweta explains, "I wrote to the Department of Science and Technology about the lack of astronomical videos available for learners and our interest to create some of them. They gave us a grant of `2.5 lakh and we were able to produce five videos especially for the beginners in astronomy. We were invited to the International Astronomical Youth Camp held in the UK and were surprised to see that most of the people had already watched our videos. What they liked about them was the contribution of Indian scientists in the field of Astronomy."

With this newfound popularity for her videos, she decided to start AstronEra, an e-learning platform, in 2018. "Everybody has the right to learn about this subject and develop a scientific temperament, and AstronEra facilitates the same. This digital platform, incubated at IIMB'sNSRCEL, provides a wide range of astronomical courses for people of all agegroups." Currently, Shweta who is pursuing a BSc in Astronomy with Honours from theUniversity of Central Lancashire through distance learning, builds the content for these courses with the help of mentors and her friends who are also experts in the field. She explains, "There are different courses including space exploration, Hubble space telescope, a guide to buy a telescope, exploring the solar system, astronomy without a telescope and so on. As many students have shown an interest in studying Astronomy during the lockdown, we are offering most of these courses at half price. Over 2,000 students have taken up these courses so far."

Shweta also goes to government schools or schools in tribal regions to create awareness about the universe and various eclipses so that they don't follow superstitious beliefs. A few months ago, Shweta's team visited around 500 tribal schools in Maharashtra with a telescope and helped students observe the Moon. "They were surprised, happy and found it amazing. What more can I ask for? We also gave them two of our online courses for free which were translated to Marathi and Hindi. All I dream is to spread the knowledge of Astronomy and bring that interest for this subject among the youngsters," she concludes.

To know more about their interesting courses, you can checkastronera.org

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How this e-learning platform on Astronomy can answer all your questions about the universe - EdexLive

Most of us will be forgotten only a generation or two after we pass. But some few of us will be remembered: great scientists, leaders, or generals, for example. But we can add historys great artists to that list, and one in particular: Johannes Vermeer.

Vermeer was largely ignored during the two centures that followed his death, and died as other painters often did: penniless. But as more time has passed, the Dutch Baroque painter has grown in reputation, as historians increasingly recognize him as a master.

Though its not Vermeers best-known work, View of Delft has become recognized as a masterpiece in more modern times. Theres a long-standing mystery around Vermeers masterpiece: when exactly was it painted?

Historians have thought for a long time that he painted it sometime during late spring or early summer of 1660. But Vermeer is considered a master of light and shadow in his work. Many scholars have tried to figure out the lighting in the painting, and at what time of day the scene is based on.

Now a team of researchers might have figured it out. The team is led by Texas State University astronomer, and physics professor emeritus Donald Olson. Their work was published in the September 2020 issue of the magazine Sky and Telescope. Its titled Dating Vermeers View of Delft.

Some say that in the painting the light was coming from the west. Others say the Sun was directly overhead in the scene. After looking over maps of Delft, Olson and his students realized that the view is looking North. After figuring that out, it was clear that the light was coming from the southeast, making this a morning scene. This lines up with what some previous authors have concluded.

In a press release from Texas State University, Professor Olson said The students and I worked for about a year on this project. We spent a lot of time studying the topography of the town, using maps from the 17th and 19th centuries and Google Earth. We planned out exactly what we should do. On this research trip, it was the students who told us where to go to find Vermeers viewpoint and when to be there.

The team would not have figured this out without Google Earth, or at least not as easily. It helped the studentsCharles Condos and Michael Snchez from Texas State, and Tim Jenison of San Antoniomap out the landmarks in the painting. Then they determined the angles of view that were closest to what Vermeer would have seen centuries ago.

The team also concluded that Vermeers vantage point was the second floor of an inn overlooking Delft.

Google Earth is spectacularly accurate when it comes to distances and angles, so we used it as our measuring stick, Snchez said. Google Earth is basically another tool in our arsenal of techniques.

Id known about Dr. Olsons work for quite some time, and its always fascinated me, Sanchez said. Combining my appreciation for art and love of astronomy appealed to me. When he approached me about this project, I was excited.

One key to the work was the presence of a landmark in the painting called Nieuwe Kerk (New Church). Its an octagonal tower, and its a feature in Delft now as it was in Vermeers time. Some historians have said that Vermeer enlarged the tower in his painting, and the team wanted to test that claim as part of their work.

The painting itself is at the Mauritshuis museum in The Hague. Olson and the others visited the museum and took detailed measurements of the work. Then they compared their measurements with high-res photographs of the tower from a similar vantage point. After also taking measurements of the tower itself, they found that Vermeer in fact had not exagerrated the tower.

Understanding that Vermeer painted the tower as it was, was key to the teams overall work. The octagonal tower has stone columns that project from the corners. In Vermeers painting, the center column almost, but not quite, shades the column to the left. A thin vertical sliver of light just grazes past the center column and lights up the left column. The presence of that detail allowed the astronomers to calculate the angle of the sun with great precision.

Vermeer is known to have worked slowly. Completing all the details on the large canvas of his masterpiece may have taken weeks, months or even years.

Vermeer is a master of light and shadow, and that little detailed sliver of light was the critical clue in solving this mystery.

Thats our key. Thats the sensitive indicator of where the sun has to be to do that, to just skim the one projection and illuminate the other, Olson said. The pattern of light and shadows was a sensitive indicator of the position of the sun.

Once the team had a solid understanding of the time of day that Vermeer painted Delft at, a bunch of other details fell into place. One of those details was the clock on the facade of a building. People have placed the hands at just past 7 oclock. But the team wasnt sure.

The team of researchers had reviewed other paintings from the same time period, and noticed that in all other paintings with clocks, both hands were lined up as well. After more research, they discovered that clocks didnt have minute hands until late 19th century. As it turns out, clocks in Vermeers time only had one handthe hour hand.

With that knowledge in hand, the team realized that the clock in View of Delft had only one hand, pointing to a time near 8 AM.

Another clue was present in Nieuwe Kerk too. In Vermeers painting, the belfry openings are clear, whereas the present-day building has bells in the openings. The team consulted historical records, which showed that the carillon and bells were installed starting in April 1660 and was completed by September of the same year. So Vermeer had to have painted the city prior to that.

The team of researchers wasnt finished yet, and as astronomers, they had more tools at their disposal than most art historians do.

They used astronomical software to calculate when the Sun would have been in the right position to cast the shadows on the towers in the painting. There were two answers, but only two. It was either April 6th to 8th, or September 3rd to 4th. But the trees are covered in leaves, which was the final clue. In Delfts climate, the trees would not have burst into full leaf in early April, whereas they would be fully leafed in early September.

The team had their answer. Vermeer painted View of Delft as it appeared on September 3rd-4th, 1659. Or at a similar date on some year just prior to that.

Vermeer is known to have worked slowly. Completing all the details on the large canvas of his masterpiece may have taken weeks, months or even years, Olson said. His remarkably accurate depiction of the distinctive and fleeting pattern of light and shadows on the Nieuwe Kerk suggests that at least this detail was inspired by direct observation of the sunlit tower rising above the wall and roofs of Delft.

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Astronomers Do the Math to Figure Out Exactly When Johannes Vermeer Painted this, More than 350 Years Ago - Universe Today

"The heavens declare the glory"

NORTH CANTON July has been an auspicious month for stargazers like the Rev. David Ross, a lifelong of student of astronomy.

Hes been watching the Comet NEOWISE, which can be seen unaided in Northeast Ohio, just prior to sunrise. It will not return for 6,800 years.

On Sunday, the full moon, Jupiter and Saturn will align. On July 29, the Southern Delta Aquariids meteor shower will occur in the northeast skies.

"Theres always something interesting going on up there," he said.

Ross, a retired minister who co-pastors Simpson United Methodist Church in Plain Township with his wife, Barb, said the stars are a gift of Gods creation to provide humans with a sense of awe and wonder.

"I grew up in the 60s when the space program was all the rage," he said. "That just kind of stoked my interest over the years. Ive been able to enjoy building a telescope and taking pictures of comets, like Hale-Bopp."

In past years, Ross has done presentations on the Bethlehem Star.

"Certainly the Gospel mentions the Star of Bethlehem," he said. "Over the years, Ive come to appreciate, in terms of faith, the wonder of the world around us."

Ross cites theologians such as William Brown, who have noted that the Bibles "wisdom" literature - Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Job and others - contributes to the formation of character through extolling natures wonders.

"If youre able to open yourself up through the gift of creation and the strange things which humble us, thats an important element for building character," he said. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom."

Ross recalls being in awe during the last solar eclipse, which he saw in Nashville.

"Its an uncanny feeling to see that. To think that people in earlier times and ages must have wondered what this is all about," he said. "In 2024, its going to be the full megillah. The line goes through Wooster and Cleveland, so we dont have to travel very far."

He noted that ancient people viewed comets as a bad omen. Prior to Comet NEOWISE, there were two others in March and April.

"I think the Lords trying to tell us something," he laughed. "Of course, hes always trying to tell us something. If it takes a comet to do that..."

Ross said he thinks the current pushback against science is a result of institutions being buffeted by scandals.

"So many institutions and authority figures have been undermined," he said. "Everybody seems to think they can go their own way and be their own authority. With the virus, I would have thought the science behind how we stay well would have been one the place where we put some trust.

"In church we pray for people who are sick, but hope the doctors do their best. Some challenge is appropriate, but we see what can happen if everything becomes a matter of opinion. It happened in Bible times when the prophets said, `Everyone went their own way. Its a recipe for chaos."

Ross said his favorite Scripture regarding astronomy is Psalm 19:

"The heavens declare the glory of God."

"C.S. Lewis said he thought those lines were some of the most beautiful written in the English language," he said. "Hes someone who had a real sense of how the stars and sky through the ages have spoken to religious people and nonreligious people."

Lewis "Narnia" series, he noted, makes use of stars and planets in their plots.

In 2014, the Star of Bethlehem Conference observed its 400th anniversary at University of Groningen in the Netherlands. The group was founded by Johannes Kepler, who wrote a theory contending there was an alignment of the planets.

"For me, its less the scientific search than the wonder," Ross said. "I got interested in Bethlehem Star from `Its a Wonderful Life."

The film opens on an image of a group of galaxies known as Stephans Quintet.

"(Director) Frank Capra had a lifelong interest in astronomy," Ross said. "He studied at what became Cal Tech. At the time, those galaxies were the definition of things to wonder about. Its key element of the storyline."

Last year, Ross spoke at festival in Seneca Falls, N.Y., which honors the film.

"Its not until George (Bailey) changes his perspective, its after that hes able to see the stars," Ross said. "Its after he comes back from the bridge that hes able to see the stars again."

Ross urges people to visit Stark County Wilderness Center Education Director Robin Gills Facebook page, which features information on stargazing.

"It doesnt take a group or gathering to enjoy astronomy," he said.

Reach Charita at 330-580-8313 or charita.goshay@cantonrep.com

On Twitter: @cgoshayREP

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Pastor-astronomer: Recent solar events are gifts of awe - Suburbanite

Another instrument, the Solar and Heliospheric Imager (SoloHI), sent back shots of the zodiacal light, which occurs when sunlight reflects off dust particles in our solar system. Although these images dont signify a new discovery, taking them required SoloHI to tamp down the Suns glare to just a trillionth its actual brightness. By successfully completing the task, researchers are confident SoloHI can produce the image quality needed to study the solar wind (the instruments intended purpose) once the mission ramps up.

The Polarimetric and Helioseismic Imager (PHI) also beamed back high-resolution data showing the Suns intricate and powerful magnetic field. And in a first, PHI revealed a view of a local magnetic field on the Sun that was not visible from Earth at the time, exemplifying just one advantage of the spacecrafts intentionally tilted orbit.

The Suns magnetic field drives numerous internal processes, which can produce solar flares and other powerful outbursts. Such energetic solar events can affect us here on Earth, too from sparking stunning auroras to knocking out satellite communications and earthbound power grids. But by monitoring the Sun with spacecraft such as Solar Orbiter and the Parker Solar Probe, scientists should be able to better predict when Earth-affecting space weather will occur.

All in all, these first results show that we still have much to learn about our home star, as well as the forces that power its frequently finicky behavior. Solar Orbiter is off to an excellent start, said project scientist Daniel Mller. We are all really excited about these first images but this is just the beginning.

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Solar Orbiter sends back the closest photos of the Sun ever taken - Astronomy Magazine

By Dorothy de Souza Guedes, for The Gazette

A lifelong interest in astronomy and outer space led Scott Bounds to pursue three degrees in physics. After a stint at NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center near Washington, D.C., hes worked as a research scientist at the University of Iowa Department of Physics and Astronomy for 21 years.

Yet he learned about the Eastern Iowa Observatory and Learning Center the way many locals do: His sons Cub Scout pack scheduled a visit.

Up until then, I didnt even know the observatory existed, Bounds said of the facility on the southern edge of Palisades-Kepler State Park near Mount Vernon.

When he visited the observatory that night about 10 years ago, he was floored by what he saw.

They took us out to this big 24-inch telescope, that, unless youre a fairly wealthy astronomy buff, youre not going to have anything like that, Bounds said. Thats what really wowed me.

He learned that the Linn County Conservation Department and a club, the Cedar Amateur Astronomers, ran the observatory. He joined the club almost immediately, Bounds said. And hes been involved ever since, currently serving as the clubs president for the second time and scouting program coordinator.

LIFELONG ASTRONOMY BUFF

A childhood interest in space was almost inevitable: Bounds grew up in Huntsville, Ala., also known as the Rocket City. Thats where NASA did much of the early rocket design work for the Apollo space missions.

He visited NASAs Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville at least twice a year, read science books and magazines, and owned a small telescope. In college, Bounds joined the astronomy club and considered studying astronomy in graduate school before sticking with physics.

But I always maintained an interest in astronomy, he said.

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Bounds moved to Iowa City in 1999. As a research scientist in the space physics realm the field that acclaimed UI scientist James Van Allen effectively started he builds instruments for spacecraft and rockets. His specialty is near-earth phenomena, such as aurora and radiation belts.

The UI Physics and Astronomy department has a couple of telescopes, but he never used them. At home, his backyard wasnt ideal for viewing the night sky. Years went by until his wife suggested he join their son on the Cub Scouts visit to the observatory.

Thats when Bounds found his home as an amateur astronomer.

For Bounds, part of the appeal of astronomy is the unknown.

What is out there? Where do we fit in this universe? he said. We can see the stars but cant go to them, at least not in our lifetime.

Cedar Amateur Astronomers started with a dozen members in 1979. The club now has more than 100 members. The group raised $700,000 to build an indoor learning center and create a permanent home for a two-ton, 1960s research telescope, donated by the University of Iowa, that club members refurbished and reassembled.

The club holds monthly meetings virtually since March because of the coronavirus and maintains the observatorys equipment and grounds. The club also organizes public events and hosts private tours for scouts, school field trips and other groups.

If you have an interest in astronomy, the club is a good stepping-off point, Bounds said. The club caters to any level of experience in amateur astronomy.

They learn from each other what equipment to buy and what not to buy. After becoming a club member, Bounds said he bought a telescope a 10-inch Meade Schmidt-Cassegrain LX200. The downside of owning a telescope is having to set it up and align it before every use. The telescopes at the observatory are already set up and aligned.

You can just go up there and start using them almost immediately, Bounds said.

Grants secured by the club to build the Eastern Iowa Observatory and Learning Center came with a caveat: The club must open the facility and equipment to the public. And so it does.

The club schedules 12 public events each year, from March through November, including two each month in the summer. Typically, a speaker gives a 45-minute presentation on his or her area of expertise. For example, club member Carl Bracken organizes a Solar Day each July with daytime viewing of the sun.

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The astronomy clubs close relationship with the University of Iowa has played a vital role in the observatory having professional-grade equipment. The university donated the 24-inch Boller and Chivens Cassegrain professional-grade telescope used by researchers from the 1960s to the 90s.

The 4,600-square-foot observatory also has a 16-inch computer-controlled telescope and several portable telescopes. Members also bring and set up their own telescopes for visitors to look through. On cloudy nights, visitors can still go out to the telescopes and see how they work.

Theres a lot out there to see, to do. Its more than they expect, Bounds said. We try to keep everything in good shape, working order and very presentable.

The coronavirus pandemic hit just as the clubs 2020 schedule began. Public events were canceled and now, Bounds said, we are taking things month by month.

As soon as public events resume, they will be listed on the clubs website, cedar-astronomers.org/events.

If the skies are clear, we have the scopes up and operating, Bounds said. The club will be out there, operating telescopes until the last person leaves.

What: Eastern Iowa Observatory and Learning Center at Palisade-Dows Preserve

Who: Only open for public events and to Cedar Amateur Astronomers club members

Where: 1365 Ivanhoe Road, Ely (about halfway between Ely and Mount Vernon at the Palisades-Dows Preserve)

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Website: cedar-astronomers.org

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Eastern Iowa Observatory offers a chance to see the stars and so much more - The Gazette

Wednesday, June 3Venus is in inferior conjunction at 2 P.M. EDT. When this occurs, Venus and Earth are on the same side of the Sun. Such geometry is only possible with the inferior planets Mercury and Venus, as well as any small solar system bodies, such as asteroids or comets, whose orbits take them inside the orbit of Earth.

Today also marks the 50th anniversary of the first American spacewalk, completed by Ed White during the Gemini 4 mission. Shortly after sunset tonight, you can spot the constellation with the same name Gemini the Twins in the west-northwest. Its two brightest stars, Castor and Pollux, appear side by side above the horizon, roughly 20 high an hour after sunset. These stars represent the heads of the twins, with their stick figure-like bodies beneath them, standing upright in the sky. Castor, the slightly fainter white star to the right of brighter and orange-hued Pollux, is a multiple-star system whose brightest components A and B are easy to split. Theyre about 5" apart in even a small telescope.

Beneath Gemini is Mercury, still visible after sunset. Well return here tomorrow, when the speedy planet reaches greatest eastern elongation.

Thursday, June 4Mercury is at greatest eastern elongation (24) at 9 A.M. EDT, but the best time to view it is this evening. The planet wont set until two hours after sunset, but it may be challenging to catch at only 7 above the horizon (for observers near 40 north) one hour after the Sun sets. Its magnitude is 0.4. Youll find the planet about 15 below Castor and Pollux, again sinking in the west-northwest as twilight darkens the sky. Through a telescope, youll see Mercurys 8"-wide disk is 36 percent lit.

The small planet will continue to both wane and set earlier each day, fading in brightness even as its disk grows in apparent size over the next two weeks.

Friday, June 5Full Moon occurs at 3:12 P.M. EDT. A penumbral lunar eclipse will also occur today, although it isnt visible for observers in the U.S. or Canada, nor much of South America. The eastern portion of South America, as well as Africa, Australia, Europe, and much of Russia, will be able to view all or part of the event. A penumbral eclipse occurs when the Moon passes through the lighter portion of Earths shadow, called the penumbra, causing a shading effect, although none of the Moon will go completely dark.

North American observers can still get in on the Moon action, however, by swinging binoculars or scopes to the Full Moon to enjoy the sprawling lunar landscape on display. Be aware that the Full Moon can be exceptionally bright through optical aid, however, and will put a serious damper on your night vision. If you have one, use a Moon filter in your scope; alternatively, crank up the power, which will spread out the light and make viewing more comfortable.

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The Sky This Week from May 29 to June 5 - Astronomy Magazine