The spring sky

1/05/2015| Galactic whirlpools from Richard Pearson on Vimeo.

Running time: 40m
Made with the help of the BBC

We begin with a tour of the spring sky followed by a look at galaxies.

The Whirlpool galaxy, like others of its kind, contains thousands of millions of stars, and it is impossible to doubt that many of these stars must be attended by inhabited planets. There must be astronomers, too, living in the midst of Messier 51 and using telescopes, and they will be able to see our Galaxy as a faint, blurred spiral of light in their sky.

Minor planets in focus

1/04/ 2015 | Dawn at Ceres from Richard Pearson on Vimeo.

The Inner Planets: Mercury & Venus

February 2015| The Winter Sky

1/02/2015| The Winter Sky from Richard Pearson on Vimeo.

Sir Patrick Moore Celebration

A 1 Hour Special. Program | Copyright Acknowledgements: BBC & Channel 4.

Sir Patrick Moore is remembered today on the 2nd anniversary of his last TV appearance.

Sir Patrick Moore was part of the lives of amateur astronomers & professionals for more than half a century, during which time he popularised Astronomy through his books & monthly show The Sky at Night.

Patrick is remembered as the Pioneer TV astronomer who made the subject easy to understand to a worldwide audience, and as a result Sir Patrick Moore introduced a generation to study the science, which led many to become astronomers themselves.

Sir Patrick Moore touched the lives of millions of people worldwide, and perhaps you too have memories of Patrick that you will always cherish. Now sit back and reminisce the life of Sir Patrick Moore...

December 2014 | The Sun in Action

Look up on any clear night and you can see thousands of stars, all of different colours and sizes. Our Sun is a star, a perfectly ordinary star; it is so brilliant because we are in orbit around it at a safe distance, which makes it so easy to study.

We are now at Sunspot Maxima and there have been some surprisingly gigantic spots on view, along with mega solar flares. This month's program looks at the Sun and what makes it radiate.

Magnetic reconnection drives all aspects of solar activity. They determine the shape and structure of the corona, and play a major role in perhaps the most dramatic of all solar events: coronal mass ejections (CMEs), in which vast shells of plasma, with intertwined magnetic fields, are catapulted out through the corona into space. Each CME contains around a thousand million tons of plasma, and they hurtle outward at speeds ranging from 200 to over 2400 kilometres per second.

A number of professional amateur astronomers have helped me in putting this month's program together. I would like to acknowledge the valuable assistance of Pamela Shivak, Pete Williamson FRAS., Les Cowley, and Pete Lawrence (Sky at Night Team). Also everyone one who has allowed me to use their images of the Sun .. thank you.

The night sky this month

1/11/2014| The Autumn Sky from Richard Pearson on Vimeo.

Send your name to Mars with NASA

Add your name to a digital list which will be launched into space on board the Orion test flight in December.

October 2014 | Active weather systems

1/10/ 2014 | The Outer Planets from Richard Pearson on Vimeo.

I would like to thank professor Kunio Sayanagi & Trevor Barry for all their help while making this program. We do not often hear about the outer planets, now is a good time because there is interesting things happening in the weather systems of the planets Saturn & Uranus which is causing excitement among planetary astronomers. In addition, the planet Neptune was at opposition on 1 September 2014 and Uranus will be at opposition on 7 October. A planet is at opposition when it lies opposite to the Sun in the sky, and is therefore best placed for observation.

Here is a link to The William Herschel Museum web site | http://herschelmuseum.org.uk/

September 2014 | Comets Unveiled

Comets are colourful fuzz-balls in space that have a small rocky nucleus, a shimmering hallo of dust known as the coma, and a long dusty tail stretching thousands of miles in length. They have been seen by sky watchers for centuries, and were once believed to be omens to bad fortune.

Over the last decade, a number of spacecraft have visited comets, and have helped to reveal their secrets, in this month's program we look at some of their findings to help better understand the discoveries that await us from Rosetta over the next year.

Please visit our web site Vimeo where you can watch all the past shows of Astronomy & Space, and If you like this program please share it with your friends, and members of your local astronomical society.

A Spectacular Landscape of Star Formation

This image, captured by the Wide Field Imager at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile, shows two dramatic star formation regions in the southern Milky Way. The first is of these, on the left, is dominated by the star cluster NGC 3603, located 20 000 light-years away, in the Carina–Sagittarius spiral arm of the Milky Way galaxy. The second object, on the right, is a collection of glowing gas clouds known as NGC 3576 that lies only about half as far from Earth.
          NGC 3603 is a very bright star cluster and is famed for having the highest concentration of massive stars that have been discovered in our galaxy so far. At the centre lies a Wolf–Rayet multiple star system, known as HD 97950. Wolf–Rayet stars are at an advanced stage of stellar evolution, and start off with around 20 times the mass of the Sun. But, despite this large mass, Wolf–Rayet stars shed a considerable amount of their matter due to intense stellar winds, which blast the star’s surface material off into space at several million kilometres per hour, a crash diet of cosmic proportions.
          NGC 3603 is in an area of very active star formation. Stars are born in dark and dusty regions of space, largely hidden from view. But as the very young stars gradually start to shine and clear away their surrounding cocoons of material they become visible and create glowing clouds in the surrounding material, known as HII regions. HII regions shine because of the interaction of ultraviolet radiation given off by the brilliant hot young stars with the hydrogen gas clouds. HII regions can measure several hundred light-years in diameter, and the one surrounding NGC 3603 has the distinction of being the most massive in our galaxy.
The cluster was first observed by John Herschel on 14 March 1834 during his three-year expedition to systematically survey the southern skies from near Cape Town. He described it as a remarkable object and thought that it might be a globular star cluster. Future studies showed that it is not an old globular, but a young open cluster, one of the richest known.
          NGC 3576, on the right of the image, also lies in the Carina–Sagittarius spiral arm of the Milky Way. But it is located only about 9000 light-years from Earth — much closer than NGC 3603, but appearing next to it in the sky.
NGC 3576 is notable for two huge curved objects resembling the curled horns of a ram. These odd filaments are the result of stellar winds from the hot, young stars within the central regions of the nebula, which have blown the dust and gas outwards across a hundred light-years. Two dark silhouetted areas known as Bok globules are also visible in this vast complex of nebulae. These black clouds near the top of the nebula also offer potential sites for the future formation of new stars.
          NGC 3576 was also discovered by John Herschel in 1834, making it a particularly productive and visually rewarding year for the English astronomer.

Scientists spot white dwarf reigniting and exploding

It is a blaze of glory rarely seen in the universe.

Astronomers have proved for the first time that dead stars known as white dwarfs can reignite and explode as supernovae.

These incredible images were created to show the stages of the spectacular death,The finding came after the unique signature of gamma rays from the radioactive elements created in one of these explosions was captured for the first time.

Astronomers using ESA's Integral gamma-ray observatory now say they have demonstrated beyond doubt that dead stars known as white dwarfs can reignite and explode as supernovae. 

The 'smoking gun' in this case was evidence for radioactive nuclei being created by fusion during the thermonuclear explosion of the white dwarf star, the European Space agency said.

'Integral has all the capabilities to detect the signature of this fusion, but we had to wait for more than ten years for a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to catch a nearby supernova,' says Eugene Churazov, from the Space Research Institute (IKI) in Moscow, Russia and the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics,in Garching, Germany.

Although Type IA supernovae are expected to occur frequently across the Universe they are rare occurrences in any one galaxy, with typical rates of one every few hundred years.

Integral's chance came on 21 January 2014, when students at the University College London's teaching observatory at Mill Hill, UK detected a type IA supernova, later named SN2014J, in the nearby galaxy M82.

According to the theory of such explosions, the carbon and oxygen found in a white dwarf should be fused into radioactive nickel during the explosion.

This nickel should then quickly decay into radioactive cobalt, which would itself subsequently decay, on a somewhat longer timescale, into stable iron. Because of its proximity – at a distance of about 11.5 million light-years from Earth, SN2014J is the closest of its type to be detected in decades – Integral stood a good chance of seeing the gamma rays produced by the decay.

Within one week of the initial discovery, an observing plan to use Integral had been drawn-up and approved.

Using Integral to study the aftermath of the supernova explosion, scientists looked for the signature of cobalt decay – and they found it, in exactly the quantities that the models predicted.

'The consistency of the spectra, obtained by Integral 50 days after the explosion, with that expected from cobalt decay in the expanding debris of the white dwarf was excellent,' says Churazov, who is lead author of a paper describing this study and reported in the journal Nature.

With that confirmation in hand, other astronomers could begin to look into the details of the process. In particular, how the white dwarf is detonated in the first place.

August 2014 Astronomy program

1/08/2014 | The Summer Sky from Richard Pearson on Vimeo.

During August evenings the Milky Way is a fine sight. It begins from the constellations of Perseus in the NW, then passes up through the 'W' of Cassiopeia, Cygnus (The swan) high over head, and then passes down through Scorpio and into Sagittarius close to the southern horizon. There are also a large number of globular clusters on show, as well as some splendid deep sky objects. In this month's program we have some magnificent images taken by several of the very best astronomical photographers.

CREDITS: I am most grateful to Jeff Johnson, Vincent K.H. Cheng, Zlatko Orbanic, Oliver Czernetz, Terry Hancock, Noodle Van, Roberto Colombari, Robert Gendler and Alex Cherney for allowing me to use their splendid deep-sky images. The image of M57 was a corroboration between Trever Hancock & Fred Herrmann.

25 Years Ago, Voyager 2 Captures Images of Neptune

NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft gave humanity its first glimpse of Neptune and its moon Triton in the summer of 1989. This picture of Neptune was produced from the last whole planet images taken through the green and orange filters on the Voyager 2 narrow angle camera. The images were taken on Aug. 20, 1989, at a range of 4.4 million miles from the planet, 4 days and 20 hours before closest approach on Aug. 25. The picture shows the Great Dark Spot and its companion bright smudge; on the west limb the fast moving bright feature called "Scooter" and the little dark spot are visible. These clouds were seen to persist for as long as Voyager's cameras could resolve them. North of these, a bright cloud band similar to the south polar streak may be seen.

In the summer of 2015, another NASA mission to the farthest zone of the solar system, New Horizons, will make a historic first close-up study of Pluto. Although a fast flyby, New Horizons' Pluto encounter on July 14, 2015, will not be a replay of Voyager but more of a sequel and a reboot, with a new and more technologically advanced spacecraft and, more importantly, a new cast of characters. Those characters are Pluto and its family of five known moons, all of which will be seen up close for the first time next summer.

Image Credit: NASA

A Needle in the sky

This stunning new image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows part of the sky in the constellation of Canes Venatici (The Hunting Dogs). Released 21/08/2014 2:21 pm. Copyright NASA & ESA (Acknowledgement: Roelof de Jong).

Magnitude: +10.4 | Surface brightness: 14.00 | Dimension: 15.9’ x 1.8 ' | Position angle: 48 | Coordinates: Apparent RA: 12h18m 16.4s DE:+37°42' 43"

Spiral galaxy NGC 4244, nicknamed the Silver Needle Galaxy spans some 65 000 light-years and lies around 13.5 million light-years away. It appears as a wafer-thin streak across the sky, with its loosely wound spiral arms hidden from view as we observe the galaxy side on. It is part of a group of galaxies known as the M94 Group.
Numerous bright clumps of gas can be seen scattered across its length, along with dark dust lanes surrounding the galaxy’s core. NGC 4244 also has a bright star cluster at its centre. Although we can make out the galaxy’s bright central region and star-spattered arms, we cannot see any more intricate structure due to the galaxy’s position; from Earth, we see it stretched out as a flattened streak across the sky.
A number of different observations were pieced together to form this mosaic, and gaps in Hubble’s coverage have been filled in using ground-based data. The Hubble observations were taken as part of the GHOSTS survey, which is scanning nearby galaxies to explore how they and their stars formed to get a more complete view of the history of the Universe.

This stunning new image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows part of the sky in the constellation of Canes Venatici (The Hunting Dogs).

Although this region of the sky is not home to any stellar heavyweights, being mostly filled with stars of average brightness, it does contain five Messier objects and numerous intriguing galaxies — including NGC 5195, a small barred spiral galaxy considered to be one of the most beautiful galaxies visible, and its nearby interacting partner the Whirlpool Galaxy (heic0506a). The quirky Sunflower Galaxy is another notable galaxy in this constellation, and is one of the largest and brightest edge-on galaxies in our skies.

Joining this host of characters is spiral galaxy NGC 4244, nicknamed the Silver Needle Galaxy, shown here in a new image from Hubble. This galaxy spans some 65 000 light-years and lies around 13.5 million light-years away. It appears as a wafer-thin streak across the sky, with its loosely wound spiral arms hidden from view as we observe the galaxy side on. It is part of a group of galaxies known as the M94 Group.

Numerous bright clumps of gas can be seen scattered across its length, along with dark dust lanes surrounding the galaxy’s core. NGC 4244 also has a bright star cluster at its centre. Although we can make out the galaxy’s bright central region and star-spattered arms, we cannot see any more intricate structure due to the galaxy’s position; from Earth, we see it stretched out as a flattened streak across the sky.

A number of different observations were pieced together to form this mosaic, and gaps in Hubble’s coverage have been filled in using ground-based data. The Hubble observations were taken as part of the GHOSTS survey, which is scanning nearby galaxies to explore how they and their stars formed to get a more complete view of the history of the Universe.

Jupiter’s magnetic field revealed

Max Planck researchers penetrate with computer simulations deep into the interior of the giant planet Jupiter.
Superlatives are the hallmark of the planet Jupiter. Thus, the magnetic field of the largest member is about ten times stronger... than that on Earth, and it is in the solar system at the cloud top by far the most extensive magnetosphere around a planet. Puzzling it seemed a long time that this field has a similar structure as that of our planet, although both celestial bodies in the interior are constructed entirely differently. A team under the leadership of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Göttingen have now succeeded with the most detailed computer simulations to explain the origin of the magnetic field deep within the gas giant.

Available to watch from 31 August

YOU MAY WATCH ALL OF OUR PAST SHOWS ON VIMEO | https://vimeo.com/channels/astronomyspacetv

'We're ALL aliens' claims Scientist

By Jonathan O'Callaghan for MailOnline

Scientists have controversially claimed that life on Earth originated in space after plankton were found on the exterior of the ISS.

Earlier this week cosmonauts announced they had found the microorganisms living on one of the windows of the Russian segment of the space station.

And while the exact origin of these critters is still unknown, it has been claimed they may have come from outer space - supposedly like life on Earth.

Experiments have previously shown bacteria can survive outside our planet, but this is thought to be the first time more complex life has been found this far out in space.

Their exact origin is not yet known and will require further study - although it may just be contamination from the American segment of the ISS.

At the time of the discovery Russian experts said the tiny organisms were carried to the station on air currents from the sea where plankton is found in abundance.

However others claim this is impossible, with another explanation being that the minute plants drifted onto the ISS from elsewhere in space.

They insist this supports theories that plankton - one of the earliest forms of life - must have originally fallen to earth from space billions of years ago. And say this is proof that we are all of extra-terrestrial origin, a theory known as panspermia.

Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe, of the Buckingham Centre for Astrobiology, said algae-like organisms, or diatoms, have previously been found on meteorites which have fallen to Earth.

'Diatoms have been found on meteorites in Sri Lanka, but there has been no proof where they actually came from,' he said.

'This is the first time that we have evidence that points towards complex living organisms falling from the skies to Earth.

'The space station is orbiting the earth in a total vacuum, there is no air, so it is a total defiance of the laws of physics to say these organisms were blown into space from Earth.

'The only explanation is that they have come from elsewhere in space, and this supports long-held theories that plankton, and therefore all life on Earth including humans, originated from organisms in space.

'Everything that we have on the Earth is derived from space, including humans.'

NASA's RXTE Satellite Decodes the Rhythm of Unusual Black Hole

The signals have helped astronomers identify an unusual midsize black hole called M82 X-1, which is the brightest X-ray source in a galaxy known as Messier 82. Most black holes formed by dying stars are modestly-sized, measuring up to around 25 times the mass of our sun. And most large galaxies harbor monster, or supermassive, black holes that contain tens of thousands of times more mass.

“Between the two extremes of stellar and supermassive black holes, it's a real desert, with only about half a dozen objects whose inferred masses place them in the middle ground," said Tod Strohmayer, an astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Centre in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Astronomers from Goddard and the University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP) have suspected M82 X-1 of being midsize for at least a decade, but compelling evidence excluding it from being a stellar black hole proved elusive.

"For reasons that are very hard to understand, these objects have resisted standard measurement techniques," said Richard Mushotzky, a professor of astronomy at UMCP.

By going over past RXTE observations, the astronomers found specific changes in brightness that helped them determine M82 X-1 measures around 400 solar masses.

The Demise of Comet ISON

Before comet ISON raced past the Sun, it stopped producing dust and gas, as data from the SUMER spectrograph on SOHO show.

On November 28th of last year, thousands of people worldwide watched comet ISON’s fiery ride past the Sun. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) have now reconstructed the comet’s activity during its final hours. Their conclusion: already hours before its perihelion passage, ISON stopped emitting dust and gas into space. The new analysis is based on data from the spectrograph SUMER on board the solar observatory SOHO, a joint space mission of ESA and NASA. SUMER was the only instrument that was able to obtain data of the comet during the minutes of its closest approach to the Sun.

Images of the comet ISON taken by the spectrograph SUMER on board the solar observatory Soho on 28 November 2014 at 6.01 pm (Central European Time) reveal the tail & shape. The red dots mark the predicted positions of the comet & nucleus in intervals of one minute, the red cross depicts the last position at the time of the picture recording. The white arrow indicates the direction to the sun. Brightness contours and centreline of the tail clarify its appearance.
 
When comet ISON was discovered in the autumn of 2012, scientists and amateur astronomers alike hoped for a “comet of the century”. On November 28th, 2013, only 1.8 million kilometres would separate ISON from the Sun. Due to its brightness, the comet promised to be a unique research object – and, should it survive its flyby of the Sun, a stunning celestial phenomenon in the weeks preceding Christmas. But the story took a different course: already during the final phase of the approach to perihelion, the comet’s tail grew fainter and fainter. It soon became clear, that ISON’s activity had ceased or that the nucleus most likely had completely been disintegrated.

However, what exactly happened on November 28th, 2013 1.8 million kilometres away from the Sun is still not entirely clear. Did the comet break apart before it reached the point closest to the Sun? Or did it withstand the indescribable heat a while longer? Did the dust tail that could be discerned after the flyby maybe even block the view of a remaining solid nucleus? “Our measurements and calculations indicate that ISON ran out of steam before perihelion”, says Dr. Werner Curdt from the MPS, first author of the new publication. Apparently, 8.5 hours before the comet should pass by the Sun, a short and violent outburst occurred that set free a great amount of dust. After that, the dust production completely stopped within a few hours.

OUT NOW Free on line magazine

The new August issue of Amateur Astro Photography Ezine has now been published. It is full of amazing space images, and brimming with advice for budding space photographers click on the link | http://astrophotomag.com/issue07

Fascinating story of the telescope

1/07/ 2014 | Story of the Refractor from Richard Pearson on Vimeo.

Many of you are the proud owners of a refractor telescope, which will allow you to observe planets like Venus. In this month's program, we look at the fascinating story of the refractor from its humble beginnings.

Observing the Moon

NASA's Luna Recognisance orbiter (LRO) celebrates five years imaging, and studying the Moon on June 18th. The Moon has always been a splendid sight in the night sky, and when an amateur receives his first telescope and sets it up in the garden, the Moon is often the first object to be viewed through the eyepiece. Therefore, in this month's program, we take a look at how best to observe the Moon, and how to recognise some of the main craters.

There is a very nice FREE computer program that you can use to help recognise all of the Luna features, it is called the 'Virtual Moon Atlas,' and it can be downloaded free using this link : http://ap-i.net/avl/en/download.

The constellations of spring

01/05/2014 | The spring sky from Richard Pearson on Vimeo.

In this month’s program we take a look at the spring constellations. The spring sky is a kind of celestial zoo with large constellations, few bright stars, although it is of great interest to photographers because of the clusters of distant galaxies, with the Beehive star cluster centre of attention. I trust that you are now inspired to venture outdoors and view some of the superb objects mentioned in tonight’s program.

I would like to acknowledge photographers OLIVER CZERNETZLEO TRIPLET M65, M66 & NGC 3628, CHRISTOPHER MADSON M101,JOE HABERTHIER, CUMULO ABIERTO M48, AND ANGELO MAZZOTTI M63 for allowing me to use there splendid images. Also STEVE LINDON Editor of AMATEUR ASTROPHOTOGRAPHY MAGAZINE for his valuable assistance with month's program.

April | Observing the Planets

1/04/2014 | Observing the Planets from Richard Pearson on Vimeo.

Venus, Mars, Jupiter & Saturn are on view this season, and with a Total Eclipse of the Moon taking place on April 15th, this month we take look at how best to make observations of the planets. I would like to acknowledge the valuable assistance of Daniele Gasparri (Italy), Trevor Berry, Darral and Patricia Malilka (Australia) for allowing me to use some of their splendid images of the planets in this month's program.

The Great Bear

Ursa Major (The great bear) is the most famous of the constellations visible all year round in the northern hemisphere. In this program Sir Patrick Moore introduces us to the 'Bear' and what you can see with small telescopes.

Magnificent Saturn on 7th March

A photograph By Trevor Berry using a 16 inch Newtonian telescope.

In the April edition of Astronomy & Space we take a look at the planets Venus, Mars, Jupiter & Saturn, and how to observe them.

More of these splendid photographs in the program.

Richard Pearson

March | Supernovae

Over the last 6 months there have been three reasonably bright supernovas on view for amateur astronomers, two in our own Milky Way galaxy, Nova Delphini & Nova Centauri which were easily visible to the naked eye, and one in the nearby galaxy Messier 82 which reached magnitude +10. Therefore In this month’s program we take a look at supernovae.

February | The Winter Constellations

This month we take a look at the winter constellations, along with the main deep sky objects now visible in small telescopes, and binoculars. We also learn something about the legends of the Stars. I would like to acknowledge the assistance of members of West Yorkshire Astronomical Society during the making of the program.

January | China lands on the Moon

There has been a rollercoaster of Chinese emotions over the last month. The atmosphere was tense upon the launch of Chang'e 3 on December 1st, then as the Moon probe entered into Luna orbit China lost two expensive satellites, so the atmosphere again was very tense during the Luna landing. Fortunately all went well, the Chang'e 3 & Jade Rabbit instruments work fine, so the so the science can begin proper from January 10th.

In this program we examine the mission in detail from launch, and what we know about the landing site from previous spacecraft. If you would like to contact me my Email address is Richard.pearson53@yahoo.co.uk