2011 – Page 3 – Observations

The European Extremely Large Telescope to be built in Chile will be a giant light bucket with extremely sharp vision. How will that be achieved despite the Earth’s murky atmosphere?

October 21, 2011

Duration: 2 minutes 37 seconds Many hands make light work of building a full-size replica of the main mirror of the E-ELT.

When did Captain Cook land in Australia? And did any changes in the International Date Line lead to a change in dates in Australia?

October 20, 2011

Captain Cook’s Monument at Kurnell in Sydney photographed by the Sydney firm of Charles Kerry & Co, probably between 1892 and 1917. The plaque on the monument states that Captain Cook’s landing at Botany Bay was on 28 April 1770.

Jupiter dominates the eastern sky at night

What light through yonder window breaks?

October 19, 2011

The following email came in asking us to help identify a bright object in the night sky. It has a number of helpful observations and by Jove we love a challenge. “Dear Sir/Madam, I recently sent an email to Kate **** from the CSIRO Astronomy regarding a bright round light that appears nearly each night from around 8pm and at this time is is low in the sky in the south east.

An artist’s impression of Magellan circling Venus

Remembering Magellan, NASA’s highly successful spare-parts spacecraft that mapped Venus and then sacrificed itself for science on 12 October 1994

October 12, 2011

An artist's impression of Magellan circling Venus. Courtesy NASA/JPL At present (October 2011) the planet Venus is shining brightly in the evening sky each evening after sunset. To the unaided eye it is just a bright point of light.

The constellation of Tucana the Toucan together with the neighbouring bright star Achernar

Know your constellations: Tucana the Toucan

October 11, 2011

The constellation of Tucana the Toucan together with the neighbouring bright star Achernar. Drawing by Nick Lomb with Toucan image from Chris. P, Flickr. The constellation of Tucana the Toucan is currently (October) high in the southern sky.

A Chandra X-ray telescope view of the hot bubble of gas left behind by Tycho’s supernova, SN1572

Mount Stromlo astronomer Professor Brian Schmidt shares the Nobel Prize in Physics 2011 – congratulations Brian!!!!

October 5, 2011

A Chandra X-ray telescope view of the hot bubble of gas left behind by Tycho's supernova, SN1572. Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe first noticed this supernova as a bright 'star' in the constellation of Cassiopeia on 11 November 1572.

An annotated image showing Jupiter and part of the constellation of Cetus the Sea Monster on 3 October 2011

Great opportunity to observe the most famous intrinsically variable star in the sky – in October 2011 Mira, the Wonderful, is near its brightest and Jupiter is close by

October 4, 2011

An annotated image showing Jupiter and part of the constellation of Cetus the Sea Monster on 3 October 2011 at about 10:30 pm. Four seconds exposure under poor conditions. The direction is slightly north of east.

Monty pictures a giant active sunspot – AR1302

September 28, 2011

The giant sunspot AR1302 spreads over 180 000 km across the Sun while the prominence on the right hand edge of the disc reaches a height of 84 000 km. Picture taken through a 10-inch (25-cm) Meade telescope with a hydrogen alpha filter.

Sky Guide

October 2011 night sky guide podcast, transcript and star chart

September 28, 2011

To help you learn about the southern night sky, Sydney Observatory provides an audio guide/podcast, transcript of that audio, and a sky map or chart each month. This month's audio sky guide is presented by Dr Andrew Jacob, one of the astronomy educators at Sydney Observatory.

Duane Hamacher & Munya Andrews at ACMI on 22 September 2011

Aboriginal Astronomy – part one of the Visions of Space seminar in Melbourne on Thursday 22 September 2012

September 27, 2011

Duane Hamacher and Munya Andrews at the entrance of the Visions of Space exhibition at the Australian Centre for Moving Image (ACMI), Federation Square, Melbourne. Photo Nick Lomb A new exhibition Star Voyager: Exploring Space on Screen opened at the Australian Centre for Moving Image (ACMI), Federation Square, Melbourne last Thursday 22 September 2011.

Judith Bailey, Ballarat Observatory Director, peering through the new Oddie Telescope

Toner reports that the Oddie telescope views the sky once more from Mt Stromlo Observatory, Canberra

September 25, 2011

Judith Bailey, Ballarat Observatory Director, peering through the new Oddie Telescope while James Oddie looks on with approval. Picture Toner Stevenson Saturday 24 September 2011 was the launch of the new Oddie telescope (Oddie II), a reconstruction that replaces the original Howard Grubb 9” (23–cm) refractor (lens) telescope (Oddie I), severely damaged in the January 2003 fires.

Sunset from Sydney Observatory 28 July 2006

What are the time differences between cities? Can you use Sydney sunrise & set times to estimate the times elsewhere?

September 21, 2011

Sunset from Sydney Observatory on 28 July 2006. Picture Nick Lomb Question: I have a copy of the 2011 Australian Sky Guide and I travel a lot – to places such as Auckland, Christchurch, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth.

Backyard observations lead to a new analysis of bright eclipsing double star mu1 Sco – a talk by Dr Terry Moon at the Astronomical Society of Victoria’s September 2012 meeting

September 20, 2011

A drawing of the constellation Scorpius the Scorpion with the naked–eye double star mu1 & mu2 Scorpii indicated. Drawing Nick Lomb Dr Terry Moon is an unusual astronomer. He has a PhD in astrophysics, but works as a research physicist in another branch of physics.

The Orionid meteor showing is coming or is it?

September 16, 2011

On a dark clear night who hasn’t looked up to see the last hint of meteor fading from sight? “Damn it why couldn’t I have seen all of it?” And then perhaps minutes, hours or nights later you do get to see one while everyone else is looking the wrong way!

Emma reports on Sydney Observatory’s past archaeology workshops

September 15, 2011

â€œArchaeology at Fort Phillip - The curious case of the mystery buttonâ€ by Emma Shrapnel A button discovered at Sydney Observatory’s Fort Phillip archaeology site To some, this may look like an old, relatively ordinary button.

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