B (2:05)

So we'll have to talk about it next time. But yeah, we've had a Little Spectroscopy Workshop. CDs and boxes and duct tape.

A (2:11)

Yeah, it was great. Little craft, active. You see the little joy on their faces. It's like Blue Peter all over again. It's brilliant. And we've had, we had a fantastic talk Yesterday.

B (2:22)

Yeah. So as my. My old supervisor, Steve Eales did the. The main talk and he was telling us all about the ghosts in the telescope.

A (2:29)

It was.

B (2:30)

Which is his new book, all about the Herschel Space Observatory. So it is available to buy. And we're gonna have his talk coming in a later episode.

A (2:39)

Will come in a later episode. It was fantastic talk. So. But instead of us whittering on about your drains and.

B (2:45)

Yeah.

A (2:46)

You've been on the radio in the last couple of weeks again. I thought we'd wander out into the audience because they're here and they all look scared now.

B (2:55)

Yeah.

A (2:56)

And ask them how their camp's been.

B (2:58)

Yeah, that's what we're gonna do. Oh, but I gotta go first.

A (3:00)

You go first.

B (3:01)

Oh, hang on. I'm gonna put the laptop in the mud. Hang on, hang on.

A (3:05)

Go on.

B (3:05)

Look. Right, who wants to go first? Who would like to tell us about their favorite astronomical object that they've seen?

A (3:13)

This camp and what they've been doing?

B (3:16)

Right. Even if you don't want to, someone has to. Otherwise this bit doesn't work.

A (3:22)

There's a sea of people slowly in their deck chairs at the moment.

B (3:25)

Alistair will.

A (3:27)

I'd say my favorite object was the LEO triplet because I've learned how to find it.

B (3:32)

Excellent. There we go. That is good target. We did the LEO triplet on the sea star very nicely.

A (3:40)

There's a lot of sea stars here. Quick, quick, show hands. How many sea stars?

B (3:43)

Yeah, show of hands works so well on a podcast.

A (3:45)

3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.

B (3:49)

You got 10, 11. But they are great.

A (3:53)

They are good.

B (3:54)

They are for doing astro imaging, especially when you don't have the time to, like, process and stuff.

A (3:59)

I'll find someone. God.

B (4:00)

Right, come on. What have you imaged? What have you seen? What's been good? Mark Erin's train on my sea star. There you go.

A (4:10)

Let's have a look. Oh, hang on, hang on. Got me on a microphone, sir. Oh, go climb over, people. And so the galaxy with my refractor, which is not a sea star. 108 mil, I think it is.

B (4:26)

Oh, very nice, Very nice.

A (4:28)

That's very nice.

B (4:29)

Right, some people back. What have you seen that you've liked? What have you enjoyed?

A (4:34)

Oh, there's one here.

B (4:36)

Where? Oh, say your name as well.

A (4:39)

Yeah, Rich, I've imaged the Jupiter with my MK127 from Metroid Bony. Yeah, we had nice GRS transit, didn't we?

B (4:47)

Yes, we did.

A (4:50)

Anyone else? Who else? Who wants to go on? Oh, it's Kevin, over here. I've been looking at the moon a lot through my 20 bearded binoculars. It's been spectacular, isn't it? It has, yeah. With the Pyres as well. We had. So we've just had. Because normally we get a dark sky event, but we've had the moon just at the beginning of the evening, just

B (5:09)

before it gets properly dark. So you're not looking at your galaxies in your nebula anyway, so we've been able to really enjoy that thin crescent moon.

A (5:17)

And who took that image of it smiling on the hill?

B (5:22)

Oh, who was that? Are they here?

A (5:23)

Was it Mike? Yes. Just as it touched the top of the mountain across from the campsite. He took the picture. It's absolutely glorious. A tree in the light. It's just beautiful.

B (5:33)

I love that. And yesterday, of course, it was in conjunction with the Pleiades.

A (5:37)

It was.

B (5:38)

So we were looking through little finder scopes, seeing the Pleiades and the Moon. It was great.

A (5:43)

So, God. Anyone wanted to say what their favourite other favorite things? The M101 taken with the Sky Watcher Equinox 80 and a 2600 MSD camera. It was really nice.

B (5:55)

Oh, how long were you on that for?

A (5:56)

Two or three hours.

B (5:57)

Yeah, nice.

A (5:58)

On the spoke live stacking so it gets rid of a lot of noise without having to wait to process it later. So nice.

B (6:04)

Very good, Very good.

A (6:06)

I gotta say, that was like a Stuart Lee routine. That was refreshing pear cider if you've

B (6:11)

ever seen anyone else. Oh. So this is Liz. First try out properly with a really good dark sky of 2 by 40 wide angle binoculars. Fantastic. All the stars pop out at you and you can see the constellations beautifully.

A (6:27)

It was. It's actually one of my favorite things here is actually not looking through a scope using binoculars or. The Minion.

B (6:35)

Yeah, the Minion goggles. I was just going to say.

A (6:37)

And just. Or just sitting back and watching. It's just. You just sit back and go like, ah, look at the sky. It's amazing.

B (6:41)

I think we should explain what the Minion goggles are. Yeah, the Minion goggles are just these two times binoculars. That's all they are. But they look like Minion goggles. And then it's. Chris's words. But you said it's. What did you say? It's like putting your eyes. It's not on steroids. I mean it is like putting your eyes on steroids. Supercharging your eyes. That's it. It's like supercharging your eyes so you just see sort of like four times as many stars. And so you look at a constellation and it's just clear as day. And like you look at the star clusters and like, you can just the naked eye ones, they just become that little bit more defined and they're great. Would you recommend had a look through those this camp? And they're. They're fabulous. Right. Say your name as well.

A (7:22)

Oh, more. Tom. You just died. I almost fell off my chair. I bought a dwarf about a week ago. I did the Rosette Nebula, which I think I did about 250 stacked images. I don't really know what I'm doing with all this stuff. So this is my first time at astrocamp, so. And it's been good. It's been great.

B (7:40)

Good. But it's come out nicely. Fair enough. Yeah, you need. You need more sleep for that.

A (7:45)

Yeah, yeah, we all need more sleep.

B (7:49)

Any more? For any more.

A (7:51)

So my friend was the first time he came to Astro camp and he saw his first galaxy yesterday through Bob the Dob and he saw the Lear triplet. So I'm chuffed for him really.

B (8:01)

Oh, Bob is lovely. Bob the Dob.

A (8:03)

Bob the Dob.

B (8:04)

Bob the Dob. Right. Say your name.

A (8:07)

It's Mike. I just want you to come back all the way here. It's already been said a couple of times, but for me it was through the Seastar S50 and it was Leo's Triplood.

B (8:15)

Yeah, no, it's good. They came out cracking in the S50, actually. It really did.

A (8:19)

Right, then, enough of you lot.

B (8:21)

Actually, while we've got a good representative audience of astronomy people, it'd be good to do like, how many people are observational? Oh, yeah. How many? Kind of astrophotography. And then within astrophotography we'll do a kind of like, whose cameras, whose smart scopes? Whose telescopes?

A (8:42)

Go on then.

B (8:43)

Yeah, yeah, let's do it.

A (8:43)

Let's do it. So go on.

B (8:45)

Hands up. If you are an observational astronomer. I mean, you could put your hands up for everything if you do everything, that's fine.

A (8:51)

My people. Yeah, people, they are.

B (8:53)

I like to do observational stuff. I would say, what, maybe about half? I reckon that's about half.

A (8:57)

A good half. It might be a little bit more than half.

B (9:00)

Right. And who does astrophotography in any form? Oh, yeah. I'd say another half. I think a lot of doubles.

A (9:07)

Venn diagram's got a big overlap.

B (9:09)

Yeah, yeah. Actually now if you do both. Stick your hands up. Yeah, actually. Yeah, yeah. Yes. Lots and lots of overlap.

A (9:16)

Who are the exclusive images, who are the people? They're not. Oh, look, there he is.

B (9:21)

Yeah, there we go. There's a few. There we go. Right. And if you're doing astrophotography, who's doing astrophotography with like small smartphones, slash cameras, GoPros, things like that, who's doing that sort of stuff? Yeah, a few.

A (9:36)

There's a few.

B (9:39)

Half a dozen because. Half a dozen. And then who's doing smart scopes?

A (9:46)

Oh, that's.

B (9:46)

Oh, yeah, that's a good half. People are doing smart scopes or beating out over the phone and then who's doing the more traditional cameras with a telescope kind of thing. Yeah. Oh, mind you, still a lot of

A (9:59)

people doing Smart scope was more.

B (10:01)

Actually, Smart Scope was more. But there's still a good representative of people doing the traditional telescopes and cameras.

A (10:09)

It's because we've spent all this time learning that crap.

B (10:11)

So you, you want to make sure that you're making use of it all. Yeah, it's fair enough. It's fair.

A (10:26)

Right, so first for me.

B (10:29)

Yep.

A (10:29)

It's news about that interstellar comet, three Eye Atlas. Remember that?

B (10:35)

Yeah, yeah.

A (10:36)

Alien spacecraft. Yeah. Well, it turns out he was right. No, of course not. There was a few horrified faces there.

B (10:46)

What?

A (10:47)

But it's chemistry was changing as it made its closest approach to the sun interesting enough last autumn. So now three Eyatlas is fascinating. Just as it's the third of these objects that we found so far, so the opportunity to examine these have been quite rare and fleeting. The closest approach, astronomers used the Subaru telescope, that's that 8.2 meter optical infrared telescope on Hawaii. And. And they were able to start comparing data from other comets and particularly the first two interstellar comets that we've had. So by looking at the colours of 3 Atlas, the study led by Shinaka, Professor Shinaka and their team looked at the ratio of carbon dioxide and water in the coma and they discovered that three I had changed this ratio quite considerably over the period of closest approach to the sun. And this didn't just tell them about the change in chemistry, it also hinted at the comet's internal structure. Because if you think about kind of a comet being this, this sort of big mixture of stuff covered in this sort of frozen crust, because it's got pockets of gas and things inside it and as it heats up and starts to sublimate and bits of the ice come off and you get, you know, that coma forming in the tail, that means stuff that's inside the comet then erupts out and so they were actually looking at what the inside of the comet was like, and it's significantly different to what the outside the comet. So.

B (12:14)

And they were wondering that whether that was going to be the case, and now they seem to have found the evidence.

A (12:19)

Exactly. And so this is just early doors. This is just a sort of basic notification of, yeah, it's completely different on the inside. So we'd seen it coming into the solar system and had been looking at the chemistry of it as it approached the sun.

B (12:31)

And then that is going to be the chemistry of the crust, because it hasn't warmed up yet.

A (12:35)

Of course, now we're seeing what's inside it. Lots of work to do, because, as I say, this is literally. They only just did this as it. Like back in January, February time, they looked at this. So this is really new. And they found the internal chemistry is clearly quite different. The ratios are very, very different. So lots to unpick. But it's an early teaser that 3i was even more interesting than we thought it was many secrets to reveal about what star system it's from, and it gives us some pointers to what to look out for in the next. So, you know, when 4i and 5i and 6i, when they inevitably appear, this is going to give us something as a little benchmark to compare against and say, all right, right, we need to look out for this.

B (13:16)

Does this mean, though, that we need to be a bit careful when we're analyzing the composition of other comets? Because is it going to be a similar effect that the crest of a lot of comets is not actually reflective of their internal composition?

A (13:27)

Exactly. I would say so. I mean, that. That's. I think when we look at all the comets in our own solar system, we have looked mostly at the surface. So you think about the Rosetta mission, It looked at the surface mainly, and, you know, it was testing the surface and that going inside a comet and seeing what's deep inside the thing. That's something we've yet to really do, other than just little hints of. But this is really interesting because it really erupted as it went past the sun and revealed completely different chemistry to what we'd already seen. Because we talked about the chemistry few months ago, didn't we?

B (13:59)

Yeah, yeah.

A (13:59)

And. And it's completely different on the inside. So interesting stuff.

B (14:03)

Three Eye Atlas and something to follow up.

A (14:05)

Not a spacecraft still.

B (14:06)

Yeah. Or is it? No.

A (14:08)

Or is it.

B (14:09)

No, it isn't.

A (14:10)

That's in the Astronomical Journal if you want to follow that up.

B (14:13)

So what have you Got for us, I've got. When is a planet a planet and not a star?

A (14:18)

When it's a planet.

B (14:20)

Yeah.

A (14:20)

But not a star.

B (14:22)

Yeah. This, this is all about trying to figure out, figure out what the mechanisms are between something becoming a planet and something becoming a star. So it's looking at the most giant planets and asking the question, well, why didn't it just keep on growing to become a star?

A (14:41)

Yep.

B (14:42)

Like, why did it just become a really giant planet and not then just continue? And then when you have really small stars, why are they just really small stars? Why didn't they sort of keep on growing? And so this is a James Webb Space Telescope story, JWST story. And he's looking at that defining line. So it's looking at these giant worlds that are on the cusp of becoming stars, but they don't quite make it. Right. So what is it? And it seems to be all about the way they form. That seems to be what will whatever mechanism they're forming under, that's what's going to define what they're going to become. So in this study, they looked at 29signi B. You can have a look at 29signi through your telescopes. It is a backyard target. The planet is not. It's very, very faint. But the star you can have a look at is in the constellation of Cygnus. And the planet is about 15 times Jupiter's mass. So it's on the cusp of what is a giant gas planet. And what is a very small star, it's really on that boundary. And it seems to have formed from this bottleneck process which we associate with planet formation. So planet for planet formation happens through a process called accretion, we believe. So you start off with dust particles, then they stick together into little pebbles, which stick together into rocks and then boulders. And then you get up to planetesimals, and then they smash together. They either break themselves in smithereens or they stick together and they form planets. But then stars form through a completely different process. They form through gas collapse. So you've got gas clouds. There's some kind of instability triggers the collapse of the gas cloud. And then that is a process for star formation. But the thing is, theoretically, that gas collapse could happen in protoplanetary disks in the outer regions where the gas and the material is quite tenuous. And you don't think that accretion would be able to happen because the material is too tenuous. So then the question is, well, actually, do the most massive planets that are far away from their host star, do they then form through this gas collapse method, which is like stars and it's not like planets. Right. So the James Earth Space Telescope had a look at this planet because it orbits out to about the distance of Uranus from its host star. So it's very far away and it's massive. So it fits this bill of, well, does it form via accretion or does it form through gas collapse? And they found that the planet was heavily enriched in metals compared to its host star. And that suggests that it did not form in the same process that the star form. So it did not form from gas collapse, but formed from this bottom up accretion. It also has its spin aligned with the star, which suggests that it formed from this protoplanetary disk. And so it seems to be what will dictate whether you become a really giant planet or whether you're a small star is your formation method.

A (17:45)

Right, right. So what we're saying is the stars and planets do actually form in different ways.

B (17:52)

Yeah. Even if they've got similar masses at the end. So you've got objects on this cusp of very small star, very, very big planet. They're actually never going to be a

A (18:03)

star because it's actually a different formation. So.

B (18:05)

Yes.

A (18:05)

So this long held discussion we've had for all, for decades now about our planets and stars actually just a continuum.

B (18:11)

Yeah.

A (18:11)

And it's just like you get slightly more massive, it becomes a star.

B (18:14)

Yeah.

A (18:14)

A little bit less. It's a planet.

B (18:15)

Yeah.

A (18:16)

Isn't actually. Right. It's actually a.

B (18:18)

There is a cutoff. And that cutoff seems to be determined whether you form through accretion processes associated with planets or whether you form by gas collapse, which is a star method.

A (18:30)

So this is all in the conception method.

B (18:32)

Yeah.

A (18:32)

Yes.

B (18:32)

Yeah. So it's right from there, right from the words go. That's what. And that was the Astrophysical Journal Letters if anyone wants to follow it up. Nice direct images of CO2 absorption in the atmosphere of super Jupiter. So.

A (18:45)

And then Google of that, you've got some more Hubble tension. I do talk about this.

B (18:50)

We do always revisit this. The Hubble tension is back and it's tighter than ever. And it's bad, baby, is toit. So this is. We revisit this every so often. So the Hubble tension, for anyone who's not sure what we're talking about, we've got two measurements for the expansion rate of the universe. One is based on nearby objects. It's stars and galaxies in the nearby Universe out to about a billion light years. And so it's all about looking at, at how fast things are moving away from us. And we, we look at things like standard candles, like cephage variable stars, which they have their pulsation period directly tells us how bright they truly are. And so then by looking how bright they appear, dim things are far away. And so then you can work out distances, you can do things with type 1A supernovae, which are white dwarfs exploding, because they all explode at a critical mass with a very similar luminosity. So then again, faint things are further away and there's things you can do with galaxies as well. And we look at all of these and they give us an expansion rate for the universe. And that number in the nearby Universe is about 73 km per second per megaparsec. So for every megaparsec, you go away, you move, everything's moving away from you 73 kilometers per second quicker. But then we also have a prediction from the cosmic microwave background. So the earliest light in the universe that free streams 380,000 years after the Big Bang.

A (20:23)

Curse you, Fritzwicky.

B (20:25)

Yeah, and it's our prediction from that comes from looking at the CMB and then our models of cosmology, which include all of the physics we understand about the universe. And we use our models, our best fitting model that goes with the data then tells us about the physics of the universe. And then we can pull out from that the expansion rate that the cosmic microwave background predicts for us for the nearby universe. The two numbers should be one in the same. They are not one in the same. And this is the Hubble tension, because the CMB gives us a number of 67 km per second per megaparsec. And originally when this tension was first found decades ago, the error bars overlapped. So everyone was like, ah, it's fine, we're just messing up somewhere. They'll agree eventually. And that is not what's happened because over the years the numbers have stayed the same and the error bars have gotten smaller and smaller and smaller and they no longer don't overlap anymore, do they?

A (21:27)

Yeah.

B (21:28)

And so now this update is a huge group of astronomers met in Bern in Switzerland in March 2025.

A (21:36)

I imagine it was much like Astro Camp.

B (21:38)

Exactly. It was exactly like astronauts. Sea stars as far as the eye can see.

A (21:42)

More Toblerone.

B (21:43)

Yeah, right, exactly. Sea stars far as the eye can see. And it was a workshop called what's under the hood. But hood was H0 for the herbal constant. We see what they did there, and they decided to do undertake this enormous piece of work where they collated over the last several decades, every single study that has measured the Hubble constant in the nearby universe. So all the different methods, all the different telescopes, all the different objects worked out if there was any correlating error.

A (22:20)

They actually just sat in a room with all the. All the stuff just.

B (22:22)

Actually, yeah, just reams of paper.

A (22:26)

Dave, look at this one. Look at this one. Look what I found. Yeah, yeah, you need some Toblerone.

B (22:30)

Yeah, there's a Toblerone's weighing down all the sacks of paper. Right. But. So they took everything, worked out all the correlation errors, did it all very, very carefully, and they have now come out with this number of 73 to a precision within 1%. So they are confident that 73 is right. And this is. This has huge implications because it suggests that we are missing physics in our early model, in our model of the universe, because we're not factoring in something to do with the behavior of dark energy or dark matter or something which is giving us the wrong number, maybe in the early universe, because they shouldn't be different, they should be the same. So it does tell us that there's probably some physics that we're not factoring in. Maybe gravity behaves differently in the nearby universe.

A (23:22)

Carefully, you can hear Fred Hoyle laughing from.

B (23:28)

So, yeah, it seems that. Yeah, it is very, very real.

A (23:34)

That's. That's. Yeah, because they keep coming back to this. Don't we ever. I think we did last episode, actually. We had. We had whole tension. Yeah, yeah, there's, there's. Well, we talked about that possible third method, didn't we? That another way of looking at it.

B (23:46)

So when we detect enough gravitational waves with electromagnetic counterparts, they are a third independent method and they will kind of get distances in between the nearby and the distant universe, which is great, but we have just not found enough. We need about 25 and we've got a couple. So it's problematic at the minute.

A (24:06)

And I bet it comes up with a completely different answer.

B (24:08)

Yeah, I bet you it's slap bang in the middle.

A (24:11)

Or it will say something like, this is 58.

B (24:13)

Yeah, yeah. Or 80 or something. Yeah. So it really points to. Actually, we don't understand the universe. There is fundamental physics that we are missing. So that means it's very, very exciting.

A (24:26)

So you heard it here first. We're all wasting our time.

B (24:28)

Yep. Everything is wrong.

A (24:30)

What are we doing?

B (24:31)

And if anyone wants to read up on it, it's in Astronomy. And astrophysics. And it is the local distance network, a community consensus report on the measurement of the Hubble constant at 1% precision. Right. Has anyone got any interest in astro news that they want to bring up that they've read about or heard about lately? Anything that they'd like to kind of mention, and we can all discuss anything interesting that they've seen on.

A (24:58)

It was a very optimistic question. I know this audience.

B (25:01)

I know anything that you've read about and you're wondering about, like, is this true?

A (25:07)

Well, we're going to do some audience questions later on, but. Yeah. Oh, hang on, hang on, hang on.

B (25:14)

Are you gonna go?

A (25:16)

Oh, you'll go. Yeah, you asked the question. Go on.

B (25:18)

I did ask a question.

A (25:20)

Yes. We've seeded this audience with some astrologers and Rob. Sir, this is a question I have not been asked to give Betelgeuse. I heard a couple of months ago that they think there might be a smaller possible dwarf star orbiting within it. Yeah, we. We talked about this, actually came up, didn't it? We. I think we did this. This was a news story a little. Oh, a couple months ago.

B (25:48)

I don't think we actually did. This was a news story. I think we talked about it.

A (25:52)

They never probably put it in.

B (25:53)

Yeah. Because there was too much other stuff going on, but. Go on, crack on.

A (25:57)

Yeah, it's. I. There's been a lot of debate about Battlegars or Beetlejuice or whatever you want to call it for years, that it has a companion, that there is. There is a. There's a. Some sort of binary companion. It's. It's not been conclusively proved. There was some work done. I think it was last year or the year before.

B (26:21)

Yeah.

A (26:21)

That seemed to suggest it was there. But they would have to wait until, I think it's next year to prove it because they'd have to. Basically, it would reappear or this image they had would reappear on the other side. Sort of predicting, you know, that it's going to be there.

B (26:40)

Yeah.

A (26:40)

So we've got to wait till it gets there and see. Oh, yeah, look, that image. Or was it just a spurious thing that appeared on the image?

B (26:48)

Yeah. And I think recently they've been looking at the spacing of dust shells.

A (26:53)

Yes.

B (26:53)

And that seems. Because it's regular, that seems to indicate that there might be something orbiting with it, encouraging the expulsion and compression of these dust shells. And so now they're like, well, is this evidence for a companion? So it's sort of. The evidence is mountain but not conclusive at this stage.

A (27:12)

Watch this space.

B (27:13)

Yeah.

A (27:13)

Or that.

B (27:27)

Right, May your sky guide. So we have a meteor shower. We've got the Eater Aquarids. They are peaking on the night of the 5th into the 6th of May. And we like the Etter Aquarius because they're not the most. It's not the most prolific shower, but it is debris from Halley's Comet. Yeah. So not super prolific, but often long trails kind of low on the horizon. They're fast so you don't see loads. But they're quite spectacular when you do see them. Radiance in Aquarius. It's going to be low on the horizon. But then because the radiance low on the horizon, that gives you these Earth grazers. These like long. They appear slow moving but it's just because they're visible for so much longer. So spectacular in that sort of way. Yeah.

A (28:20)

Actually similar to some of the Lyrids we saw over camp. Actually we've seen some pretty long slow trails, haven't we?

B (28:26)

We have. There's been some spectacular meteors.

A (28:29)

The same lyre is quite low in the sky at the moment in the uk. So we've had some. The radiance sort of just there on the horizon. And we've had some really long ones. Really sort of spectacularly colorful ones as well.

B (28:40)

Yes.

A (28:40)

Really, really like greens and reds and things. Been really, really.

B (28:43)

I saw one, it was genuinely about an eighth of. Of the sky it went across. It was really long. It was the first night.

A (28:49)

How much cider you had?

B (28:50)

Do you know what? I was only on about one at that point. So. Seriously. But it was. It was huge. It just went on and on and on. It was great.

A (28:58)

That's cool. Right, planets. So Jupiter is definitely the star of the show at the moment. Shining brightly in Gemini. We've all been enjoying it. It's been absolutely spectacular. It's high in the west after sunset. Some great GRS transits coming up in May do look out for them. You need to just find out the dates from where you are. And lots of moon and shadow transits. Don't miss those. They're really spectacular. We've seen a couple over camp. Been really good.

B (29:25)

That's what I love about Jupiter is because it changes on the hour.

A (29:28)

It's dynamic.

B (29:29)

Yeah.

A (29:30)

Saturn looks great for 30 seconds and then you're like, yeah, I'm bored of that now.

B (29:34)

Yeah. Whereas you look at Jupiter, you can go back an hour later. You're like, oh, moons have changed.

A (29:37)

Completely different. And the clouds have Changed and there's now a shadow on it and. Yeah, exactly.

B (29:41)

It's good.

A (29:41)

Jupiter's better.

B (29:43)

Agreed.

A (29:43)

Yep.

B (29:44)

Everyone now in the audience who loves Saturn is cursing us.

A (29:46)

They're like, who likes Saturn, who prefers

B (29:48)

Saturn and who prefers Jupiter? Ah, see, audience king reigns. Yeah, yeah.

A (29:58)

Right, so then Venus. Venus is improving through the month. Very low. The west northwest just after sunset. By the end of month, it will be up longer as it moves towards a spectator spectacular conjunction with Jupiter in June.

B (30:12)

Yeah, that's gonna be really.

A (30:14)

They happen every few years. Last one was during COVID wasn't it? So, yeah, and we had that series of conjunctions and Jupiter, it's the two brightest other objects in the sky than the Moon and the Sun. So they're always spectacular. Great, great conjunction coming up. Mars and Saturn, of course, both visible in the early morning sky. So if you're, if you're a. A morning person, you fool. You'll need to be up before the sun looking toward the east southeast. Quite distant still, but they're getting better. They're slowly growing in size and brightness. So. But they're good. If you're a night owl, you go all night or you're someone who gets up early, have a look for those. And they're very close to each other as well.

B (30:56)

And there are some fun lunar conjunctions this month as well. So this is when the Moon is near an interesting bright object. So on the 4th, we've got the Moon Antares, only about a degree separating them, so two full Moon widths. So that's quite nice. We have got on the 18th, the moon and Venus. There we are quite a few degrees away from each other, about three and a half, but still nice. Kind of similar to what we've had at camp. And on the 20th, then it's the Moon and Jupiter. Similar distance away, but always fun to have a little look at.

A (31:27)

Right. There's some deep sky. So this month I'm going to point you in the direction of Ursa Major. So it's nice and high. It's pretty much at zenith. It's really, really like the best part of the sky for looking at these things. It's probably the most famous constellation, Northern hemisphere in some respects, often overlooked for deep sky, especially this time of year. Everyone gets obsessed with Virgo and Leo and things like that, and rightly so, because they're amazing. But actually Ursa Major's got some real, real treats in it. So Bode's Galaxy and the Cigar Galaxy or Starburst Galaxy, M81 and M82, first grand design spiral galaxy through a small scope, it appears as a bright sort of oval glow with a distinct sort of concentrated core. In larger scopes you should see some of that spiral detail. M82, the Cigar Galaxy is a starburst galaxy seen edge on. So actually you're seeing it is actually more like a disk then you. It appears basically it looks like a sort of thin, sort of silver splinter of light. Lots of people annoyed. Lots of people saw it last night and probably had a good luck. We talked someone who saw it. Yep. There. I know you didn't see it. You just image, don't you? Yeah, I saw it on your phone afterwards.

B (32:43)

Does anyone. Has anyone had a look at Bodes and the Cigar at camp? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

A (32:50)

So the two galaxies are interacting. They pass close to each other a few million years ago. And this, this is what sparks that outburst of star formation you see in the Cigar galaxy in the M82. Look about 10 degrees northwest of Doob, which is the top right star of the Plough's Blade or the bowl of the Sospan, as we're in Wales. And one way is to start at Fegda, which is the opposite star, the opposite corner. So sort of bottom left. If you're looking at. Imagine the Big Dipper for the American,

B (33:24)

for our American friends.

A (33:25)

Yep. And start there and go across the bowl to do. And then go the same distance again beyond Doob and you should pretty much hit M81 80 and they're quite bright. So you little wiggle of the scope and you'll find them. So next is the Owl Nebula M97 and the Galaxy M108. Now these can be sort of tricky, Messier objects actually because they're, they're quite low surface brightness, but it, they are rewarding finds. M97's planetary nebula appears as a faint, ghostly, circular, sort of glowing ball. And actually it's one of the planetary numbers that actually does look a bit 3D when you get it right. If you sort of see it in a really dark sky. I was looking at it here actually last night. It does, you can see it does actually look like a ball rather than just a disc. It's got two allies in it. It's like, that's why it's called the Owl neighbor. It's got these two dark patches or like owl eyes. Now you do need to be in a very dark place to see it. And you're seeing, and transparency has to be really good to see that. You need a Big scope so something 10 inches and above before you kind of really see that and a good sky. M108 is right next door. It's about one and a half degrees away and it's a nice big wide field image. Doing some imaging you can get both of them in. It's really nice to locate. They are located about 2 1/2 degrees southwest of Mirac which is the bottom right star of the bowl. The other side at the bottom of the. The bowl, the blade, the spoon thing, whatever you want to call it. The bear's bum. Yeah what it actually is. So that's. That's Those and then M101. M101 we've just mentioned that several times today. It's a massive face on spiral galaxy. You're seeing it completely from above or below however you want to think about it. So it's technically bright because it's actually quite close to the Milky Way in the big picture. It's a. But it's really spread out so it's got really low surface brightness. It's actually really. I couldn't find it last night later on because it got a bit hazy and the transparency went.

B (35:28)

That was. It couldn't see it.

A (35:30)

It was lost. It was just blurred out. Whereas earlier on you could. You could see it quite brightly.

B (35:36)

It.

A (35:37)

So it's very sensitive to light pollution so it's one that's really difficult in cities and big towns and things. It's small scope looks like a large hazy patch of light. Anything bigger than about 8 inches you're starting to see that. That kind of pattern of the spiral. It forms a sort of equilateral triangle with Alkaid and Mizar, Mizar and Alcor which is the. The two large two last stars in the handle or the. Those handle.

B (36:02)

The plow the sauce band and there's

A (36:04)

a handle on the Big Dipper.

B (36:05)

So yeah it is. It's just the handle. Yeah you're good.

A (36:07)

You're covered and but be prepared for the like utter frustration trying to find it because it is. It is just one. Last night I was trying to find out just a back to force. I know I'm in the right place. I can't find it. The sky was not conducive to it. Last for me in the Deep Sky Guide is that classic example of a barred spiral galaxy and it's a real kind of archetype 1 and it's M109 which is conveniently located right next to a bright star and it appears a soft elongated smudge in small scopes next to fect that star I mentioned earlier, that bottom left hand star. And because it's so close to star though the glare can sometimes make it tricky to find. You might sort of get the star and then just move to your left and just get the star just out of your eyepiece and hopefully the galaxy will just appear and be there for your wonderment. There we go.

B (37:00)

Nice deep sky.

A (37:01)

Deep sky.

B (37:03)

Moon guide down.

A (37:04)

Go on, you can read it.

B (37:05)

We're up to day 16 with our moon guide. So this is. We're doing a few days of the Moon every month. So the Moon is just past full illumination. To the naked eye, it will still look full, but if you look through binoculars, you will start seeing that kind of slight darkening on the eastern limb. So have a look late evening, that's your best bet. After sunset, have a look for Mare Chrisium, the Sea of Crises. So it's this oval plane, isolated oval plane on the upper right. And you're just. The shadows are just going to be creeping into that. By day 17, it's no longer looking full to the naked eye. So it's 90 to 95% illuminated. That terminator line is starting to creep around. And so now at this point, we're starting to see the highlands in strong relief. So you start to see lots of detail there. Because the sun though, is still high over most of the Moon. The bright streaks, the rays from big craters like Tycho and Copernicus, they're still looking brilliant. So that's something fun to look out for. Remember as well, maybe with using a filter, your Moon filter, your polarizing filter. Because when the Moon is this fully illuminated, it can hurt the eye. Like it doesn't damage your eye, but it's painfully bright at times. The bottom of the Moon is going to look really rugged. That really, that south pole area, which we know is heavily craters, that's starting to come into relief now. And you can really see how interesting and dynamic that that is. By day 18, it's definitely. You can see the gibbous shape. It's not full anymore. Have a look for Oceanus Procellarium. It's the Ocean of storms. It is the largest of the Lunamaria. And then shadows on this day, on day scene start to define the ridges and the wrinkles within this big, this vast dark area. Watch out for Aristarchus crater. That very bright, almost glowing spot in the upper left quadrant is the brightest feature on the lunar surface. And it's so reflective, can sometimes even be seen when the moon is almost in shadow.

A (39:18)

Well, in fact, we've seen it over

B (39:20)

camp, haven't we, with Earthshine.

A (39:22)

We've got a very small crescent here just after. And you can see Aristarchus really clearly in the Earthshine. It's really beautiful.

B (39:29)

Mm.

A (39:29)

Yeah. Right, so the moon this month is full on the 1st, last quarter of the 9th, new on the 16th, first quarter on the 23rd, and back to full again because it's a blue moon on the 31st. So all that remains to wish you clear skies and happy hunting.

B (39:57)

So now we're turning it over to you guys. If you've got any questions for us, it could be about equipment. It could be about something that you've read lately. It could. Mike. No, someone else has to go first. This is my partner, so someone else has to go first. And then I can come to you. Yeah. So if you've got any questions.

A (40:18)

Most miserable man on camp.

B (40:20)

Yeah. Has to put up with me. I know. That's it. Dad's got some relief now because he takes the flat.

A (40:25)

He looks really happy.

B (40:27)

Yeah, exactly.

A (40:28)

Right. Where. Where. Where are we going first? Where are we going first? Go on. My question is Hubble tension. It looks like the 73km per second per megapark sick is local, which is presumably, after all of the dark energy expansion, whereas the 68km per second per megaparsec seems to be from the early universe, when that won't have happened. Is that too obvious an answer? Probably.

B (40:59)

So that the prediction from the CMB is what it. What it should be today. So it's the 68, 67 that we get from the CMB is that is saying to us, if we factor in all of the correct physics into our models, it should be 68, 67. But the actual measurements are saying, no, no, it's 73. And so this is where the problem comes in. Because there's physics that we're missing in the prediction.

A (41:25)

Or it was a comeback, to which I would say, clearly we don't understand dark energy enough. We know we don't understand. Well, if.

B (41:33)

Exactly. And that's what it points to.

A (41:35)

Yeah, exactly. If it's even there, and this is

B (41:37)

what it points to, is that there's clearly something that we're not putting in our models because the two are not aligning. So.

A (41:44)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, next question. I'm gonna go to Alan. This is a question for Jenny.

B (41:49)

It's only for me.

A (41:50)

Only for you.

B (41:51)

Oh.

A (41:51)

In your many live performances on BBC and radio, did you have anything written down? Ready for it blowing up.

B (42:01)

Oh, that's a good story. It is a good story.

A (42:04)

So here's the story that.

B (42:06)

So for anyone who doesn't know the story behind this. So I was with Radio 5 Live for the launch, the flyby and the landing of Artemis 2. So we were commentating live as everything was happening. And when it was coming to the landing, we were all chatting on our back channel, as we do.

A (42:22)

And just before the show, it was

B (42:24)

just before the show, literally about 20 minutes before I had to join the show.

A (42:28)

Have you got anything prepared in case it does go wrong?

B (42:32)

And I was like, I haven't actually thought about that. So I was like, I'm going to see what Chatty G says. And you, like, do not use AI.

A (42:38)

I was like, come on. I mean, me and John, Me and John, we wrote a thing. We wrote a thing quickly, like, this is what you should say.

B (42:45)

And then I. So while you were writing stuff, I was actually then Googling. I was like, right. Procedure seems to be. Don't confirm anything, say, about waiting for more news, and just try and stay pretty neutral. Right, and that's what we wrote. Yeah, exactly. It was.

A (42:59)

It was actually like, what do you do? Oh, we wrote. We wrote beautiful little things. We should read it out at some point.

B (43:05)

Yeah, well, we'll find it. We'll get distanced.

A (43:07)

I said, you know, Richard Nixon had an alternative speech written just in case Apollo 11. And what was the other example? There was another one I was thinking of. I said at the time, it's just like that. Well, you gotta have an alternate oh, D day. Like, Eisenhower had a. We tried, we failed. I've withdrawn the army kind of speech. I said, you'll have that in your pocket. Because imagine the moment you lose contact. It's like, oh, God, what do I do now?

B (43:33)

Yeah. And so. But the general consensus was, let's speak to them and see what the plan is. Right. So what happens when you do the radio is someone phones you and they sort of check that you're there and the line's reasonable. Then they put you through to the producer who makes sure that the line is great. And then you go onto the show. And so the person who phoned me initially, I was like, can I ask a question? They're like, yeah, yeah, of course, of course. I was like, what happens if it goes wrong because we're live on air? Like, is there a plan? And they went, I don't know, I'll pass you on to the producer. And I was like, okay. I was like, okay, I'll pass you on to the producer. Ask the producer the same question. They were like, oh, just follow the presenter's lead, it's fine. So I used to code for. There wasn't actually really a plan for if it went wrong. I mean, I'm sure the producer, the presenter would have been able to handle it. But, yeah, we did not have a script. We did not have fixed lines to read out in different scenarios. You know, it was a case of, yeah, we're gonna have to kind of make it up on the fly. So, yes, my heart rate did go up when we lost contact in those six minutes and we were waiting for them to reappear, but, yeah, so there wasn't really a plan. Oh, you found it. You found.

A (44:52)

Well, while it's not clear what's happened and I really do not want to speculate, it does appear that the worst may have occurred and we may be presented with the very real danger of human space flight. Certainly we will just have to wait for more information. But my deepest thoughts are for their families, friends, and the teams that work so closely with them. This is clearly devastating moments in what has been an historic mission.

B (45:17)

Yeah, yeah. But thankfully. Thankfully

A (45:26)

or the alternative was, well, that shield didn't work.

B (45:29)

Yeah, but, you know, thankfully it didn't have to be used. Yeah. Great question. Right. Kevin has a question.

A (45:35)

Next question. Kevin, you mentioned in the sky guide about M81 and 82, the latter being a starburst galaxy as a result of the interaction between the two galaxies. Why isn't M81 distorted as a result of the interaction as well? I've often thought about this and I don't know the answer. Do you know the answer?

B (45:54)

I don't know the answer.

A (45:55)

No, I don't know the answer. Generally. Yeah. As often say to kids, it's important you hear scientists go, I don't know,

B (46:02)

I wonder if it's a mass difference.

A (46:04)

So maybe Met 2 is smaller.

B (46:06)

Yeah. So that would have been affected more by the gravitational.

A (46:10)

But it might be dust content as well.

B (46:13)

If they're.

A (46:13)

Yeah, there is a young stuff to actually trigger.

B (46:17)

Yeah, the Starburst also. Yeah. If they're smaller, they feel tidal effects more efficiently, as it were. So then that would trigger, then more.

A (46:28)

But then I've often thought, yeah, why weren't they two starburst galaxies? Yeah, that's occurred to me and I don't know the answer.

B (46:34)

Yeah.

A (46:35)

So someone.

B (46:35)

Great question. Someone knows. Tell us. Right. Other questions.

A (46:40)

Your turn, My turn. Hi, it's Alan here. So we did the Drake equation yesterday and we were, I thought, incredibly pessimistic. I obviously wasn't vociferous enough. But I think we proved we didn't exist yesterday, which was excessively pessimistic, I think. Yeah, well, something like that, yeah. To both of the presenters, what are your views on the real number? Have you come up with your own numbers? Well, just, just to explain to the listeners the we, Jenny did a interactive Drake talk on the Drake equation to open the camp and the audience here, bless them, came up with an answer that basically says we don't exist.

B (47:23)

It was 0.09, 0.9.

A (47:26)

Only 90% of humanity is.

B (47:27)

No, it's 0.09.

A (47:29)

Oh no, 9, 9%, it's even worse. So that failed.

B (47:34)

Yeah, but no, it just says that not even we're intelligent.

A (47:37)

Right.

B (47:37)

That's what we ultimately decided is that we're not intelligent. I think. So my. In terms of is there life out there? I think we'll find bacterial life in our own solar system, probably icy moons of Jupiter, maybe ancient life on Mars. So as in there was life two and a half, three and a half billion years ago, but there is no more. So you might find like fossilized evidence of life on Mars. In terms of how many civilizations out there, I have done the Drake equation and I came up with, I think it was a few tens of thousands. So I, I think that there are other intelligent civilizations out there. But the question then becomes will we ever come in contact? And I think that's probably a no

A (48:19)

because of the great distances involved done in the past. And I've come up with all sorts of figures because you just play around with the numbers and as we were in that talk, you just don't play around with the numbers. And a lot of them are slightly conjectural at the end, whereas the first ones are quite firm. Later on it gets conjectural. So I've had like tens to hundreds to thousands. It. But I agree, I think the difference and it's the long standing bet on the podcast that we have is I think we'll find life around another star before we find it in solar system. Yes, I stand on that side.

B (48:51)

I stand on the solar system side.

A (48:53)

The big mega telescope is going to go life signature much, much more easily than some probe going to Mars. And we'll argue about a rock that we haven't, you know, can't actually look at.

B (49:06)

Yes, yeah, just. But even for you think around the

A (49:08)

planet there'll be a biosignature in an atmosphere. Yeah, I Think we'll see that before we find it in the solar system.

B (49:17)

Right.

A (49:17)

And there's a pint resting on that.

B (49:19)

Yeah.

A (49:20)

A few years ago, I came up to Astro camp with a unistella EV scope. And it was set out there. And I had queues of people, you know, because it was the first smart telescope I think that we've seen up here. Now, we got smart. They're everywhere. Everywhere. I mean, we got more S50s, we've got sheep on the local hills. Last time we were up here, we were shown a sun scan spectra heliograph. Yeah. Now we're up to three of them. And there must be half a dozen people saying, I want one of those. I'm going to build one of those. What do you reckon we're going to get in the next 10 years of amateur astronomy gadgets? Oh, that's a good question.

B (50:10)

That's a great question.

A (50:12)

Yeah. This question. Yeah. I'm going to turn to Chris. Who's the source of some of this sort of strange gadgetry? What do you reckon? Well, I'm thinking about doing a stellar spectrograph next time maybe. And do you reckon you could do that by next camp? Yeah, yeah. Sooner than I was like. Yeah, how about that?

B (50:35)

I wonder if they'll do something to make detecting transit exoplanets quite easy.

A (50:41)

Yeah. Yeah.

B (50:42)

So some kind of, like, feature in these smart telescopes that allows you to do aperture photometry and then you can prove.

A (50:50)

I was gonna say it'll be.

B (50:52)

I. Yeah, I think it'll be more like advances on what we have and

A (50:56)

like different techniques incorporated a little bit of citizen science.

B (50:59)

Yeah. And like, they're building spectra and.

A (51:03)

Yeah, because there are people who do that already, but with very expensive kit and all the rest of it. But then if you think about that kind of trajectory of imagery that it was really expensive. It's got cheaper. It's also got more expensive, but it's also got cheaper relative. And now we've got smart scopes that kind of are doing the same thing that people were doing very expensive kit a long time ago.

B (51:22)

Yeah.

A (51:23)

I think you'll get that sort of citizen science aspect coming in.

B (51:27)

Yeah.

A (51:27)

There'll be things you can do.

B (51:29)

Yeah.

A (51:30)

They're actually not just taking pretty pictures. It will actually be some science because

B (51:35)

I think, like, the quality of the smart scopes will still improve because of course, anyone who does the kind of camera, telescope, astrophotography, you still get far better quality pictures than you do out the smart scopes. But then I think the. With the smart scopes, they will reach this kind of like ceiling in terms of quality and then.

A (51:51)

Yeah, and you'll get. I think you'll get, you know, like how we got the meteor network.

B (51:54)

Yeah.

A (51:55)

Cameras. And that's now become this sort of citizen science thing. We can find meteors where they've landed and things like that. Like Winchcombe, you can imagine the next generation of smart scopes, perhaps that have this ability to find exoplanets and things like that.

B (52:08)

Yeah.

A (52:08)

And that means actually everyone's then pouring in all this data and confirming and then, you know, refining orbital elements. I think that that could be the next thing.

B (52:20)

Yeah, yeah. Right. Should I go to Mike? Because he did put his head straight at the beginning. I've made him wait now.

A (52:27)

So this is Mike, Jen's long standing, suffering partner. So, given the rapid rise of AI in the world of astronomy, what areas of astronomy do you think is going to benefit the most? And why?

B (52:42)

That's a good question.

A (52:44)

Data. Data, Data, data. Data harvesting and going through the numbers. Is it going to be the first really big thing? Because there is so much data. I mean, if you think about Gaia and how much data. I mean, I think if we went back in time to how data was looked at, say 10, 20, 30 years ago, we would be looking through the Gaia data for the next couple of centuries. There's so much of it.

B (53:11)

Yeah. It's anything that's big data. So like you say with Gaia, it's billions of stars. Vera Rubins producing 20 petabytes of data a night. Yeah, yeah.

A (53:25)

That's just. Imagine trying to sift that in the old way, like pre or like.

B (53:30)

So it's like with those three. With Vera Rubin, no one sees the raw data of via Rubin. It is processed and filtered down before astronomers even get their hands on it because they just can't work with it. There's too much of it. So AI is using that. AI is also used in mapping and planning observing nights with these big telescopes. So astronomers give them, you know. Right, this is your list of targets. This is the sky quality that's needed for these targets. And then the AI, hour by hour, factors in things like the wind and the cloud and where satellites are. And it optimizes. Then the observing pattern depends on the filters.

A (54:09)

This is where AI is good is why it is.

B (54:12)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

A (54:12)

It is a brilliant tool.

B (54:14)

Yeah. But it's going to be anything big data. So it's like completely. Yeah. Like Vera Rubin, when we have these extremely large telescopes, anything that's it's pouring in the data, that's where AI is going to be useful. So when the next gen of gravitational wave detectors come on and they're more sensitive and they're getting more and more possible detections, basically it's a numbers game. You still need people to analyze the data because all the AI does is say, this is weird, this is this. But like, the scientists have to look at it and then actually interpret what it is. So the scientists still need their jobs, but the AI helps them manage the

A (54:52)

data loads, otherwise you get nowhere. Yeah, you just wouldn't.

B (54:56)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's just too many. Yeah. But it does enable studies that aren't possible otherwise, like statistical studies of galaxies and, you know, mapping out the dark matter distribution. You wouldn't be able to sort of do that without the help of AI because we're talking like millions of galaxies.

A (55:13)

Right. Is there a last question? Very last one. It'll be a short one because it could well be a no. T corona Borealis, the Blaze star. Are there any new predictions of when it might go boom?

B (55:28)

Ah. So I interviewed one of the leading scientists on T corona Borealis. I think it was about a year ago or something.

A (55:39)

Yeah, yeah.

B (55:41)

And it turns out, you know, when they were like, it's gonna go in 2025. It's gonna go. It's gonna go. It turns out that was the peak of the window. Yes. And this is what was not well advertised or explained is that it's not 80 years. Exactly. It's approximately 80 years. And actually the window is 2022 to 2030. Oh, yes. Because it's only got two data points.

A (56:08)

Yeah.

B (56:09)

In terms of when it's gone off.

A (56:11)

We were looking, we were looking at it the other night. We were looking at that bit of the sky.

B (56:14)

I, I was as well, I was willing it. I was like, come on, happen. Come on. But yes. So it's actually any time up until 2030 is when they expect it based on the available data. And if it doesn't go by 2030, I, I think they got some serious expectations, explaining to do. They're going to be really confused.

A (56:33)

They are on the naughty step. Yeah.

B (56:34)

But they're going to be really confused because they really do think it will go by 2030. But if it doesn't, it's like, why hasn't it gone? So that's the latest on T Corona Borealis.

A (56:55)

Well, the inevitable hand of time crushes us with the broken tent pole of fear, fate. And as we climb out of the wrecked tent of Destiny. We bring this episode to its sad, inevitable, and frankly, disappointing end.

B (57:08)

Stay in touch with the show by email, carrier pigeon, telegram, heliograph and Ouija board. Send us your missives@the showastronomy.com so until

A (57:20)

next time, it is goodbye from Kumdi Base. Awesome Astronomy is produced by Ralph Paul, Jen, John, Damien and Dustin and is free to use with attribution. Theme music by Star Salzman with stinger variation by Rin Jorgensen. We promote general science, astronomy, space exploration and rational thinking with more resources on our website@awesomeastronomy.com if you want us to read your thoughts and comments out on the show, send us your views, opinions, critiques or questions to the show@awesomeastronomy.com tweet us @awesomeastropod or give the awesome Astronomy Facebook page a like and leave your comments comments there. Thanks for listening. From Cydonia Base Head of Transmission.