Astrophiz 172: Dr Ian Musgrave’s June SkyGuide What's up in the Southern Sky in the month of June?  The dates for the Moon Phases for June, Evening Sky Highlights and all the beautiful Morning Sky Highlights. Planetary action: Mars, then Venus, meets the Beehive cluster, The moon occults Delta Scorpii, then forms attractive patterns with Jupiter, Mars and Venus. More details, times plus charts on Ian’s ’Southern Skywatch' + Ian’s Tangent - Comets & Dyson Spheres Bonus: Using binoculars effectively Next Episode: Dr Jesse Van De Sande with new Galactic discoveries ..read more

Dr Rodolfo Montez Jr is better known as Rudy. Rudy is an astrophysicist working at the Chandra X-Ray Centre at the famous Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. He has wide research interests and among them he does amazing work using NASA’s flagship X-ray space telescope, the Chandra X-ray Observatory to research some of the hottest regions of our universe. He is also known for his mentoring and championing of undergraduates from underrepresented backgrounds. In this episode you will hear how X-rays from high energy events billions of light years away are cleverly captured by Chandra’s u ..read more

I am really excited to be speaking again with Dr Laura Driessen, who is now recognised as one of Australia’s Superstars of STEM! You first met Laura 5 years ago back in 2018 when she was doing her PhD at the University of Manchester and Jodrell Bank. Laura’s back story is all there in Astrophiz Episode 54. You heard about her obsession with space starting at age 4 and her natural yet meandering academic Astro journey up to the point where she was using commensal searches on the MeerKAT array in South Africa for pinpointing and localization of FRBs, Fast Radio Bursts. Today we’re taking up that ..read more

Shownotes In Australia Daylight Saving ends on April 2nd Moon Phases: Full moon April 6th So for those out camping over Easter, you’ll have very nice dark skies to see lots of clusters and nebulae as well as Venus and Mars without any interference from the moon. Last Quarter April 13th Perigee moon April 16th New Moon April 20th First Quarter (apogee) Moon appears in evening skies on April 28th. In the Evening Skies Mercury is a very difficult target even for those with very low western horizons. Venus is very easily observed in the West in the early evening just after sunset for an hour and a ..read more

Recently I had the privilege of interviewing Mia Walker, an accomplished Radio Telescope Engineer and Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) Project Officer at the Curtin Institute of Radio Astronomy in Western Australia. Mia's passion for astronomy and engineering is the driving force behind her successful career in this field, where she has contributed to the development of one of the most advanced radio telescopes in the world. Mia works to keep incredibly complex antenna arrays running, and does a lot of communications and meticulous translating of engineering and science jargon into something th ..read more

This month the planetary action is still largely in the western evening skies. Earth is at equinox on Tuesday, 21 March. At this time day and night are roughly equal in duration. March 2; Venus and Jupiter at their closest. March 3; Mercury and Saturn close low in the twilight. March 4; apogee Moon. March 7; Full Moon. March 15; Last Quarter Moon. March 20; the thin crescent moon near Saturn in the morning twilight. March 20; Moon at perigee. March 22; New Moon. March 24; the crescent Moon is very close to Venus in the twilight. March 29; First Quarter Moon. March 28; the Moon is close to Mars ..read more

"Are We Alone? In an exclusive interview, Dr. Vishal Gajjar, a leading researcher on the Breakthrough Listen project, discussed his groundbreaking work using machine learning and AI to facilitate the detection of technosignatures on the project's search for Extraterrestrial life. The Breakthrough Listen project, led by the University of California Berkeley and the SETI Institute, is one of the most ambitious efforts to search for intelligent life in the universe. Using some of the world's largest radio telescopes, the project scans the cosmos for signs of intelligent civilizations, such as rad ..read more

Moon Phases: Feb 6 Apogee Full moon Feb 14 Last Quarter moon Feb 20 New moon Feb 27 First Quarter moon Evening Sky Venus and Jupiter in the West half an hour after sunset, some nice planetary action in morning skies and beautiful signature stars and constellations throughout the month Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) has already been a great sight in the Northern Hemisphere and now having passed by the sun, will now be best seen in Northern Australia in places like Darwin and Cairns around the 3rd of February. For those further South, you’ll have to wait for the morning of the 6th of February, however wi ..read more

Many cultures around the world and throughout history have staged festivals events and celebrations around this time. Here in Australia our summer holidays occur now and with Christmas and New Years Eve approaching it’s a great time to spend time with family and friends. As I’ve been reminded by our resident observation guru Dr Ian Musgrave, this is a great time of year to see some great planetary action and some special stars and introduce younger family members to the splendour of the night sky. There’s a lot to see over the next week, even with naked eyes, but if you have binoculars even be ..read more

Meet an amazing researcher and astrophysicist Dr Manisha Caleb … Manisha has used the world’s most powerful instruments to unlock the secrets of some of the most powerful and puzzling objects in our known universe. For her PhD she took a very deep dive and most productive research program into the phenomena of Fast Radio Bursts using the MOST and Parkes radio telescopes, and along the way, helped refurbish and reconfigure the Molonglo Observatory Synthesis Telescope situated not far from Canberra in Australia. Since then, her post-doc took her to Manchester and the famous Lovell Telescope at J ..read more