Dr Ian Musgrave brings us his September SkyGuide … telling us when, where and what to look for in the evening and morning skies this month. As usual Ian also gives us his ‘Tangent’ ... this time al about Full Moons, Apogee moons and Perigee moons, and how an astrologer made a typo leading to how our understanding of 'Blue Moons' has been somewhat flawed Also Ian is continuing his ‘Astrophotography Challenge’ where he presents us with not one, but a trio of achievable and challenging tasks to undertake with our cameras in September. This month our challenge is to capture a Comet, a Nova an ..read more

Meet the amazing Dr Tessa Vernstrom! Tessa is the Project Scientist for the Evolutionary Map of the Universe aka EMU survey using the ASKAP telescope. She is also the co-chair of the SKA Magnetism Science Working Group as well as lead in the POSSUM survey of the polarized radio sky. In this fabulous episode, Tessa introduces us to a fun and engaging Citizen Science Project ~ The Radio Galaxy Zoo: EMU In summary, you will hear how Tessa is using the world’s most powerful and sensitive instruments to unlock the secrets of the faintest and furthest objects and most mysterious phenomena in our kno ..read more

Astrophiz 197: Dt Ian Musgrave’s August SkyGuide Moon Phases for August New Moon - 4 August - best for seeing the faint fuzzies and clusters Apogee Moon furthest from Earth - 9 August 1st Quarter Moon - 13 August Full Moon - 20 August Perigee Moon closest to Earth - 21 August Last Quarter Moon - 26 August Evening Sky Comet C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan is binocular-visible in Leo. Mercury is a fine sighting early in the evenings in August near the Western horizon. Mercury, Regulus and Venus are visible till an hour after sunset On the 6th, Mercury, Regulus and Venus form a triangle with the thin cresc ..read more

Today we have a brilliant interview for you as we speak with a fabulous Early Career Researcher, Dr Lauren Rhodes from the University of Oxford. Lauren has just published a paper on the BOAT … the Brightest Object of All Time … a “Once in 10,000 year event” The blast, called GRB 221009A, was over 100 billion times brighter than the sun. Lauren works in powerful collaborations which use a variety of radio interferometers, such as MeerKAT and e-MERLIN to study the radio emissions from explosive celestial events including jets from X-ray binaries and gamma ray bursts. She is using multi wavelengt ..read more

Astrophiz 195: Dr Ian Musgrave’s July SkyGuide Dr Ian Musgrave brings us your July SkyGuide … telling us when, where and what to look for in the evening and morning skies this month. And July is again also a wonderful month for celestial observers, especially the early risers amongst us :) As usual Ian gives us 'Ian's Tangent' … and this month it’s all about the ‘Comet Ferret’, Charles Messier, and his famous catalog of 13 comets and 110 iconic ‘Messier Objects’ now known to be galaxies, nebulae and globular clusters. See if you can spot the ‘False Comet’ in the tail of Scorpius. Then Ian give ..read more

Today we have a brilliant show for you as we speak with Associate Professor Duncan Galloway from Monash University in Australia. His research involves the rarest, most powerful and cataclysmic events that occur in our universe ... Neutron stars colliding ..read more

Astrophiz 193: Dr Ian Musgrave’s June SkyGuide Dr Ian Musgrave brings us his June SkyGuide … telling us when, where and what to look for in the evening and morning skies this month. And June is also a wonderful month for celestial observers, especially the early risers amongst us :) As usual Ian gives us his ‘Tangent’ … and this month it’s all about how animals respond to celestial appearances and then he gives us his ‘Astrophotography Challenge’ where he presents us with an achievable and challenging task to undertake with our cameras. This month our challenge is to capture Saturn as it is oc ..read more

Today we're speaking with Dr. Marcus Lower, who is a Postdoctoral Fellow at Australia's National Science Agency, the CSIRO. His research primarily focuses on pulsars … rapidly rotating neutron stars that emit beams of electromagnetic radiation from their magnetic poles. He's the principal investigator of a Pulsar Timing Project, which uses the CSIRO, Parkes Murriyang radio telescope to understand the long-term behaviour of neutron stars and how they can be used to study the interstellar medium. Marcus is the lead author in a just-published Nature Astronomy paper using the 64-meter Parkes-Murri ..read more

Astrophiz 191: May SkyGuide Dr Ian Musgrave brings us his May SkyGuide … telling us when, where and what to look for in the evening and morning skies this month. And May is a wonderful month for celestial observers, especially the early risers amongst us :) As usual Ian gives us his ‘Tangent’ … and this month it’s all about the depiction of Comets throughout history and then he gives us his ‘Astrophotography Challenge’ where he presents us with an achievable and challenging task to undertake with our cameras. This month our challenge is to capture Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks as it passes through the ..read more

Enjoy this great interview with Professor  Katie Auchettl, who is the Associate Professor of Astrophysics and Physics at Melbourne University.  Katie is an observational astrophysicist whose research focuses on the extreme death of stars. Katie has worked with a team of young astronomers on a sensational book for aspiring astrophysicists that’s just been freely published on the Archive (ArXiv) Server. The book is called: “Astronomy as a Field: A Guide for Aspiring Astrophysicists”  … and it is sensational …. and I can't recommend it highly enough for any student … any person ..read more