Society for Popular Astronomy

It is now well away from the Oort Cloud 'between' the orbits of Neptune and Uranus at 19.5 AU so is not likley to be perturbed by any large unknown objects. There are details on https://theskylive.com/2014un271-info . Unfortunately there is no spacecraft capable of getting a good view though I suppo...

It was discovered in 2014 I think the only reason it has come to prominence is the +NASA / Hubble publicity machine publicised it after Hubble was used to image it. Unfortunately ( or perhaps fortunately) it is coming no where near Earth and will need a fairly large telescope to image it even at clo...

And of course the Gun at Edinburgh Castle plus they had a timeball but I am not sure if it still works

Just for clarity Michael was talking about the Brighton Clock tower time ball not Foredown tower. See https://www.brightonandhovenews.org/2022/04/01/time-bandits-hijack-brightons-clock-tower-in-late-night-prank/ for details and impinges of at least one of the perpetrators. If you recognise them East...

Hi Brian, The original plan was to launch British ICBMs from Norfolk and that was then taken over by the American Missiles. Meanwhile the British & Americans were pursuing the use of air launched short range stand-off weapons such as Blue Streak. When it became obvious that was not viable due to...

The mirror is aligned for the first instrument the Near Infrared Camera as it has a wide field of view and is the easiest. They next have to align the mirrors for the other instruments. One of the interesting things about JWST is that light is sent to all the instruments at the same time but they al...

I would agree - that is certainly the case for 'equatorial' orbits which is why ESA launch from near the equator. The performance of the Russian rockets was also improved by launching from the equator rather than the Russian Ranges further North. I am not sure about Polar orbits - I read the launche...

I think they are still waiting for their CAA licence to launch the rocket 'from Cornwall' I am not sure what part of the Atlantic they will launch over. The plan is to fly the 747 mother ship to somewhere off the coast of the USA probably near the equator and then fly East and launch the rocket. Tha...

Sorry for the late reply. The infrared should be focused to about the same standard as Hubble. The detectors are CCDs that have been modified to make them sensitive to infrared but the pixels are about the same size as a normal space telescope pixel. There is more information on the web if you searc...

Hi Bob, I have taken part in a number of Zooniverse projects - mostly on Astronomy but also some transcribing old weather records from ships logs. I think a lot of the thrill is in the hope of finding something new / unusual as happened in the Early days of Galaxy Zoo with Hanny's Voorverp and The G...

Just in the CME was captured by ESA's Solar Orbiter - see https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Solar_Orbiter/Giant_solar_eruption_seen_by_Solar_Orbiter . In some ways the image while spectacular does not do the size of the CME justice. If you download the image and alter the levels ...

Looking at the images from the Kanzelhone Observatory https://www.kso.ac.at/index_en.php this morning it looks as though the returning sunspot is now two and has been given the numbers 12054 and 12955 It is not know which was responsible for the CME on the rear of the Sun last week. Keep watching th...

It appears the Sunspot that may have unleashed the CME that may have been an X-Class flare was AR2936 which was the one that killed 40 starlink satellites on 4th February. This sunspot has just emerged over the limb of the Sun and is now numbered AR2954 (Sunspots are renumbered on each appearance) ....

Bright Aurora displays were sen from Scotland & N England on Saturday evening, 8th Jan 2022. Dis anyone see the display from further South in England ? I looked North at the Sky over London at around 22:30 and thought I saw some Green Colouration which I put down to the LED lighting in London so...

The 6 months includes both the unfolding and the instrument calibration time. The minimum life of the telescope is supposed to be 5 1/2 years but they hope it will last for 10 - the limitation is how long the fuel for the thrusters lasts. If it only lasts for the design lifetime of 5 1/2 years the c...