Emails – Letters – Tweets – Facebook – Instagram – Kit questions
Now you see it…
In your excellent recent Virtual Planetarium video, Pete Lawrence and Paul Abel revealed night-sky highlights in July. They talked about viewing the crescent Venus, especially in daylight. One feature they debated was whether it’s possible to ‘see’ the outline of the whole planet when it’s in its crescent stage, pondering if it is truly something you see or something your brain does for you – sort of like completing the picture because it knows there is a full disc there. Well, I managed to image Venus through my Celestron 8SE telescope recently, and I was sure I could make out the full disc visually at the time. But zooming in on the photograph I took, it clearly wasn’t visible – my brain was working overtime!
Geoff Winterman, Pembrokeshire
What a fascinating observation, Geoff. It seems that Venus’s Ashen Light has eluded the cameras once again! You can keep up to date with observing highlights each month in our Virtual Planetarium. Find it on our YouTube channel at youtube.com/@bbcskyatnightmag – Ed.
This month’s top prize: two Philip’s titles
The ‘Message of the Month’ writer will receive a bundle of two top titles courtesy of astronomy publisher Philip’s: Nigel Henbest’s Stargazing 2024 and Robin Scagell’s Guide to the Northern Constellations
Winner’s details will be passed on to Octopus Publishing to fulfil the prize
Tweet
Ollie Aplin
@carefreeastro • 23 August The Rotten Fish & Dark Shark A pair of nautical nebulae imaged over 10 moonless nights, mosaicked together from 30 hours of exposures. The fish definitely drew the short straw on the naming…
@skyatnightmag
ET’s view of Earth
If a being or alien was looking at our planet from, say, 150 lightyears away, would it be looking at Earth in its future or in its past? I have been watching Chris Packham’s Earth series on BBC iPlayer and was fascinated to learn of all the incredible changes our planet has experienced over the billions of years of its existence. Could the alien see the world as a snowball, or a blue planet or any other manifestation?
Judith Sutcliffe, Kidderminster
Interesting! Assuming an intelligent being 150 lightyears away was looking at Earth right now, the light it would be seeing would have left our planet 150 years in the past. And, theoretically, yes, if a being 600 million lightyears away could somehow make out our planet, at the present moment it would be seeing light that left our planet when it was a Snowball Earth. – Ed.
Satellite scourge
As a recent subscriber to BBC Sky at Night Magazin
