Galactic watcher

Galaxies come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. They can be broadly classified as spiral, elliptical or irregular, but each of these still leaves plenty of scope for variety. Take, for instance, the s

I’m responding to an article by Pete Lawrence in the April 2025 issue, titled ‘Flora crosses the Leo Triplet’ (Big Three, in the Sky Guide), which spurred me to have a look for this minor planet. I al

On 23 July 1999, Space Shuttle Columbia launched its heaviest-ever payload: the Chandra X-ray Observatory, a new flagship telescope for NASA. It is the world’s most powerful X-ray telescope, capable o

Stephenson 1 is a cluster that deserves to be better known. Delta (δ) Lyrae is a very wide (10-arcminute) and bright (mag. +4.3 and + 5.6) double star with a stunning colour contrast. It’s not a true

1 Jul 00:00 AEST (30 Jun, 14:00 UT) 15 Jul 23:00 AEST (13:00 UT) 31 Jul 22:00 AEST (12:00 UT) The chart accurately matches the sky on the dates and times shown for Sydney, Australia. The sky is differ

Andrea Arbizzi, Modena, Italy, December 2024–April 2025 Andrea says: “PuWe 1 is a tough, faint target and even more so from my Bortle 8 sky! But after 28 hours and some intensive processing, I was abl