AWESOME ASTRONOMY

The Discussion: Earthling slave John got married! The new fashion of requesting telescopes at weddings, a good time of year for solar astronomy, the scores are in for the results of Jeni's master's degree, Jeni gets a sciencey summer job and we make a joking (but no less genuine) appeal for astronomy equipment to review in future shows. The News: Rounding up the space and astronomy news this month...

What to look out, and up, for in July. Our highlights of this month's skies with the planet on offer to observers and imagers: Mars Saturn A Venus conjunction And a few tips on how to take images of the solar system's largest bodies with a webcam, planetary imaging camera or DSLR. Next up is the meteor showers and, due to the long daylight hours and dearth of cometary debris in this part of Earth'...

In this Awesome Astronomy podcast extra episode we bring you the key speakers from this spring's AstroCamp in the Brecon Beacon dark sky reserve. As the transit of Mercury was the main feature of this spring's camp, we were delighted to welcome (and now to share with you) speakers with detailed knowledge of planetary transits: Dr Rebekah Higgitt lectures history at the University of Kent and forme...

The Discussion: Exam season is well underway for Jeni, Paul & Ralph ran the AstroCamp dark sky star party in Wales and the jet stream causes frustration for sky watchers in the UK. But the big event last month was the transit of the planet Mercury with a full day of observing this phenomenon for many parts of the world. The News: Rounding up the space and astronomy news this month we have: A possi...

What to look out, and up, for in June. Our tour of the highlights of this month's skies begins with the planets on offer to observers and imagers: Jupiter Mars Saturn Next up is the meteor showers and we have quite a few daytime showers that can be spotted in the pre-dawn sky as well as some more usual showers in June: Arietids Zeta Perseids June Lyrids June Bootids Then we each take a deep sky pi...

Welcome to this AstroCamp podcast extra episode to tell you what you can expect from the weekend's festivities and listen to on the way to Cwmdu: The Discussion: An introduction to star parties and enjoying practical astronomy under pristine dark skies away from the city. As the podcast crew run the AstroCamp star party, which many listeners attend, in the Brecon Beacon's international dark sky re...

In this month's show: The Discussion Revision season as Jeni finishes her masters in astrophysics and preparations for AstroCamp in the Welsh Brecon Beacons. The News SpaceX make Paul look a right fool Stephen Hawking backs an attempt to send spaceships to Alpha Centauri More insight in to gravitational waves A new galaxy is discovered orbiting the Milky Way Narrowing down the whereabouts of Plane...

What to look out, and up, for in March. We start a new look (listen?) sky guide this month. We begin the show with a discussion around the highlights to observe this May: The Transit of Mercury on 9th May International Astronomy Day on 14th May Mars at opposition on 22nd May Three meteor shower peaks, Eta Aquariids (6th), Eta Lyrids (8th) & Camelopardalids (24th) Next we each suggest and help you...

During a visit to Geneva in September 2016, the Awesome Astronomy team stopped looking out into the universe for a while to delve into the impossibly tiny world of subatomic particles and fundamental forces that fuels the heartbeat of the European Organization for Nuclear Research. Dr Steven Goldfarb, an experimental particle physicist from the University of Michigan, led a tour of the ATLAS Contr...

Download Episode! The Discussion: This month Jeni has a PhD offer that's getting us all excited, Paul's been clocking up the miles to teach science and astronomy to schools and Ralph's just excited because he's got a new telescope. Mat & Phil from Project Helium Tears join us again on the day they launched their 2nd Star Wars themed balloon to the edge of space. The News: We start the news with la...

What to look out, and up, for in April 2016! For the beginners this month Ralph takes a look at the Leo Lion who leaps across the sky all April. Leo hosts some nice colour contrasting binary stars (one with a gas giant planet of its own) and some galaxies to hunt down. Next Jeni rounds up the planets that are visible in December: Jupiter Mars and Mercury at one of its most favourable viewing oppor...

The Discussion: We bid a sad farewell to Apollo pioneer Edgar Mitchell who spent 33 hours on the lunar surface in 1971 on the Apollo 14 mission, celebrate the detection of gravitational waves and Paul regales us with his tales of clear skies for some long awaited eyepiece time. The News: This month the news is dominated by the death of Apollo 14's Edgar Mitchell. We bring you the highs of collecti...

What to look out, and up, for in March. For the beginners this month we take a look at perhaps the most recognisable constellation of them all: Ursa Major, the Great Bear. In the Great Bear we go hunting for the easiest binary star in the sky and a host of big bright galaxies. Next Jeni rounds up the planets that are visible in December: Mars, Jupiter & ever more brief views of Saturn, before taki...

For anyone who's still a little fuzzy or confused by the enormity of the recent detection of gravitational waves by the LIGO facility, we've recorded a special podcast extra to shed some light on the impossibly complex world of General Relativity, interferometry detectors and gravitational waves themselves. This podcast extra should explain in simple terms: What gravitational waves are Why they're...

The Discussion: As we lament the passing of some great people we remember how lucky we are to live in an age of great discovery. We discuss British astronaut Tim Peake's spacewalk with American Tim Kopra outside the International Space Station and take a look back at the annual festival of TV astronomy StargazingLIVE. The News: There's a packed news section in this month's show as we discuss: Have...

What to look out, and up, for in February. For the beginners this month we take a look at the constellation of Auriga the Charioteer with a trio of open clusters from the Messier catalogue and finishing off with the Flaming Star that originated in Orion's Belt. Next Jeni rounds up the planets that are visible in December: Jupiter, Mars & Saturn, before taking a look at this month's moon phases – w...

The Discussion: In our first invasion of 2016 we discuss Paul's work promoting British astronaut Tim Peake's stay on the International Space Station and his visit to Parliament; Jen's ongoing work in General Relativity and black holes; and John tells us about his trip to visit the Sutherland Astronomical Society in Perth, Australia. The News: This month we return to NASA's Dawn spacecraft at Ceres...

What to look out, and up, for in January. For the beginners and young astronomers this month we take a look at the magnificent winter constellation of Orion with the belt and sword bordered by four magnificent stars. We take a look at a (cosmologically) near term supernova hopeful, a five star multiple star system, and the finest nebula of them all in small telescopes or binoculars. Next we round...

This pantomime episode contains some mild bad language and puerile humour Join us for our yearly round up of our favourite stories & events from 2015 and discuss the most exciting space missions and astronomy events coming up in 2016. This festive season we welcome you back to our secretive Cydonia bunker - the scene of each Earth invasion attempt - as we share a brandy on the moon and give you a...

The Discussion: In this Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy contrived episode we look back over the movie The Martian, meeting Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, we gloss over the Bayesian statistics in Jen's data analysis work and hear about a mathematics-based nightmare that's been keeping Jen awake but should have mathematicians rolling in the aisles! The News: This month we revisit that alien meg...

For the beginners this month we take a look at the constellation of Gemini with bright star Castor providing a nice easy double star to split with a telescope. We move over to the feet of the Gemini twins to scan for some nice open clusters, including Messier 35, before hunting down the beautiful Eskimo planetary nebula. Finally, we go looking for a star known to have a planet of its own. Next we...

During this spring's AstroCamp event, hosted by the Awesome Astronomy podcast team, our new presenter, Jeni Millard, gave another of her inspiring talks. We were treated to a history of the much neglected Aboriginal dark sky folklore as we got tour of some of the most interesting objects in the southern hemisphere's sky. Then we head off into the world of professional astronomy at the Australian A...

The Discussion: We welcome astrophysicist Jeni Millard from Cardiff University onto the show as our new co-presenter! We discuss the astronomy lessons, tuition and events we've been involved with over the past month and name drop about an Apollo moonwalker we might have interviewed… The News: This month we take a look at NASA's completed image collection of the Pluto system from the New Horizons s...

What to look out, and up, for in November. This month we tour a few simple objects that you can show to a child and spark their interest in the night skies. In our beginners' guide, Ursa Major shows us now to find true north and points out a few galaxies to observe in a small telescope. Then we take a look at the moon, showing us some lovely phases in the middle of the month and finish with two da...

Matt Kingsnorth from the Project Helium Tears debriefs us on his balloon launch to the edge of space, capturing images of the Earth, taking Awesome Astronomy listeners' names onboard and filming a Star Wars X-Wing fighter against the black of space in May 2015. Quite by surprise, the onboard cameras even managed to capture images of the moon and a meteor streaking through the atmosphere below! The...