The only difficulty is that the all-sky star maps and some charts of planetary alignments are drawn for observers in the Northern Hemisphere, and need to be used with that in mind. There are other magazines that have charts for southern observers, and this website provides a monthly guide to the stars, constellations, Moon and planets currently observable. Click here to access the website of 'Night Sky'.

'Sky & Telescope' will continue to cater for those amateur astronomers who require more depth in topics featured. The Australian magazine 'Sky and Space' and the American 'Astronomy' are also highly recommended.

Interesting research news (latest news first):

Giant telescopes damaged by earthquake in Hawaii: Two powerful earthquakes of magnitudes 6.7 and 6.0 struck the island of Hawaii seven minutes apart on the morning of Sunday, October 15 last. These caused significant damage to the large observatories located on the summit of Mauna Kea. Observatory buildings received superficial damage, and electrical power fluctuations and outages caused problems for sensitive equipment. Because of their location at the top of a dormant volcano, most telescopes are fitted with earthquake restraints to protect them from seismic events. These performed as planned, but some damage did occur:

W. M. Keck Observatory: This is home to Keck I and Keck II, the two largest telescopes in the world with mirrors 10 metres across. Keck I was moved horizontally 25 mm, the largest displacement of any of the telescopes, but was unharmed otherwise. Keck II has had two seriously damaged radial pad supports and seismic restraint brackets replaced. Keck II requires additional engineering tests before it can begin on-sky tests.

Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope:  The 3.6 metre optical/infrared telescope collided with its earthquake restraints, which were bent as they were designed to. The horseshoe mount was deformed slightly, and the right ascension decoder smashed. During repairs, it was found that, although the gearing and hydraulic systems were operating normally, the replacement decoder had to be placed in a slightly different position. Subsequent testing revealed a problem with tracking at certain hour angles. This was traced to a dent in the horseshoe mounting that will need to be repaired before the telescope can achieve its previous pointing accuracy. The observatory dome also was displaced during the earthquake.

Gemini North Observatory:  The observatory was moved, the telescope engaged its earthquake restraints, and some debris fell on the 8 metre primary mirror, fortunately without harming it. The worst damage was a broken ceramic rod in the secondary mirror system at the top end of the telescope. The rod, about 24 cm long and 25mm in diameter, broke cleanly so engineers were able to successfully glue it back together with epoxy. The rod is one of three used in the secondary mirror assembly. In addition, a new precision position sensor was installed in the system to replace a sensor damaged by the earthquake.

Subaru Telescope: The 8.2 metre telescope suffered no major damage, but its pointing accuracy and tracking were found to be not as good as they were before the earthquake. Three weeks of testing revealed that an encoder unit that measures the rotation of the telescope had shifted. Realignment of the encoder and the telescope have restored the pre-earthquake precision.

The Australian National University has joined the Giant Magellan Telescope international consortium of research organisations. The GMT is likely to be one of the first of a small number of next-generation Extremely Large Telescopes that are expected to be built in the next 20 years. The telescope's conceptual design anticipates a moving mass of 1000 tonnes and a cylindrical observatory 65 metres high. It will be built by the participating organisations at a site in northern Chile. The primary mirror will have seven circular segments each 8.4 metres across, six of these surrounding the centrally located seventh. The total light-gathering power will be nearly seven times that of the Gemini telescopes, which are the largest ones to which Australian astronomers currently have access, and the images obtained should be ten times clearer than those taken with the Hubble Space Telescope. The GMT is expected to see first light in 2016.  [GMT Home page]   [ANU's involvement]

What do Australian astronomers need in the next ten years in order to stay at the forefront of astronomical research? Our scientists have a proud record of achievement, innovation and discovery in optical and radio astronomy, and in high-energy particle physics and cosmology. The late, great Mount Stromlo 74 inch telescope led the way, followed by the Parkes Radio Telescope which is still at the leading edge of its field of work. In the 1970s came Hanbury-Brown's Stellar Intensity Interferometer, Paul Wild's Radioheliograph, and the Sydney University Giant Air Shower Recorder (all near Narrabri). The last named had an area of 61 square kilometres. All of these instruments worked away, largely unknown and unheralded by the Australian public, although they were featured on the first $50 paper notes. In 1974 the 3.9 metre Anglo-Australian Telescope and the 1.2 metre Schmidt were commissioned on Siding Spring Mountain, and then in 1988 the Australia Telescope was built at Culgoora as a Bicentennial Project.

Where to next? Our astronomers have prepared a wish list for the next ten years called the 'Decadal Plan for 2006-2015'.  [Read it here] .

NASA's powerful infrared Spitzer Space Telescope has taken an image that rivals the Hubble Space Telescope's 'Pillars of Creation' photograph taken ten years ago of part of the Eagle Nebula. Dubbed the 'Mountains of Creation', it shows huge clouds of matter undergoing intense star formation in the region W5 in Cassiopeia. These clouds, which are ten times bigger than the Pillars, are illuminated in the infrared band, but appear as dark clouds in visible light images.  [Full story]

The Hubble Space Telescope has found a disc of blue stars orbiting around a supermassive black hole at the centre of the Andromeda Galaxy, M31. The disc is only one light year across, and contains 400 hot young stars orbiting the black hole at speeds up to 1000 kilometres per second. As the cores of galaxies typically contain old red Population I stars, this is quite an enigma.  [Full story]

The MAGIC Telescope is the largest and most advanced single instrument yet built to observe very-high-energy cosmic rays from the ground. Its parabolic mirror is made up of about a thousand 50 cm X 50 cm aluminium mirror panels, giving a total area equivalent to a single 15 metre diameter mirror. MAGIC is an acronym for 'Major Atmospheric Gamma Imaging Cherenkov'.   [Full story]

The White House has forced NASA to cancel the fourth shuttle mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope. It is now expected that the HST will be allowed to burn up during re-entry to the Earth's atmosphere sometime during this decade. The Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter had also been a victim of budgetary cuts and is to be postponed indefinitely.  [Full story]

The Swift Gamma-ray Observatory observed its first gamma-ray burst on January 17, two months after launch.  [Full story]

Earth's most extensive global topographic map has just been completed by NASA and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. The final section to be done included Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific islands. The resolution of the publicly available data is 90 metres at the Equator.  [Full story]

ESA's Smart-1 spacecraft reached its final operational orbit around the Moon in late February. The mission has been extended until August 2006.  [Full story]

Black holes use their intense gravitational fields to draw in nearby matter, which gives out tremendous amounts of radiation as it approaches the event horizon. The process has been found to be anything but smooth, however.  [Full story]

The European Southern Observatory now has the world's largest interferometer using movable 1.8 metre optical telescopes. Two of the telescopes are being tested now, and two more should be operation by the end of next year. Commissioning of the first two telescopes should be finished by this October.  [Full story]

The Chandra X-ray Observatory has discovered two huge clouds of warm-hot intergalactic matter (WHIM) around our galaxy. This may be some of the missing 'dark matter' or the universe. The clouds have a temperature of about 1 million degrees K, and contain ions of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and neon.  [Full story]

Images from space of the December 26, 2004 tsunami are available here, here and here.

The Rosetta space vehicle launched last March by the European Space Agency (ESA) will have four planetary intercepts before it heads off to Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko, which it will reach in 2014.  [Full story]

The newly-discovered planetoid Sedna, 1700 km across, is the reddest object in the Solar System except for Mars. It is the furthest object in the Solar System except for comets, and takes 10 500 years to circle the Sun once. Should we call it a planet or is it too small?  [More information about Sedna]

The ESA solar spacecraft Ulysses has passed through two, and possibly three comet tails.  [Full story]

The Chandra X-ray Observatory has made the first clear detection of x-rays from Saturn, and has also revealed new information about the atmosphere of Saturn's largest moon, Titan.  [Full story]

NASA's Genesis spacecraft completed its collection of solar wind particles last April and is now on its way back to Earth. The samples were placed into a sealed container which will be released into our atmosphere on September 8, hopefully parachuting to Earth over Utah. Helicopter pilots are being trained to snag the return capsule in mid-air.  [Full story]

NASA's twin Martian Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity conducted a six-week-long eclipse watching program on Mars, during March and April. The tiny moon of Mars, Phobos and Deimos, cross the Sun's disc in a minute or less, and are much smaller than the Sun.  [Full story and photographs]  Both rovers have left their landing sites and are now on the move, in a five-month extended mission until September 25. On that date Mars reaches superior conjunction, passing on the far side of the Sun, when communication with Earth is blocked. Both rovers have found strong evidence for water on Mars. While NASA's rovers are studying the surface, the ESA's Mars Express orbiter is conducting a parallel search from Mars orbit, and has detected water ice at the Poles and possible springs in the large canyon known as Valles Marineris.   [More on the Mars Rovers]    [Mars Express reports] 

The Hubble Space Telescope has provided the deepest portrait of the visible universe ever taken, with a photograph whose exposure was one million seconds long (over 11.5 days!). It shows the faintest and most distant galaxies (in time as well as distance), some of the faintest possibly being the first galaxies to emerge after the 'big bang'. Hubble's Ultra Deep Field (HUDF) is in the southern constellation Fornax. In ground-based images, the region of the HUDF is largely empty, but the Hubble Telescope has revealed 10 000 galaxies there, in an area of sky only one hundredth the area of the Full Moon.  [Full story]

Latest Astronomical Headlines from the IAU (International Astronomical Union):

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