Tag

Telescopes

All articles tagged with #telescopes

space1 hour ago•123 min saved

Five Moonlandmarks to Chase on International Observe the Moon Night

Space.com highlights five lunar targets for International Observe the Moon Night 2026: Montes Apenninus—casting a long shadow near Mare Imbrium; a trio of shadowed craters (Plato, Archimedes, Eratosthenes) along the terminator; the Apollo 11 landing site at Tranquility Base; Mare Crisium on the moon’s eastern edge; and Rupes Recta—the 62-mile straight-wall cliff. A telescope of about 4 inches or larger helps reveal the detail, and the first-quarter phase is ideal for viewing.

via Space|

#astronomy #international-observe-the-moon-night #lunar

space5 days ago•12 min saved

Planet Nine Could Be Big Yet Hidden in a Deep Cosmic Dimness

Planet Nine, if it exists, could have several Earth masses and be over twice Earth’s diameter, but at hundreds of AU from the Sun it would reflect so little light that its brightness would be extraordinarily faint and often vanish into the background. The light that does reach Earth must travel outward and back, so the overall reflected flux drops roughly with the inverse fourth power of distance, making even a relatively large planet extremely hard to spot with current surveys. Ongoing searches, including the Rubin Observatory’s LSST, aim to detect it or tighten where it could lie; however, non-detection so far does not rule out a distant, faint world.

via Space Daily|

#astronomy #kuiper-belt #planet-nine

space11 days ago•134 min saved

Falcon Heavy boosters land back after Roman Telescope launch

SpaceX's Falcon Heavy launched NASA's Roman Space Telescope on Aug. 30 and its two boosters landed back on Earth at Landing Zones 2 and 40, with Space.com photographer Chelsea Gohd capturing one landing. The Roman Space Telescope is NASA's next observatory, featuring a coronagraph for direct imaging of exoplanets and a wide-field instrument, designed to work with Hubble and JWST, and first images are expected next year.

via Space|

#nasa #rockets #space

space18 days ago•4 min saved

Astronomers Spot the Universe's Lightless Micro-Object with a Global Telescope Network

Astronomers using a network of radio and optical telescopes detected the Universe’s lightless object with about one million solar masses via gravitational lensing, potentially a dense dark-matter clump or an inactive dwarf galaxy, offering a new way to test cold dark matter theories.

via BBC Sky at Night Magazine|

#astronomy #cosmology #dark-matter

space29 days ago•13 min saved

Unfinished Chilean Telescope Reveals How Dying Stars Feed the Galaxy

During calibration in 2025, the under‑construction Modular Optical Telephoto Hyperspectral Robotic Array (MOTHRA) at Chile’s El Sauce Observatory imaged 22 faint bow shocks around the Helix Nebula, providing real-time evidence of how gas expelled by dying stars is recycled into the interstellar medium to seed future star and planet formation. The low‑cost lens array—built to map the cosmic web—offers direct insight into the mass‑loss process, with findings published in Nature and funded by contributions including Alex Gerko.

via The Times of India|

#astronomy #helix-nebula #interstellar-medium

space1 month ago•16 min saved

A Trio of Giants: Why We Need All Three 30-Meter Telescopes

The article argues that humanity should build and operate all three 30-meter-class ground-based telescopes—the ELT (Chile), GMT (Chile), and the northern-hemisphere TMT—because each brings unique strengths: ELT for deepest, highest-resolution views; GMT for wide-field and blue/short-wavelength work; and TMT for northern-sky access. Ground-based facilities avoid launch limits, offer repairability and upgradeability, and can have lifespans spanning the 21st century. Together they enable transformative science across stellar populations, galaxies, exoplanets, and dark matter, while covering most of the sky and complementing space telescopes. The piece urges continued funding and international cooperation to realize the trio.

via Big Think|

#astronomy #elt #gmt

space1 month ago•141 min saved

What a $50 Used Telescope Taught Me About Budget Astronomy

A Space.com writer buys a used Celestron AstroMaster 130mm Newtonian via Facebook Marketplace for $50, then, after quick collimation, enjoys surprisingly sharp views of Venus and Jupiter (Great Red Spot visible) and several bright deep-sky targets with two eyepieces (~33x and ~65x) on a manual, non-motorized mount. He even captures Moon/planet video with a simple USB camera, showing that a larger, secondhand telescope can outperform many new entry‑level refractors. However, long-exposure astrophotography is limited by lack of tracking. The piece advises inspecting optics and the mount before buying and notes abundant bargains in the $50–$200 range for beginners.

via Space|

#astronomy #beginner #budget

technology1 month ago•140 min saved

Pocket-Sized Moon Mission Delivers Big Access to the Night Sky

The Celestron Moon Mission 100mm Tabletop Dobsonian is a compact, beginner-friendly Newtonian telescope ideal for kids and first-time stargazers on a budget. It arrives ready to use with 8mm and 20mm eyepieces, a red-dot finder, a moon filter, a moon-map poster, and Starry Night software, all mounted on a portable tabletop base that’s quick to set up on a stable surface. In practice it shines for the Moon, easily resolves Jupiter and its Galilean moons, and enables star-hopping to a few brighter deep-sky targets, though you’ll contend with a coarse focuser, occasional need for collimation, and a finder that's awkward near the zenith. The tabletop design requires a sturdy table and some help for younger users, but the package provides a safe, affordable entry point that can grow into larger telescopes later.

via space.com|

#astronomy-for-kids #beginner-friendly #moon-observation

space1 month ago•8 min saved

SpaceX's Spent Rocket Could Create a Telescopic Moon Show

A spent SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage is forecast to crash into the sunlit edge of the Moon near Einstein crater on Aug. 5 at about 6:34 UTC, potentially kicking up a visible plume of debris through telescopes. Simulations suggest roughly 12,700 kg of material could eject, with a plume spanning up to 183 km and peaking about 90 seconds after impact, though visibility depends on impact angle, brightness contrast with the Moon, and local weather. Best viewing opportunities are in the U.S. Southeast, and the event could help researchers understand debris impacts for future lunar exploration.

via WIRED|

#astronomy #lunarimpact #moon

science1 month ago•11 min saved

Mauna Kea: Sky-High Science Hub Under Cultural Stewardship

Mauna Kea’s summit hosts 13 major telescopes from 11 countries thanks to exceptionally clear, dry air; but the site’s sacred status for Native Hawaiians has spawned protests and a new Mauna Kea Stewardship and Oversight Authority that will take over management in 2028, with some observatories decommissioned and the future of the Thirty Meter Telescope dependent on leases and governance.

via Space Daily|

#astronomy #governance #mauna-kea

space-exploration2 months ago•103 min saved

ELT's first rotation marks milestone for a 3,500-ton telescope

The European Southern Observatory’s Extremely Large Telescope rotated its 3,500-ton structure for the first time on its Chilean mountaintop, marking a major milestone in its assembly. Weighing about 7.7 million pounds now, the ELT will grow larger as mirrors and instruments are installed later, ultimately surpassing 10 million pounds and enabling unprecedented views of the night sky.

via Space|

#chile #eso #extremely-large-telescope

space2 months ago•105 min saved

Satellite Boom Could Obscure the Night Sky, Threatening Telescopes

A European Southern Observatory study warns that rapid growth of satellite megaconstellations could soon brighten and streak the night sky to a point where ground-based telescopes become unusable, forcing longer exposure times and higher costs; proposals like Reflect Orbital’s space mirrors could worsen the issue, prompting regulatory and international-law considerations and calls from astronomers to mitigate the impact on science and the public’s view of the sky.

via Space|

#astronomy #light-pollution #satellites

technology3 months ago•15 min saved

From hacker to space-light pioneer, Roelker bets on laser-powered space data

Dan Roelker, a former hacker and DARPA program manager, now leads Observable Space, where software and advanced optics are used to track satellites with sub-arcsecond precision and to enable high-bandwidth laser communications from space to Earth; the company emerged from a merge of OurSky and PlaneWave, won a Space Force contract, and just closed a $90 million Series A to scale telescope production and laser-link tech for orbital data centers and NASA’s Artemis missions.

via Ars Technica|

#artemis #laser-communications #optics

science3 months ago•38 min saved

NASA's $4 Billion Roman Space Telescope Heads to Florida for Launch Prep

NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, a $4 billion infrared observatory built to probe dark energy and exoplanets, has been moved to Florida for final assembly and testing ahead of its planned launch, marking a major milestone for next-generation space astronomy.

via Forbes|

#astronomy #launch #nasa

science4 months ago•2 min saved

Near-Earth Rock Slips Through Detection Door Before Close Flyby

An asteroid the size of a blue whale will pass about 56,500 miles from Earth tonight (roughly 24% of the Earth–Moon distance), but it wasn’t discovered until roughly a week ago because key radar facilities are down after Arecibo’s collapse and ongoing Goldstone repairs; only about 1% of Earth-skimming asteroids this size get flagged, even as surveys like Vera Rubin Observatory discover thousands of new objects, highlighting gaps in our planetary defense.

via Nautilus | Science|

#asteroid #near-earth-object #radar