Nobody Panic - How to Stargaze

Episode Date: December 22, 2020

Stevie and Tessa learn all about stars and how to stargaze with Abigail Beall author of The Art of Urban Astronomy - featuring some excellent questions such as “What is the Milky Way?” and “How do people see stars from the Earth when they are such a long way away?” and “If aliens are really far away looking at us, won’t they be seeing into the past? So is the Earth covered in dinosaurs to them?”. Mind-blowing business. Follow Abigail on Twitter: @abbybeallCheck out her website: abigailbeall.comSign up to the newsletter here.Buy her book The Art of Urban Astronomy: A Guide to Stargazing, Wherever You Are here.Helpful Stargazing Sites Mentioned:earthsky.orgstellarium.orgNight Sky AppWant to support Nobody Panic? You can make a one-off donation at https://supporter.acast.com/nobodypanicRecorded and edited by Naomi Parnell for Plosive Productions.Photos by Marco Vittur, jingle by David Dobson.Follow Nobody Panic on Twitter @NobodyPanicPodSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/nobodypanic. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, I'm Carriad. I'm Sarah. And we are the Weirdo's Book Club podcast. We are doing a very special live show as part of the London Podcast Festival. The date is Thursday, 11th of September. The time is 7pm and our special guest is the brilliant Alan Davies. Tickets from kingsplace.com. Single ladies, it's coming to London.

True on Saturday, the 13th of September. At the London Podcast Festival. The rumours are true. Saturday the 13th of September. At King's Place. Oh, that sounds like a date to me, Harriet. And today we're coming to you live from the astronomy tower. From space.

We're in space on the moon. The space shuttle. We're doing stargazing live. I'm so excited about this episode. But yes, we're a podcast. We will try and help you with things. This week we thought, Christmassy, sure, stargazing, that's Christmassy. And we got a message from Abigail, Abby Beale, who is the freelance science journalist

and the author of The Art of Urban Astronomy, a guide to stargazing wherever you are. Yes, please. Abby, how are you? I'm good, thank you. Thanks so much for having me. Oh, my God. Thank you for coming on.

When you said, can I come on and talk about stars? We were like, yes, yes, any time, any, yes, obviously, yes. Before we start, though, do you have an adult thing for this week? Yeah, I do. So last week I chatted to Brian May. Oh, my God. What for? What was the thing? What for? So he also, apart from being like the guitarist in Queen, he also has a PhD in astrophysics. And he's got like a series. He's also really into 3D images. So he's got a new book out, which is like 3D pictures of cosmic clouds. And I interviewed him about his book for Wired. So it's really, it's really cool. He's really, really nice man. Oh my God. Did you do it over Zoom? Could you see his big head? No, I couldn't. It was just on the phone.

You could feel that his big hair was there, like, I guess. Yeah, yeah, definitely. That was the vibe. That's so good. Oh, God. Who did you interview him? Where did you, where did you publish your piece or where will it be published? It will be unwired. Oh, my God, you're such a cool girl. That's, why it is such a cool magazine. Oh, God, just wired is such a cool magazine. So you've already set your bar out as being very cool. So go on, impress. us more. Let's take that into stargazing.

What, yeah, where should we begin? What got you into stargazing in the first place? So I got into stargazing because I became obsessed with physics when I was like a teenager. So not going to do as all. Haven't we all. Yeah. For me, Greek mythology. Oh, please.

Love that. For me, drinking under the underpass. Listen, we've all got something to bring. So you're into physics. Yeah. So I got this book that was all about physics and I got really into it. And then I studied physics at uni. And during that we did like modules about astronomy. So we learned about the stars and how the earth moves and how you can, how that relates to what you can see in the sky. And it was kind of from

that point that I got into actually like looking at the stars and thinking about what I was seeing and things. So before then I kind of knew like the basic constellations. But yeah, that was when I got like really into it. You went from being somebody quite interested to being like writing a book about it. Tells a little bit about the book so that people can, if they're interested in more, have a yeah. So after I, I've been working as a freelance journalist for like four years now and I mostly cover physics and space news and features and things like that. And then the book is, it's like, it's basically an introduction to stargazing and it's aimed at people in cities because I think a lot of people think when you're in a city, you can't really see that much. So it kind of starts off with

the brightest things. You can see the things that are close by, like the planets and meteors and things like that. And then it kind of goes further away. So like stars and then to like the Andromeda galaxy, which is the furthest thing you can see with the naked eye. And it's kind of, so it's called urban astronomy, but really it's for anyone because, you know, you can, whatever you can see in a city you can see in a dark sky area, but you can obviously see way more as well. And it's for people all around the world. Like I obviously live in the northern hemisphere, so that's like what I know the best in terms of the sky. But I did write it sort of aimed at everyone around the world. Yeah, it sort of blew my mind. I think quite recently, embarrassingly recently,

and I was like, if you're in Australia, the sky is different. Couldn't quite cope with that. I don't think I've ever actually been to the southern hemisphere because I'm not about. very well-travelled individual. But so how much of the constellations are different? Like, is it completely different? Or are they all in, like, different places? Or is it like? So, yeah, so some of them you can see from all around the world.

So like anything that lies kind of near the equator or near this line called the ecliptic, which is the line the sun kind of traces across the sky in a year. So all the constellations that are on that, they're called the Zodiac Constellation. So they're ones that are in astrology. You can see them from anywhere in the world. And there's lots of constellations like Orion that you can see from most places. And then you've got things that are near the North Pole, like the North Star and constellations near there. You can only see in the Northern Hemisphere.

Question. Sorry to come in with a question so quick. The North Star, it never moves, right? It's always over the North Pole. Yeah. How? So I think it helps to think about the reason the sky is moving, which is obviously the stars aren't moving, we're moving. What?

So like the earth is spinning on an axis and it spins around the axis rotation which goes through the north pole. So the north pole, if you stood right on the north pole, you're not actually spinning. It's that point is stood still. Oh my God. Okay. So every night of the year, your view, your star from the North Pole is the same. Your night sky is always the same. From the North Pole, yeah.

But it also depends on the fact that the Earth is also moving around the sun. So the constellations that you can see on the ecliptic, the zodiacal ones, they change around in the year depending on where the Earth is around the sun. But over the course of one night, Earth spins and, all of the constellations look like they're kind of going around like a clock face all around the north star. But the north star, it does actually wobble a tiny, tiny bit because it's not quite bang on the top above the North Pole. But it's pretty much above the North Pole. Should we be more sort of miraculously impressed that directly above our North Pole is a star?

Or is that like given how many stars there are, it's not unlikely that we've got that? It's quite cool. But also the North Star, is going to change in like a few thousand years. To what? To another star. To a cake? What's the thing?

To what? So basically, so the earth is spinning, but it's spinning on an axis. It's like 23.5 degrees like tilted that way towards the sun. So that's why we have the seasons. But the axis that it's spinning is also moving like a gyroscope. so you know like a spinning top. Like an inception, that film at the end. Yeah, yeah.

So as it spins, it kind of makes a big circle. And the earth is doing that. But over a really slow period, I think it's like 23,000 years or something like that. And so eventually in like another 16,000 years or something, we'll have a different North Star, which will be, I think it's Vega, which is like another bright star in the Northern Hemisphere.

So as in like rather than the North Star itself, will change into a cake. The position, the role, the official role of North Star will be passed to a different star and they'll, and it'll be their succession. Very fun. And then it'll come back to the North Star again in another, however many years. Oh my God. Huge deal. So it's like a job sharing. Yeah. You love to see it. You love people getting different opportunities. Yeah, good for Vega, you know, we're all thinking. And also, at the moment, there's no South Pole star. There's nothing above the South Pole, but there will be one at some point. Oh my God. Will the, and the same with the North Pole, like if you were stood on the South Pole, would your night sky throughout the year always be the

same, same situation? Directly above you, it would be, yeah. And then they've got a thing called the Southern Triangle, which helps you find direction of South for like navigation, you know, like back in the day when people used the North Star for navigating. Well, you'd be screwed if you did that and then it's changed. And you were like, oh, okay. I was good. I was. I was. was going in the right direction. Now I've absolutely screwed it up. I was going to say, do you know anything about the sort of like broad history of Stargoy? Like what we used to use it for and everything. Yeah, I do. I am. So basically there's, I think pretty much every kind of civilization have used stargazing in some way. And a lot of different, you can still see a lot

of the influences of that like today. So the Mayans, for example, they used it for, and they used stars to like try and predict the future. And that's why I think it was in 2012, Do you remember when they said it was going to be the end of the world? Yeah, and then they thought, oh, maybe they've got it wrong in this 2021. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that was from the Mayans looking at the stars. And also the ancient Chinese used it for keeping track of time. And also that's where we got astrology from because they were really into the zodiac constellations.

And then, yeah, and then like the ancient Greeks were really into the constellations. and that's why most of the constellations today are named after like Greek mythology. But I think lots of different, like at the time when the Greeks were naming the constellations, obviously other people around the world were studying the stars and naming them after their own stuff. And lots of the stars are, the individual star names that come from Arabic. So there's quite a big Islamic astronomy, like influence on the names of stars. But I think, I don't know why they're totally. chosen why they've chosen the Greek mythology ones, but that's just like the official

and the International Astronomical Union named the 88 constellations. And I think most of them come from Greek mythology. This is 88, Jesus Christ, okay. It's insane, isn't it, to think of thousands and thousands of years ago. They were able to make these huge mathematical and geographical and incredible discoveries and stuff, like purely based on like some good maths and the star. Like that's, yeah, it's amazing. If I may, I've got an experience about stargazing.

I've always wanted to. Can only see the plow slash big dipper slash big pan. That's all I've been able to see. And in October of this year, I think, or I think it was October. It might have been September. Maybe you can tell me. Mars was apparently like the most bright, just dead bright. I don't know what the stats were, quite bright.

And whenever I see these things, I'm always like, cool, not for me, though, because I won't be able to spot it. I went outside and I downloaded the I think Google have it, I think it was the Google app where you like point in your phone and it shows you the constellations but then it's like oh yeah but do you want me to point it flat

or do you want to point it like a pointer? Like I know but I don't know which one and but then after about 20 minutes we found Mars and it was so bright and it stared at it for about half an hour actually was the highlight of my entire year so I just wanted to say if you feel like you can't you actually

can have a, it is a bit of effort, but you can't have a go. It was so, it was so amazing to like, look, although, to be honest, I probably could have been looking at a plane. And that is the thing, again, is the issue? Like, I was going to ask you, is there a way other than just does it move, that you can see, like to know whether it's a star, a plane or a satellite? Yeah. So, so, so it is mostly to do with how they move, but planes will have like flashing lights. Of course. And wings. And, yeah. And, yeah. Maybe you'll see the waves. So a satellite will move across the sky quite quickly, but it will be like a consistent white light because they, the only reason we see them is because they reflect the light from the sun. So it's just like a normal light doesn't flash. It's not like green or anything. And they move quite quickly. So the space station, which is the biggest satellite will move. We'll take about four minutes, I think, to cross the sky. So you can see it moving, but it's not like super fast. If you see, you see it. something that's like a flash of light, like moving really, really fast, that would be a meteor.

And they, they look bright and then they kind of like fizzle out really quickly. A shooting star. Yeah, shooting star. And to tell the difference between planets and stars is a wee bit trickier, because when you look at them, they kind of, you can't tell they're moving. But if you watch them for like an hour, you'll see the planets move like relative to the stars. But the main thing is, the planets are usually quite low in the horizon. If you see them just after like, For example, at the moment, you can see Jupiter and Saturn just after sunset, and they're really bright. Oh. Okay. What I... Yep, no, you go. No. I'm full of questions. You stay seated. Okay. I was going to say, just like, I'm trying to think of like, easy, nice boys.

That's exactly my question. I was going to say, if we go big dipper, Orion's belt, what is number three? Because nobody knows any. I don't know what Orion's belt is. Yes, yes, you do. Three, three in a little line. But this is the issue. Whenever I look at the sky, I'm like, yeah, there's loads of three in a line. I suppose you want to use an app or something. Would you recommend using an app or like that night sky app? Yeah, I think apps are really great, especially if you are just starting out and you're somewhere like in a city. Because the problem with apps is the light from your phone.

If you're like, you know, if you're in the middle of the darkest place ever and you've adjusted your eyes for like an hour and then you look at your phone, you won't be able to see anything. But in a city where you're just trying to tell if it's a planet or if it's like a bright constellation, then apps are amazing.

because there's so many free ones. And all you literally do is hold them up and look where you're looking and it just says like it comes up with like a massive thing of like Mars or Venus or Saturn. And it is the screen. So it's like just so everyone's the way. If you're supposed to do it like you're looking through your screen, like a little mini window. You're not supposed to point it like a remote control, which I'm doing for like.

I don't know. Because that I'll show you what it's like on the same pole. Under the ground. Oh God. And now sometimes I've been like, I can't see anything that I'm, this is telling me. But the one that I've used is called Night Sky. Yeah. And it's, it constantly tells you that you need to like pay, but you don't.

You just keep going skip, skip, skip, and then you can use the free one. It's very cool. You just have to like, yeah, they all have like an advert for the upgrade or whatever, but just skip that and then it goes through to tell you what you're looking at. So our good, our good solid boys. Stevie, do you know how about the North Star is in relation to the... Isn't that on the tail of the big, handhandle of the big... Everyone knows then fine, fine, fine.

So, yeah, so if you think of the big dipper as, like the plough as a pan, you've got the handle and then you've got like the bowl or what would you call it? Pan bit. The way you'd put the eggs. The pan, yeah. So if you're looking at it side on, you've got the handle. And then on the other side,

there's two stars that make up like the, what would I guess be like the side of the pan. And if you go from bottom to top, draw a line, like imagine your line that way. then keep going, that's how you get to the North Star. But how do you know when you're there? Is it the brightest one in that line? In that area, yeah, it's the brightest kind of one.

This entire time I've been like, and there's the panhandle, that's north. Right, that's such a shame. Stevie at Steve at C just constantly. It's not like, it's not going to spinning. Off we go. And also, I'm screaming because I've just found out that it's going to change. So I'm like, guys, at any moment, it will change. We don't know when.

I'll get a tweet, I imagine. Okay, yes. please more more more more more so Orion Orion is a really good one to start from okay because it's really easy to recognise because you have got the three stars of of the bell not all of us can so just just it's it feels like luck of the draw finding Orion it does yeah I don't know when you see him you see him but yeah you can't look for him that's his magic so he's um rising he's like a

he's a winter constellation. So it's not visible all year round. At the moment, it's rising at about eight o'clock, I think, maybe half eight, nine. And then into December and January, it starts to rise earlier and then it's visible all night. So in like autumn, it's quite hard to see unless you're up, like really late. So, and it rises in the east and then it kind of like does like a big circle around the North Pole. And if you see this, if you see three stars that you think, might be Orion's belt. Then if you look above to the left of them and if you see quite a bright red star

and then below to the right of them, you should see a really bright kind of blue-looking star. And those are the two brightest stars in the constellation of Orion. And if you see them, then you'll know that that's definitely the belt and you've got Orion. Okay, great.

And then once you find Orion, you can use it to find Sirius, which is the brightest star in the sky. The bear? The dog? Oh. Sirius Black. Oh yeah, of course.

Exactly, yeah. Yeah. I've shamed us all. So if you go from right to left in a round's belt and then keep that line going, you get to a really, really bright star and that. And Sirius really looks like it's flickering, like lots of different colors. So it's really bright and it really looks like it's flickering. So you can probably, so that's the bright star in the night sky. And when you're like, so you've.

So you're excited. You want to see these three stalwarts of the night sky. Is it good to buy like a little cheap telescope? I would say start off with binoculars because telescopes are, they are great, but lots of people spend so much money on telescopes and then never use them. And binoculars are really easy to take anywhere. And also you can see so much with them. so you can see the four moons of Jupiter with binoculars. And earlier in the year, I saw there was a comet that was visible,

and I looked through binoculars, and you could really see its tail and how it was kind of green. It was amazing. Just with like, they're quite big binoculars to see that kind of thing, but they're much cheaper and easier to take anywhere than telescopes. When you say, so, sorry, there's so like so many questions as well, But when you say, you know, that you knew that there was like a media happening, so you like got your mouth and stuff.

Also, same with me and Mars. I came across it because it was like a random tweet, something retweeted. I never see these things. What's the best, like, is there a really good, like, Twitter profile to follow? Or is there a really good, like, website to check that tells you when this cool stuff is happening? Because I think that's, like, half the battle being like, well, I don't know. I didn't know Jupiter's moons were out. No one told me.

Yeah, well, I, so I'll plug myself here because I write a newsletter every week, which every Monday I send a newsletter out that tells people what's coming up that week. Oh my God. Oh, my God. Yes. What's your news letter? I'm starting up now as we're recording. It's called, at the moment, it's called lockdown stargazing because I started to try to help people in the second lockdown, you know, because the nights are so dark and people can't go for like walks and then at night after work anymore. So I thought it would be a good opportunity for people. to come up to start like a new hobby. Yeah. But other than that, there's a website called Stellarium, which you can basically, it's like a desktop software thing. You don't have to download anything.

And you plug in exactly where you live and what time you want to look and it shows you what the sky will look like. So you can go any time in the future or like hundreds of years in the past and it shows you what the sky looked like back then. Oh my Lord. That's amazing. How can people find your newsletter? I'm really bad with the newsletters and don't know.

what to do. So that's on my website, on my, which is abigailbealebele.com or on my Twitter is probably the easiest way because I have it on my like bio thing on my Twitter. Which is at Abby Beale? Abby Beal, yeah. Great. So yes, do that. And then yes, but then, oh, looking at the past and looking at old skies, you can look at the sky when you were born and all that stuff. Yeah, yeah. Or you can look at like old eclipses and things like that. But that app is good for planning like when you want to look at stuff. But other than that, there's websites like earthsky.com I think do like a roundup of what's coming up.

And if you, I think it's a good idea to sort of have a look at that and maybe put a few things in your diary. So you, you, if you're interested in like an eclipse or planets doing something in particular, if you've got it in your diary, then you'll, you'll be able to think, because it does feel like it's one of those things that you kind of go, it's so easy to forget how monumental those things are when you see... Because in your day-to-day life, you're like, oh, I've got to go to Stain's Breeze, you've got to pick that up,

and then there's a comet, like, fine. But when you actually, like, do it. Because I remember when I was little, there was a comet, and I don't know what comet it was, but it passed really closely. I think it was like... Haley? It might have been, because it was famous one. Haley was a big one when we were little.

Yeah. Right, yeah, I think it was. And it looked like it was, it was like a cartoon comet. It was like the full tail and it was just sort of in the sky. It looked like frozen. But if you looked, it was moving really, really sunny. And it was one of the most like incredible, I still think about it.

It was one of the most like incredible things that ever happened. Like I can't, I couldn't, it like it makes you feel so. It's like the thing of like, we all love the moon. Because when you look at it, you're like, God, there are things so much bigger than me. Yeah. It helps. It really can help you. It can feel quite like therapeutic.

So it might be quite a nice thing. If you're really struggling with like perspective and you're really, feeling like you're getting caught up in your own your own self that you like have a look at what's happening in the night sky around you and millions of miles away reminding yourself that you're on a little rock and uh yeah you know it's quite nice can i can i ask a perspective question is it true that the the light of the stars that we're looking at they did like in the lion king yeah like they that they've already gone out but so far it's so the light is taking such a long time to get to us that we don't know. Is that truth? Yeah, that could, yeah,

but so basically everything you look at, you're looking back in time. Even if you're looking at like your hand, you're looking like a tiny, tiny fraction of a second back in time because the light takes like that amount of time to reach your eyes. But it starts to actually like have an impact when you look at. So for example, the moon, light takes 1.3 seconds from the moon to reach your eyes. Okay. And from the sun, it's like eight minutes. And then the stars it's obviously like much longer so serious. It takes eight years for light to reach us from there. It's eight light years away.

And then the Andromeda galaxy, which you can see with the naked eye, is 2.5 million light years away. So it's taken like two and a half million years to reach you from there. So if they look to us, would they be able to see dinosaurs? Yeah. That's the, that's the theory about why the aliens aren't coming to us yet because they think we're... They think there's dinosaurs.

Yeah. that's the theory. Say they had a telescope that was strong enough to look. What they would be looking at, because how long it takes the light to get, would be the past. It wouldn't be today, right? Because they'd be looking at 2.5 million years in the past. Yeah. So some of these stars, like you say, might have died ages ago and we just don't know yet. Yeah. But the one that is quite fun to think about is Beetlejuice, which is in Orion, which I mentioned before, it's the one that's like the really red star that's kind of above and to the left of Orion. belt and it's a giant it's a red giant star so it's really massive and they they burn through their fuel really fast so they don't live very long i mean it's like a few million years old i think that in star in star ages that's not very long and um so beetle juice in terms of like its life it could die any day now so um it will have so when it dies it'll have it'll go it'll be this explosion called a supernova and it'll like have a massive explosion and then then it will collapse.

And for, I'm like, I don't know, maybe a neutron star or a black hole. But when it does the supernova, we'll be able to see it from Earth for like two weeks. It'll be as bright as the moon. So you'll be able to see it in the day. But that could happen like tomorrow or it could happen in like a million years. But, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. We can't deal with that level of time planning. Why is it, why is it tomorrow or a million years?

Like, why? Because we know he's a red, If you've got a red giant, it could be any day, yeah? Yeah, because of how old it is and its size and things like that, they think that it's reaching the end of its life cycle. But because stars live for such a long time, the error margin in that is actually like a really long time. Right, of course, of course.

So like it's kind of reaching that age in its life where it will go supernova, but we don't know exactly, we can't have it when. It puts like turning 30 into 30, isn't it? It's not really fine. Because it's such a bright star, because it's quite, quite near to us. And it's such a, like, important star because it's in Orion and everyone, like, knows Orion. Yeah.

So Ryan's just going to have two stars at the end of it. Two stars and a big old explosion. It's his foot, right? His foot's going to go. His shoulder, his shoulder, sorry. His shoulder, sorry. His shoulder. Oh, wow.

But that's right. So if you Google Beetlejuice, you'll see loads of articles about, like, oh, it's because recently it had been, like, going bright and then dim again and bright again. And so people were like, oh my goodness, it's going to explode. But I don't think it will. But, oh my God. Okay, can we, could we have one more, after Sirius, can we have one more thing that we could look out for in the, in the sky?

So I can confidently point and say, oh, there's somebody. Another constellation that is quite easy to find in the northern hemisphere is Cassiopeia. Okay. Cassiopea, yeah. Which is like a W shape or an M depending on where it is and where you're looking from. Cassio Bia is circumpolar, which means that it never sets below the horizon. It's always like circling the pole star.

So if you find the North Star or if you kind of know where North is, you can get like a compass on your phone or just get the app, really. And you can find Cassio Pia, which is like a, which is a small constellation, but it's really easy to see because it's like a really clear W. And then once you found it, if you look at the kind of right view of the double V of the which is like a bit deeper than the one on the left. If you use that as like an arrow, it points towards the Andromeda galaxy. And the Andromeda galaxy, I'm an idiot. Is this the nearest galaxy to the Milky Way? It's the nearest major galaxy. So we've got like satellite galaxies,

which are smaller galaxies that orbit the Milky Way. But the Andromeda galaxy is the nearest, yeah, like major galaxy to the Milky Way. And it's the furthest thing you'll ever be able to sea with the naked eye. So we're we're a galaxy and Andromeda is a totally separate. Sorry if this is so thick. Is everybody in the Milky Way going around the sun? No. No. So we are, just our solar system within our massive galaxy. Yeah. Yeah. So we are kind of on the edge. We should have explained, we should have asked you to explain what a galaxy and a star is. We haven't done that. So the Milky Way is like a spiral and we're kind of, we're all orbiting. There's actually a supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way.

Like the muse song. Yeah, called Sancturius A-Star. What's it doing? What's it doing? And are we worried? No, no. Most galaxies, if not all galaxies, have a black hole at the center. And it's just the gravity from that keeps everything together. So our sun is circling the supermassive black hole. Yeah, our whole solar system is sort of going, yeah, around. And how many like solar systems are within the?

the Milky Way. It's just like, that's so many to count. So in terms of other planets, there's about four and a half thousand confirmed planets that we found in the Milky Way. But in terms of stars, there's about 100 million stars in the Milky Way. I just was laughing so much at our faces being like, what? And then apart from our galaxy, outside our galaxy, there's about 200 billion other galaxies. Yeah, that's where I'm out, I'm afraid. I was out of 4,000 other planets. Oh, my God. Okay.

Okay. Let me just say. How do we know this stuff? Like, how do we know? What an amazing bit of time that we're living in, that we're suddenly at the forefront of this star gate, you know? Yeah, 100 years ago, we didn't know that there were any other galaxies. So, like, 100 years ago in the 1920s, they,

and also they hadn't even discovered Pluto yet. Pluto is discovered in 1930. And then now we know that thanks to like obviously, you know, telescopes on Earth and also space telescopes. The way that they discover other planets is really cool because they basically study the light from the stars. And then they look for like tiny flickers when the light dims a bit. And it's when the planet is like going in front of that star. And they look at the patterns of that to work out if it's just one planet doing that or if it's like two or three and they can work out loads of information about how big the planet is, how far away it is from its star, whether it might be able to have water on it and things like that.

God, it's unbelievable. It really is. Now, is there anything, any tips about stargazing that you haven't had a chance to say that you would like to say? My tips probably are just download an app and also take a hot water bottle, don't get cold, because it can be really like, it's just not fun if you're so. it out in the cold. Take something to put down on the grass as well because you don't want to be like craning your neck the whole time. So like a picnic blanket is good or like a camping chair

or something. And yeah, just enjoy it. Take your friends. How long should you want to commit to at least like 12 hours? 12 hours. Dawn till dusk. I think it's better to start in like manageable chunks. So even if you just want to look out your window and find some planets, like you don't even have to leave the house, you know, until you know that you're interested in it. And then maybe get some friends together, go to a park and what, you know, if you start goes for like 15 minutes, half an hour, if you've been looking for like, if you're doing it seriously and you're getting away from light pollution, it takes 40 minutes for your eyes to fully adjust to the dark.

So if you're wanting to like see the Milky Way, or something, you need that amount of time. But if you just want to like see a few stars and planets and maybe like a couple of meteors, then half an hour to an hour, then it's great. Because even if it's not a meteor shower, if you're stargazing for about an hour, you'll probably see like one or two shooting stars as well. Is it like summer the best time for shooting stars? There's different meteor showers or like around the course of the year because it's So they're all created by bits of like dust or rock that have come off asteroids or comets. And we're kind of going through that trail as we go around the sun.

Summer's better, I think, for looking at meteor showers because you've got to kind of look between midnight and sunrise. So like midnight to 3 a.m. is the best time. And in the middle of winter, it's just going to be way too cold. And probably cloudy as well. So it has to obviously be clear for you to see the meteors. And in summer you can like make more of a fun thing of it and like go with your friends. And it's not. Get the drinks in.

Get some food in. Yeah. Watch them eat your shower. It's a delight. Guys, get out there. I love this so much. This is really like just, it's just been really interesting and it's really cheered me up. This has been amazing.

I feel so inspired. I'm going to go learn. I'm going to sign up to your newsletter. I'm 100% signing up to the newsletter. We'll put the, if everyone listening, the newsletter link is in the show notes. Thank you so much, Abby. That was so helpful. Thank you.

Follow Abby at Abby Beal on Twitter. Sign up to the newsletter. And by her book, The Art of Urban Astronomy, a guide to stargazing wherever you are. May I just say that the cover is delightful. Is it available everywhere and everyone is out in shops? Yeah, it is. And it's being published in America in December,

so it'll be available there as well. Oh, our stateside listeners is coming your way too. I'm so excited to buy it. I can't wait. Yes, me too. Me too. And please do follow us at Nobody Panic Pod. I'm at CVM, The SSA 5.

Tessa, what's your handle? I'm at Tessa Goats. No way. Yes. The Gmail is Nobodyopanickpodcast at gmail.com. If you too are a professional in some amazing field and want to talk to us about it, we'd love to have you. Yeah, that'd be nice.

This has been so, so interesting. genuinely an absolute joy. Go and have a look at the sky. Just get into perspective a little bit. Yeah, right. See, a meteor. Thanks so much. Thank you so much, Abby.

And thank you all to listening. Thank you. Bye-bye.