The Supermassive Podcast - 36: Stargazing with Team Supermassive

Episode Date: December 21, 2022

Find out what happened when Izzie Clarke and Dr Robert Massey used a 12 tonne telescope at an observatory in Herstmonceux, Sussex. Plus, Dr Becky Smethurst explains the benefit of using space telescopes and takes on your questions.  With special to Dr Sandra Voss at The Observatory Science Centre in Hertsmonceux: https://www.the-observatory.org/ Get The Year In Space for a month-by-month guide to the night sky: https://geni.us/jNcrw If you have a question for the team, email [e-mail] or tweet @RoyalAstroSoc.  The Supermassive Podcast is a Boffin Media production by Izzie Clarke and Richard Hollingham. 

Do you call for that here and there's mountain lions where it is warm enough? And there's nothing to see, so I'm going to make a window on the world. It's my space app, I swear. It doesn't make you sound any cooler. It's actually better than the sort of view that Galileo would have had with her scope 400 years ago. Hello, welcome to the Supermassive podcast from the Royal Astronomical Society with me, science journalist Izzy Clark and astrophysicist Dr. Becky Smithers. Yeah, this month we're grabbing our hats and scarves as we

finally head out for some stargazing. It only took us, what, three years, Izzy, of doing the podcast? Excuse me, there was a pandemic in between and we weren't allowed to see anyone, okay? Yeah, anyway, this month we're going to be chatting about how do you actually set up your own telescope what can we see with space telescopes and we hear what happened when izzy headed off to the observatory in herstman so in sussex to use their 12 ton telescope spoiler i was very excited and freezing to to be honest. It was so cold. It's been very cold lately. But we obviously couldn't do a stargazing episode without our stargazer-in-chief, Dr Robert Massey,

the Deputy Director of the Royal Astronomical Society. So, Robert, where do you think are some of the best places in the UK or even around the world for stargazing? Well, if money is no object and you're getting fantastic Christmas presents, there are those amazing places around the world for stargazing. Well, if money is no object and you're getting fantastic Christmas presents, there are those amazing places around the world. I mean, what I'd really like to go to would be the European Southern Observatory site in Chile.

Just take a telescope down there and stand outside the huge domes at the driest, clearest site on Earth. And in the Southern Hemisphere too, so you get a phenomenal view of the Milky Way. Sub-Saharan Africa is really great. I have been down there. Astonishing views 20 years ago now. I would dearly love to go back. The outback of Australia is on

my bucket list as well. But, but, close at home and probably more realistic for most of our listeners, northwest Scotland is really good. There's a lot of now what are described as dark sky places, parks and locations and so on around the UK. Places like the Brecon Beacons, Exmoor, Kielder Forest Park up in Northumberland, and its observatory there. And the list isn't short, actually. But, of course, we do have to be quite vigilant about protecting them because there's encroaching light pollution from towns and cities,

and so we can't keep our eye off the ball on this stuff. And we also obviously want to make sure that towns and cities have a decent enough view of the sky as well. But, yeah, in the UK, there's a lot of remote places, and it's not really surprising that far away from towns and cities have a decent enough view of the sky as well but yeah in the uk there's a lot of remote places and it's not really surprising that far away from towns and cities is also far away from lights on the whole and of course if anyone's going skiing this winter maybe over christmas you know the alps i've always thought the alps is a great place to stargaze you'll find me sat on the balcony my apres ski is a beer Just looking up at the stars and everyone's like, what is she still doing outside? You're like a frozen human icicle at this point.

Like, yeah, pretty much. Wrap up war, people. Anyway, cheers, Robert. We'll catch up with you later in the show to take on our listener questions. And, you know, this is probably a good time to mention that there's a night sky guide in our book, The Year in Space,

that gives you a month-by-month breakdown of what to keep an eye out for. Well, fancy that. So a few weeks ago, Robert, our editor Richard, and I were frantically checking the forecast for a clear night sky. So one chilly Tuesday evening, we headed off to the Observatory Science Centre in Herstmont, so in Sussex, to use a rather incredible telescope. Their science director, Dr Sandra Voss, led us to one of their domes and wouldn't even give me a hint as to the scale of the surprise inside. Full disclosure, once again, I was very, very excited. So here's what happened when Sandra opened the door to the dome and I saw their Thompson

refractor telescope for the first time. Oh my God. Oh my God. This is mad. OK, so we've we've walked into this. I'm just going to say a giant dome. It's got wooden panelings, a nice pale blue ceiling. And in the middle of this room, I mean, you can see here, probably hear how echoey it is. And in front of me is this enormous telescope from 1896. Sandra, I'm glad you didn't tell me what was in here.

I love that reaction. Every time when people walk in, they just go, wow. And it is. I mean, you're looking at the Thomson 26-inch refracting telescope. It is the 12th largest, equal 12th largest telescope in the world for a refracting telescope. It is superb. You said it's a refracting telescope.

What does that mean exactly? It works with lenses. And the 26-inch one has got a lens at the very end of the telescope. It's actually two lenses stuck back to back. And it weighs about 160 kilograms, this lens. And the light comes in from the distance. And it comes in and hits the lens. And then it refracts or bends or changes direction. o'r cyfnod, ac mae'n dod i mewn a chynhyrchu'r llens, ac yna mae'n ffwrddio neu'n gwneud gwneud neu newid

y sefyllfa. Ac yna mae'r lliw yn dod o lawr y tewb a'i ffocysu ar y diwedd cyfan ysgol, a fyddwch chi'n mynd i roi eich llun o'ch llyfr oed yn wir, maen nhw wedi rhoi eu camera ac maen nhw wedi'i gosod arno, ac yna gallai'n ffocysu'n hir, ac yna gallan nhw ddod â'u long exposure photography and they could take their images. So tell me about this telescope you know what's its history I'm sure it's seen quite a few things how has this been used throughout time? Well it used to be in the Royal Observatory in Greenwich and then it was moved up here and when it was up here it actually worked with the Isaac Newton telescope, and they were looking at quasars. And so this was actually looking at quasars, which are very, very, very distant objects.

So there's quite a bit of history behind that. But they were also looking at distance to stars as well. So it has got quite a bit of history on it. And sitting atop the telescope is the guide scope which is even older that used to sit on the great equatorial mount as well it's a 12 and three quarter inch mertz guide scope which is a fabulous piece of kit as well so we have got a really good we've got a really good pair here really good pair i mean i just can't stop looking at it it's absolutely incredible so you know looking to today how do you use this now? Well it's fully operational and as you'll see later on

you know how we can look out and how we can look up because obviously you can't see but we're sitting on the we're on this floor it's beautiful mahogany floors, mahogany walls, battleship grey telescope, because it was owned by the Admiralty. But could you get up there and view through the eyepiece? No, the eyepiece is in the middle of the room. I can't jump that high. I can't jump very high at all. And ladders just don't make it.

So you look at this, there's a step ladder just by the wall here, but it goes to nowhere. There's a massive gap to a platform at the top. But there's something very special about this dome. There'll be a little bit of a noise in a minute as well, and you might just have a strange sensation so if you want to there's a rumble okay so now now we've just the floors just start to move up that's fine nobody panic oh my god this is crazy

this is so surreal so the dome is really big because the telescope has um it is very long telescope i think it's about a seven meter long telescope um you have to have the space to make it so it can move all the way over the top and around the side and everywhere but of course that means you have to have a big space watch your, as the telescope is now very close to you. It's now right behind me, so I'm going to walk not so I bump my head on the telescope. So we are now level with the telescope. Yes. Can we use it?

Yes, we can. We'll have to get the lens caps off first. And there's nothing to see because there's no window on the world. So I'm going to make a window on the world. A big button has been pressed. Oh, OK, now we've just been plunged into complete darkness. The lights have just switched off so and now the roof is slowly opening. This is amazing. So that's the sound of the roof turning around, so we can then take the window to wherever we want to take it and then the telescope has a viewpoint throughout the whole of the sky pretty much.

It does also seem that in the time that we've been setting up the clouds have annoyingly moved in, which is very inconsiderate of them. We've lined up the telescope to look at the moon because luckily it's still pretty bright even if the clouds have rudely moved in. So I'm just going to take a peek. I mean this is so much better than my

tiny little telescope she's looking through the 12 and 3 quarter inch Mertz now because that's the optical part of the telescope the details on the craters are incredible like I've never seen any

I've just never seen anything like that to be honest even when I used telescopes at university it was sort of radio telescopes and things like that so this is just pretty remarkable to be honest Sandra it's yeah it is it never fails to wow me when I look at the moon even though it's not the best time to look at the moon because when it's so full, it flattens all the features out.

Yeah. But still, it doesn't, you know... Because that's the thing that you really notice, actually, is you can really see the details of the craters just on the edge of it where you're getting that difference, basically. But if you look directly onto the main body of it, it does. It looks quite bright and quite smooth. It's much better when you've got a terminator

that is sort of like before first quarter, so you've not got a really bright moon and you've got that relief as well. And so you get that contrast and you can actually see how mountainous the moon is and you can see the details on the craters an awful lot better. But anyway, it's the moon. It's out. I will just have to keep coming back then, I think.

You're very welcome. And so, you know, obviously you've very kindly opened up this evening for us to come along and have a look. But can people just come along and see this for themselves we do stargazing evenings we have dates throughout the year and with online booking and we've been pretty much fully booked for the whole of the autumn and we were fully booked at the beginning of the year as well we do special events as well but we have schools come they look through the telescopes.

We have uniformed groups that come. They have twilight weeks and things like that. So there's a lot of public come and view through these telescopes. But, oh, my goodness, the sense of awe and wonder with looking just through these telescopes and everybody just, they're beaming from ear to ear when they leave and they just had a remarkable time that was such a fun piece is it's like asmr are any of our listeners still awake i thought i'd

check all that rustling and rumbling of the dome it was great honestly when i was editing that piece i was like can i use all of the sound effects can we use every single one so no that is the sort of abridged version of maybe like half an hour of me running around this dome like oh my god but thank you so much to Sandra Voss from the Observatory Science Centre in Herstmonce though and we'll put a link to the observatory in the notes so if you want to go and see it for yourself then you can I mean what was that evening light for you Izzy because I've been a couple of big telescopes in my time but like seven meters long telescope yeah it was and I think I wasn't really sure what to expect to be honest um then going in it was totally breathtaking

and the fact that the floor moves up I've never really seen anything like that before, and just the size of it. You know, when they took off the lens caps, they were huge. They're literally the size of dustbin lids. Like, that's the closest thing I could compare it to. And there was one part, Cassandra was there, and so was her partner,

who volunteers at the centre as well, Graham. And they were like, go on, give it a move, see if you can move it. And I was like, oh, it's's kind of easy to move and then if you do it a couple of times it's like oh my god this is so heavy like you'd get properly like ripped i think if you're like operating that all the time and i always think some of these old-fashioned telescopes like a bit steampunky as well yeah all of their knobs and like you, like dials you can move and everything. Yeah, totally, totally. It was, yeah, it was just like, I hadn't seen anything like that before. And, you know, even when I was at university, we just had little radio telescopes on the top of our building. So can't quite compare the two, but we'll hear about my little telescope as well. So

literally nothing comes close to what we saw in there but you know Becky what are some of the best telescopes that you've used because you've seen quite a few observatories by the looks of things and what what do you use them for yeah I mean I've used a few for my research into sort of growing supermassive black holes and observing their effects on on galaxies so most of the time I'm looking at galaxies. So you need a really big professional telescope to see some of these because they're really quite far away as well. So I've used sort of the Isaac Newton telescope

in La Palma, CSO and the Keck telescopes at Mauna Kea as well. And also the Shane three meter telescope at Lick Observatory in California as well, just outside of San Francisco. And I mean, none of them have eyepieces, right? But they are so large, you'd probably blind yourself with it if they of them have eyepieces right but they are so large you'd probably blind yourself with it if they did have an eyepiece because i mean some of these are

you know three two three meters mirror in terms of light collecting area so they're incredibly big telescopes that we use professionally i think in terms of like where's where was the best i think the night sky and the stars were best in the palmer because you weren't as high up in mount achaea so there wasn't as much you know oxygen starfish and altitude sickness essentially the location of mount achaea though is incredible in terms of light pollution um but in terms of looking impressive inside the dome just to compete with yeah and so um i think it's got to be the Shane 3 meter at Lick because it's just, it's so big. It's essentially a telescope

in what I can only describe as big yellow scaffolding. It looks like someone's took a section of a roller coaster and just plonked it in this dome in there. And it's probably about 10 meters long. Oh, wow. This piece of scaffolding. So it's kind of like a similar shape to what you saw in herspence though except it's a it's a reflector not a reflector it's got a big mirror

at the back that's three meters wide and you have to walk through the dome where the telescope is while you're observing you know overnight you set your exposure going on the computer then you have to walk through the dome if you need the loo or if you want to get some food from the kitchen so you get to walk under this behemoth of the thing while that little you know hatch to the the outside world is open and you get to glance up and i mean it's it's just incredible to feel that connected to a telescope that you're actually using that was the only time that i looked at the night sky that that entire trip through the little slit in the dome because i got to the observatory and there was just this massive sign that said, beware mountain lions. I was like, okay, well, I'm not going outside.

I'm staying inside the dome, goodbye. Yeah, because they were like, oh, you don't have to worry. Like it's only if they're prey are around, like the deer. So I was like, okay, I'll brave it then. Like went outside. Am I the prey?

And I went outside and looked up and heard this rustle and this deer shot out of the tree line and I was like nope just like a rat inside yeah I think that's probably a good call um and so those were all experiences where you were there so there are a lot of times though where people be using telescopes and they're not actually there though right yeah I mean like I said these telescopes don't have eyepieces it's all done by computer so really if you can connect to the internet you can operate the telescope which is very convenient especially during pandemic um but it's not as fun quite as

as is going to some of these places so for example i use the caltex millimeter observatory in mauna kea from oxford which is great except for the time difference yeah you're like i'm getting into the office at 3 a.m for sunset in hawaii you know it it's quite crazy sort of the the hours you end up working um you know instead of jet lag you start dealing with like astronomers lag instead um i'm actually hoping to get some time on the very large telescope in chile that place that robert was talking about before in the middle of the desert in chile and i really want to go but at the same time it's probably gonna be remote observing from here and i'm like no i'm like good for the environment, bad for Becky. Exactly. And so what about space telescopes?

What's the benefit of using them over ground-based telescopes? Yes. I mean, the thing with space telescopes is, as you probably guess, is that you're above the atmosphere. Yeah. And the atmosphere is the bane of an astronomer's life, essentially. So any turbulence in the atmosphere is going to distort your crystal clear picture of whatever you're looking at in the universe um you know twinkle twinkle little star is like it's all that twinkle is is essentially you know ruining your picture um so even if you start building a bigger and bigger and bigger telescope

you're still going to be limited by what's known as atmospheric seeing so essentially this is the limit to the size of the thing you can see by looking through the atmosphere because it's blurred out from you know say a star is just this pinprick of light it's been blurred out if you have absolutely perfect conditions where the air is perfectly still and there's no turbulence, you know, seeing maybe can get down to 0.5 arc seconds. So this is how we measure

how big things are in the sky. It's an angle because it's like a fraction of 360 degrees around the circular sky. So 0.5 arc seconds is, you know, about a 60th of the size of the full moon. Full moon being about 30 arc seconds across. So, I mean, you're more likely, though, to get something like one, one and a half seeing, if you're lucky, from the ground.

Whereas in space, the thing that you're limited by is the size of your telescope. So you start getting limited by the laws of physics itself, diffraction through your optics. So, for example, something like the Hubble Space Telescope, which if we think about it on the ground, it's a fairly small telescope. It's only two and a half meters across, right? And so like that in space though,

can get down to 0.05 arc seconds in terms of the smallest things you can see. Well, there you go. So that's really the benefit is just, you know, the fact that you can see smaller and obviously fainter things you're not disrupted by all this atmosphere in the way yeah i think it's alive for goodness sake and so the the hubble space telescope and all the ground telescopes that you've used are reflectors yeah they use mirrors and unlike the telescope that we used at her sponsor which is a refractor that uses lenses so why do we use mirrors rather than lenses for professional telescopes now

yeah well i mean professional telescopes used to be refractors they used to be lenses that would focus the light lenses do just give you a better image essentially it's probably clearer um and you know way back when instead of the 1800s, maybe the 1900s, lenses that you could make were better than mirrors you could make at the time. Mirrors would essentially tarnish and you couldn't get them as smooth as you needed. So that's why people started really

making them with lenses first. The problem is that for a bigger telescope, which means you can collect more light, see fainter things, et cetera, you need a wider aperture, right? You need a bigger telescope which means you can collect more light see fainter things etc you need a wider aperture right you need a bigger collecting area so either you need a bigger lens or you need a bigger mirror the problem is with lenses is that obviously to hold them in a telescope you have to hold them around the edges unlike a mirror which you can support from the back of it because it's solid yeah yeah it's got more support for if you make it larger so a larger and larger lens as you support it around the edges it starts to sag in the middle and then that distorts your image essentially also the longer your telescope the greater the

magnification as well because you can focus the light down from smaller things essentially because you've got longer to do that in which is why it's seven meters long and hers when so it's your giant telescope sent you that you saw so for a refractor you have to make you these great long tubes essentially like what you saw whereas for a reflector you can put two mirrors in and half that distance so again you can sort of make your telescope much more compact as well so yeah with with the reflector you can use two mirrors and get the same magnification as well. So as mirror grinding and manufacturing just got so much better over the years, you know, this improved the reflector telescopes that we could make. They became much more easier to build. You could make them bigger more easily. And so they became the biggest

telescopes in the world. And the biggest telescopes in the world are the ones that we use for professional astronomy. So as fun as it is to use massive telescopes, you don't actually need enormous telescopes to stare at the night sky. In fact, most beginner telescopes or binoculars are great for your first step into stargazing. Absolutely. But there are a few things that you need to know to get set up. So after we explored Hertz-Monceau's telescopes, I then brought out my own little telescope. Nice. A Max Shutov-Cassegrain for anyone that's interested. Thank you. For our stargazer-in-chief, Dr Robert Massey,

to explore how best to set up one of these things. Remarkably, the clouds have cleared and we've left those giant telescopes. And I've brought my tiny little one here that you can sort of hear so I think a lot of people will be getting telescopes for Christmas or we hope that they are so what are some of the things that people need to know if they get a telescope how do you set it up what should they do well there are a few things that really help they don't have to be very complicated but it can really help to get those right and one of them for example is making sure

you've got a nice stable mount or that the tripod as yours is here is braced properly so that all the screws are tight and it's extended to the height that you want that's appropriate for you or your family you know if you've got kids you don't want it to be too high we'll get a step all of that all those details matter uh and then you know once it's nice and stable you then start to look at the mount it's on yours is again as i would say it's pretty stable it's a good good setup here and you'll see there are different screws you've got what's called an equatorial mount and what that means is that it tracks the objects across the sky with a single movement so one of the axes is supposed to point to roughly the pole star. And what that means is that the axis is parallel to the axis of the Earth.

So as the Earth turns and the stars move effectively from, you know, looking south here, from left to right, from east to west across the sky, then you can track it with a single turn. So if you're looking at something like, say, Jupiter or Saturn, you want to just be able to move it really easily across. Some of them, yeah, some of them have drives and so on that allow you to do photographs as well. Yeah, it's all manual here. I've found that it is one of those pieces of kit that you have to get stuck in and just have a bit of a play. I think that's, you know, that was my first approach to it, basically. I totally agree. And I think that's a very good philosophy for doing.

And the good thing about a manual telescope as well is that there's kind of a limited number of things you can see. And you can see what they do. So when you turn a screw, you can see the effect it's having. So turning this screw, because what it's doing is adjusting the latitude of the telescope set for. London would be about 51.5 or so. Just look up your latitude, essentially. So if you're further north in the UK, obviously that will be a higher number. You know, up in northern Scotland, 58, 59.

But most of the UK, the low 50s. So I would start with that. You know, getting the mount lined up is a really good starting point. The next thing to do, obviously, you know, I know it sounds daft, but it's things like take the lens caps off. Now, this is your telescope, so I think I'm going to let you do that one. Yeah, just a little screw on one. Compare and contrast the noise of this with the other day.

There is no moving floor. We hope, yeah. So the next job is to get an eyepiece out. And an eyepiece is essentially the lens you look through. So, you know, the bit that goes next to your eye. Yeah, so I've got two with me. I'm pretty sure they're 25 and 50 magnification. Sounds like a nice, easy number to start with, because if you start with too high a power, you're going to struggle to find anything.

If you think about it, by power we mean magnification. So imagine if you've got something magnifying, say, well you shouldn't with a telescope this size anyway, but 300 times, and then you're trying to find a planet, you've got a tiny, tiny field of view. It's much better to start with a low magnification because then you see more of the sky and you can centre on the object you look at and then you switch to a higher one. If you've got a really clear, stable night, then it's worth doing. I think that's in place.

Shall we try finding the moon? This, of course, will be the bit where I sit and struggle to find the moon. Yes. Like five hours later. For the sake of your journey home and mine, I really hope this isn't true. Here we go. So I'm starting with the moon because, actually, it's by far the easiest thing to find in the line-up.

I'm going to have a look. I mean, I will never be bored of looking at the moon i just and again it to be honest it's a really similar view to what we're talking about earlier where on the edges you can get so much more detail of the craters but because it's so bright a lot of the the features and the main body of it are quite smooth but i mean yeah i love it that's a really good view actually it's really respectable you know i mean i would say that that's not about tuscan you look at it you say there's not a lot of false color in there which is so if you get lots of reds and blues on the edge of the moon it's an optical effect there's not much of that um i'd say

that's probably near about a hundred timesification. Yeah. And that's respectable. So, yeah, and, you know, you can imagine looking through that, you're going to see a lot of detail on objects like that. Yeah. So, yeah, it's a good telescope. And so I've just seen that it's, again, it's very quickly just moved out of view. So then that is just a case of adjusting the left and right sort of just...

Theory. So if we remember which screw to unclamp again i will say again this is the learning i suppose by talking about this i'm saying you know even i've handled lots of telescopes you you know if you've never used it before it's going to take you a while to get used to it you have to fiddle around with it but in theory yeah you unclamp one of them that allows you the's called the right ascension. So that's tracking it as it moves as the Earth turns. And you should be able to move it in a single movement. And that's the whole idea.

So rather than doing the left, right, up, down thing, which is also fine. It's just more work. And obviously, you know, a telescope might not be in everyone's budget this year. So what are some of the other things that people can turn to so they have some exciting stargazing? Yeah, I mean, generally, the alternative, if you don't have enough money to buy a telescope, then binoculars are a really good bet. And I've always said that to people. You know, I always say, what telescope should I get? I've never looked to the sky.

The answer is start with binoculars. And the reasons for those are, well, firstly, they're very easy to use. OK, you can pick them up, take them up and look at the sky and focus. But also they have multiple applications. You can take them on holiday with you. You can at landscapes to see all of those things and and you can see a lot in the sky as well so you know for example although you can't see details on jupiter itself you can see jupiter's moons you can easily see craters on the moon were it a darker night you could see quite a lot of deep sky objects by which we mean nebulae and clusters and all of those

things um so that you know they're really powerful tool and i always find them that much easier if i you could see quite a lot of deep sky objects, by which we mean nebulae and clusters and all of those things. So they're a really powerful tool, and I always find them that much easier. If I'm going... I tend to take things like this with me on holiday. If I know I'm going to go somewhere dark and I just want to enjoy the view, it's much easier than lugging a telescope.

So I guess I'll... So you've brought binoculars with you. I mean, they're super compact as well. Yeah, these are ones like a long time ago, actually, from Japan. They're 9.63 from memory. That means they've got a 63mm lens at the front. It's a little bigger than is typical, but not ridiculously so. And they magnify nine times.

Now, that's not much, so you get a very wide field of view, but it's still good enough, easily good good enough to see the things i was describing the way to use these by the way is just you have a central wheel here to focus but you also just hold them up look up at the sky and uh there you go i've looked at the moon and basically i always feel it's a bit like putting on a pair of glasses so you look at the object and you just move the binoculars in front of you and then then it's lined up and so with binoculars is it a case of again the more you spend them the better the view or do you find that you know most binoculars actually are do a pretty decent job you can certainly spend less than 100 quid and get a good enough pair absolutely um you know look around look at reviews again seek advice uh but you don't have to spend a fortune and and even if they're quite cheap you'll still see something and you know you won't have that feeling that you've spent

say hundreds in gullet telescope that you're never going to use you know you'll probably find a use for these um if they if you didn't use them for astronomy you could go out you know we're down in sussex you can go to the go down look at the sea and look at the ships and the birds and all those things do you want to have a look through these yeah and look at the ships and the birds and all those things. Do you want to have a look through these? Yeah. Try looking at Jupiter, which is still just about over in the sky over there. You should be able to pick out the moons next to it.

Yeah. Maybe. You can. So imagine this is the sort of view that, I mean, it's actually better than the sort of view that Galileo would have had with a telescope 400 years ago. But it was good enough that he could see the moons moving around from one night to another. I will never get bored of seeing Jupiter's moons. But whether you go for a telescope or binoculars, I think it's really important to work out what is the best setup for you.

Would you agree with that, Becky? Definitely, yeah. I mean, I have no room in my house. My spare bedroom is already an office. It's a recording studio. It's a gym. It's a storage room. There's nowhere that I can put a telescope even in a box that can collapse down. There's just not that much storage in our house. So I've just got binoculars for now. And I think that works great. I pair them with a tripod, makes it much easier. My arms don't get sore holding them up my head. The picture is, you know, the image is much clearer as well. It's much more stable.

And in the suburbs that I'm in, I think that's just the best option for me. You know, my garden's not big enough yet for that dream of a shed that contains a remote control telescope with a little thing, the roof that opens up, you know, so. We can dream, we can dream. I mean, for me, i live in a flat with a shared garden there's a lot of light pollution because london um so i wanted something that traveled easily and so that telescope that i brought along it is quite compact and the the

mount itself collapses down so i can just chuck it in the back of a car but i i would say that if for anyone that is looking to buy a telescope and they don't really know where to begin, just contact, I contacted some telescope providers and just said, look, this is what I'm kind of hoping to get out of it. What would you recommend? And so when I was buying that, they gave me a couple of options and from that worked out what was best for me. So yeah, I would definitely say get familiar with some telescope providers and, you know, just search online because that's essentially what I did in it. I love it.

This is the Supermassive podcast from the Royal Astronomical Society with me, astrophysicist Dr. Becky Smethurst and with science journalist Izzy Clark. This month, it's all about stargazing. Smethurst and with science journalist Izzy Clark. This month it's all about stargazing but before we get on to listener questions one thing that we haven't mentioned are stargazing apps which I think are so useful to help figure out what you're actually looking at. So Robert and I'll bring you in here what are some of your favourite apps to use? Well for me I really like using a classic one Stellarium which works on android and apple phones there's a free version and it pretty much works on all operating systems on desktops and

laptops as well now it's slightly complicated the interface you need to fiddle around with it you know you need to look up the controls that kind of stuff but the useful thing for me is you can do things like if there's a newly discovered comet that won't be on say dedicated planetarium software in most cases you can add it in so when neowise was around back in 2020 you know the really bright comet we had during the summer of the pandemic it made it really easy to find and spoiler for later on i'll add a new comet to the system too so i really like that and there's also starwalk as well which um richard was using to find neptune when we will we think neptune at hersman so we think it was neptune it did look look sort of neptune like

and that's free as well and the only thing with that one i think it plays background music doesn't it you have to switch off when you turn it on but oh yes it does because i i started on that one and you just open it and like if you're in a park and it's super quiet then suddenly there's like this spacey drone comes out you're like the loner in the park by yourself just playing music like hang on it's my space app i swear it doesn't make you sound any cooler the nice thing about them as well is you can hold them up to the sky and if you align the compass in your phone which you know you do by twiddling it around essentially so it picks up the signals then you hold it up and it will show you what's behind the phone so if you want to see the constellation you're looking at i think that's a

really neat thing that we you definitely didn't have before the advent of smartphones yeah definitely i mean i use solarium a lot but i agree that it's it's very like if you're familiar with what you're doing it's great if you're not i mean just go to the app store and type in you know like star app and something will come up that will help you that will be very like you know just as you said just like point and go essentially to work out what you're looking at i quite like redshift sky it's one of the ones i tend to use but all i'd say is make sure whatever you do download has got a uh a red light function so it'll essentially turn your entire phone screen red so instead of black on white it'll be like red on black and that'll help you not ruin your night vision by looking at

an incredibly bright phone screen you can turn down the brightness as well that will always help you beat me too i was just about to ask you about that okay so shall we go on to some listener questions robert hussein mustafa wants to know which type of telescope is a better option for stargazing, reflector or refractor? Also, what is the deal with different mounts? Well, Hussein, it's horses for courses, essentially, and it depends on your setup, where you live and a whole manner of things. So there isn't really an easy right answer for this. Now, as Becky was saying earlier on, refractors are actually also, amateur telescopes generally better when you've got a smaller aperture, so a smaller diameter of the main lens or mirror, as it's harder to make reflectors work very well on a small scale. But when you get bigger and

bigger, then those lenses get more and more expensive, and it really does go up very, very fast, the price associated with them, although they'll give you phenomenal views of the planets, the moon and binary stars and to complicate things there's also catadioptric telescopes like the type that Izzy has which means they use a lens to improve the reflection that you get from the mirror in a telescope so and those are amongst some of the best you can get but I would say probably it's it's kind of budget dependent on what you want to look at if you're someone who lives in a dark site and you want to look at things like deep sky objects and galaxies then get a big reflector. If you live in a city and you want to or if you just want irrespective of that want to look at things like

planets the moon consider a refractor and also think about your price point and the kind of good telescope suppliers they should be able to advise you on this. Now as for the mount this is a choice really between what's called an altasmoth mount which is where you basically go up down left to right much as you'd expect with a regular tripod and an equatorial mount which is one where one of the axes is parallel to the axis of the earth which we covered earlier on and with those you can move across the sky in a single sweep if you're already lined up on something and the mount is properly aligned now depending again depending on what you're using for it may not be that important if you're doing things like astrophotography it's useful if you have a drive associated with it but

i would say the downside of is it's slightly more complicated to set up if you're not familiar with that but that said there are astronomical societies volunteers and those will often be happy to go out to people and help them use their telescopes too so think about the budget uh if you're just looking for a very simple thing then and you don't want to spend too much money a small but good enough refractor on our tasmoth mount if it's actually solid and stable is really important because that's the other facet of this is whatever kind of mount you get make sure it doesn't wobble around because there's nothing more annoying than trying to look through a telescope and having it jump around if even somebody stands near it okay thanks robert and becky we've had quite a few questions on astrophotography but yale feldman asks

how would you suggest holding the smartphone camera near the lens in order to capture the best photos uh well yale i wouldn't suggest holding it i think it's almost nigh on impossible sometimes to line up your phone or your camera with the focal point of like the the eyepiece of whatever telescope that you use is he have you ever tried to do this oh god you should have seen us in her so like even us with sandra with graham like all of us just being like i just i want to take a picture of jupiter but I can't. We gave up is fundamentally what happened. I have just about managed to do it with the moon before.

It's just about dealing with a very bright object, but you have to have a very steady hand and you have to be very patient as well, trying to line it up. So it really is, honestly, it comes down to sheer dumb luck by the end of the day. is obviously it comes down to sheer dumb luck by the end of the day if you do want to take images you i mean you've really got to get a mount for whatever telescope that you've got for your phone or your camera there's lots out there there are some telescopes that even come with those mounts in the first place as well so like a standard mount for you know where your lens attaches to your slr camera the camera would just attach the telescope or for a smartphone it'd be something that would line it up perfectly for your smartphone essentially um maybe you know you might have a telescope that doesn't have one perhaps put one on your christmas list for father christmas that might be a good idea for a little

stocking filler but i don't think you'd regret getting one the images you can get are so so good especially if you're trying to capture something like jupiter or saturn that is incredibly bright um you know it's so much more stable with a mount but the only thing i would say as robert was saying before if you have a telescope that has a motor to track something that's the only time that you can get like long exposure shots for something that's a lot fainter otherwise with a telescope and a long exposure shot on your camera you're going to get star trails you're going to get a blurry nebula whatever you're trying to take i was going to jump in becky because i absolutely agree we tried at hersman so we got slightly average views of jupiter and its moons and i did do it the other day with the moon passing in front of mars it was freezing

so without that mount which i really need on my christmas list is a mount to attach a smartphone to a telescope without it yeah you're just sitting there tweak you've got to simultaneously tweak the exposure and the settings on the phone and hold it steady now if i was an adolescent as far as i can tell teenagers are really good with smartphones can just do this they pick them up and click and they get a great image but i am absolutely not in that category so i totally agree with you um and yeah the number of times i've stood there sort of frustratingly trying to line it up it's it's a real plus yeah if anyone listening is thinking like i've got this down then obviously send us an email because we need we need your help i think we need a phone expert really don't we um robert juan mariano on twitter asks how should we factor in light pollution conditions when selecting a telescope?

I mean, this comes down to portability, I guess. So if you live in a very light polluted site, then it depends on whether you're prepared to travel out of that site, out of the towns and cities to a darker place, or you just want to use your telescope more casually at home. scope more casually at home so if you're happy with that site and you want to sit there with something big that's installed on some concrete pier in your garden if you've got the budget for that then you can look at planets the moon and all the rest of it quite well much as we were describing before however if you want to get out then i would say obviously get something that's really easy to set up to put in a car you or your friend's car get out it's a good idea to do it in pairs actually it's always a bit less dispiriting than going out somewhere on your own and and think about just something that'll work for you because you can get really complicated sophisticated kit but that's not great value if you're not

going to use it so unless you plan to become a super dedicated astrophotographer we've got some fantastic examples i know that that listen to the podcast uh unless you plan to go down that route it is exactly yeah you know it'll conceive your life but i would say yeah just think about portability so so something like a small uh refractor can be great for your backyard but if and something like a reflector you know could be could be good if you're prepared to take it out into the countryside and load it into your car and you can set it up quickly so i guess you know it's what we were describing uh earlier on when we were playing with the is's telescope at Herseman. So it's try it out and fiddle around with it

and get used to a setup you're familiar with or maybe go and visit someone who's got something and see how you get on with it too. You know, I've even seen telescopes in backpacks now. People are like, oh, I'll hike up here with my telescope on my backpack. And I'm like, oh my God. I'm scared of slipping. Be my guest.

I mean, you call for that here and there's mountain lions where it is warm enough. That's going some. Yeah, I mean, the ice and snow around as we're recording this, I don't think I'd want to hike up carrying my telescope. Also, yeah, just the fear of tripping and smashing or breaking anything

is like too, too real. Too real. Well, thanks everyone. And if you want to send in any questions for a future episode then email podcast at ras.ac.uk or tweet at royal astro sock so robert let's take everything that we've learned in this episode what can we see in the night sky this month in the betwixtmas period when you're full of food and you need to be like i need to go outside when you want to exactly when you want to wander outside burn some calories from that large christmas lunch uh well i i should start i think by saying that you can of course as has

been mentioned earlier get a nice guide to the night sky each month in the year in space copies available all good bookstores but their ends excellent plug thank you very much um but this is this is definitely winter stars time and it's actually been pretty cold recently for all of us but if you step outside if you can brave it later in the evening then you've got some great views orion is really standing high above the southern horizon it's encircled by this so-called winter hexagon of bright stars including sirius the brightest star in the night sky and right now mars, Mars is still very bright and obvious in Taurus above Orion too. And if you get a pair of binoculars for Christmas, it's also a perfect time to look because you can see things like the nebula in Orion and the sword that hangs down from the three stars of the belt,

the lovely Pleiades and Hyades clusters in Taurus. And there are many others in Gemini, which is up and to the left of Orion, if you're in the northern hemisphere, and Auriga above it. A really richer area to look around. And there's more planetary action as well, not just Mars. On the 22nd of January, Venus and Saturn will be just a third of a degree apart, low in the southwest after sunset. That's about two-thirds of the diameter of the Moon, so not very far apart at all. And if you've got a small telescope, you might be able to see them as two two worlds you know one will look like a gibbous moon venus and saturn hopefully

you'll see the rings uh it's also worth mentioning venus will be really good for the first half of this year as well in the evening sky really really obvious and finally i don't want to jinx it because this has happened to me twice before uh but we might just have a naked eye comet on the way now when i say naked eye it's going to be visible from a dark sight as a smudge. It's not going to be like NEOWISE, we don't think. But there is a comet named Comet ZTF because it was discovered by the Zwicky Transient Facility. I was just about to say, I know the acronym.

And it should be really easy in binoculars in January. It reaches its peak at the end of January. And for us, it'll be really high in binoculars in January. It reaches its peak at the end of January. And for us, it'll be really high in the sky near the pole star and it'll cross the sky really quite quickly from day to day. It's not that far away from the Earth. So if you do see it or even better take a picture of it, then do let us know and tweet us. Well, I think we'll all be running to the dark sky areas

that you mentioned at the beginning of the episode. Running? I think I'll be rolling after Christmas. After Christmas, I'll be hiking with my telescope. I am really excited, though, for Stargazing over Christmas. It is one of those times where because the nights are so long and you do just get to sort of, I don't know, you're not really at work or school, so you can maybe be up at more unsociable hours necessarily

to see various different things but like the venus sat in conjunction in january like yes okay it's in january but i'm really looking forward like all through christmas and into the new year just watching them just get ever closer and closer and closer on the sky night after night after clear night i guess yeah yeah yeah so yeah i'm excited for that well guys i think that is it for this month and this year and i just i was about to say we'll be back next month but in this in the running order i've literally written we'll be back next month with question mark question mark question mark uh so i'll let you know what the universe will throw at us people we'll be back next with something

so we'll see you in 2023 with what i am not sure yet yeah we will have an episode and do not forget to tweet us your astrophotography pictures or your stargazing setup especially if it's a brand new christmas present that you're really excited about we'd absolutely love to see them it's at royal astrosoc on twitter or any questions that you have for me or robert you want to test us in the new year you can email those to podcast at ras.ac.uk. And hopefully we'll get to them in whatever we have in store in 2023 when we've figured out what we'll be chatting about

in the new year. Enjoy the holidays. We'll see you all in 2023. Until then, happy stargazing.