Citizen scientists from the Galaxy Zoo project have discovered rare galaxies they're calling the “Green Peas.” They're small in size, bright green in color, and proficient at churning out new stars — plus, they could reveal unique insights into how galaxies form stars in the early universe.

“These are among the most extremely active star-forming galaxies we’ve ever found,” said Cardamone, an astronomy graduate student at Yale University and lead author of a new paper on the discovery. The results will appear in an upcoming issue of the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Full details and images here.

And didn't we fire the defunct Galileo probe into the planet to avoid any possible contamination of Europa ahead of a future mission? Been a dangerous place for the past couple of decades

Hi all

I thought I'd recommend some podcasts for you. They are all free, and if you are into astronomy and space news they make for great listening. I subscribe to them all through iTunes, though I am sure there are other ways of getting them.

Astronomy 161 and Astronomy 162.
A series of American university lectures by Richard Pogge. If you can get used to his voice then you'll find them very interesting.

Astronomycast.
A weekly show by Fraser Cain and Dr Pamela Gay.
Excellent show, and Dr Gay has such a sexy voice!

The Jodcast.
A monthly show from Jodrell bank.
Usually a full hour of news, the night sky that month and interviews. High quality.

NASACast - This Week @ NASA.
A weekly video cast detailing the latest from each of the NASA centres.

The Silicon Valley Astronomy Lectures.
A series of excellent lectures by noted astronomers.

Star Stuff with Stuart Gary.
A weeky Australian show. Always worth a listen.

There are a lot more out there, but I do recommend the above.

I'll defo check this one. I couple of my old housemates from college work at JB, one on the publicity & media side (he's still a trained atronomer) so he's probably got something to do with this! That being said... I wouldn't personally believe a word he said!

If anyone has any recommendations please let me know!

Story here.

Another comet impact?

I assume we'd have known about a comet hurtling around the inner solar system. My money's on a volcanic erruption.

relatively new to astronomy and was wondering if anyone here knew of any good places to buy telescopes?

will look at those podcast in #753 (sorry I'm new and don't know how to quote)

Hi and welcome! Forum member Carlos DFC runs an astronomy site, he'll be able to give you some great advice http://www.astrochat.co.uk/forum

thanks for that link, it's very interesting

I'm putting my money on a weak gamma ray burst which skimmed Jupiter's atmosphere and hit Venus dead on.

edit - just emailed the ESA with my idea; the Nobel prize should be in the post soon

Yes Carlos is the serious observer round here.

This is quite cool.

5 Top Galactic Bodies Anyone Can See (With a Cheap Telescope)

Ta for that. Looks like there might be some clear nights coming up if the weathermen are to be believed, so might try and get a glimpse of some of these.

Don't expect to be able to see much of most of those tonight - or any time soon.
The title - "Top Galactic Bodies Anyone Can See (With a Cheap Telescope)" - is rather misleading.

For a start, the Crab Nebula, and Whirlpoool galaxy are difficult objects for an inexperienced observer with even a reasonable-sized telescope - and if you have any appreciable light-pollution at your location, you may as well forget them unless you have a scope of at least 6" aperture (diameter)
And the Orion Nebula (m42) can't be seen for a little while yet, because Orion is a 'winter' constellation.

I'll go through them one-by-one:

Orion neb (m42)
Can be seen naked-eye - and is very nice even in 50mm binoculars. You need to use a telescope at low power to encompass the whole thing (it's relatively large) Wonderful detail can be seen in a telescope of 4" aperture or larger, especially if you get away from streetlights.
Unfortunately though, you can't see it at a reasonable time in the evening, until around November, when it will be low to the South East, around 10pm, and gradually climb higher as the night goes on. By Christmas it's rising earlier, and is at a nice height to view, by 8 or 9pm.
Can be seen just before dawn in maybe a few weeks time.

Andromeda Galaxy (m31)
Can be seen naked-eye, if you have no light-pollution (or at least, very little) - 50mm binoculars will show it easily - and a small telescope/large binoculars will give you a nice view - again with that caveat.... the astronomer's nemesis - light-pollution.
It's in a good position tonight - rising from the East - later the better - It climbs as the night goes on, and height in the sky can lift an object out of the atmospheric murk, and make it easier to see.
Don't expect to see the colourful pic on that website though - all you'll see is a fuzzy blob (the central core), the outer arms are just too dim to pick up much detail unless conditions are near-perfect.
I have seen a hint of the spiral arms, and the dust lanes across the front, with as little as 70mm binocs - but that was at a very remote place with no light-pollution at all.
The site claims it's the furthest object you can see by naked-eye from earth - They're wrong!
I've seen another galaxy - m33 (triangulum galaxy) by naked eye, - again, from that same VERY dark site. It's about 1½ times as far away as the Andromeda galaxy.

Crab Nebula (m1)
VERY dim object - impossible if you have any appreciable light-pollution. I've only managed to see it myself with 4" or larger telescopes. Many fairly experienced star-gazers struggle to find it - and even if your telescope is pointed right at it - it's still very difficult to see. Anything under 10" aperture, and all you'll see is a very faint grey 'smudge'
Larger telescopes will bring aut a bit of detail, but you'll never see any colour visually - long-exposure photography is required to make it look any more than the aforementioned grey smudge.
Can be seen from Late September onwards - Later at night = higher in the sky, and therefore, more chance of spotting it.

Whirlpool Galaxy (m51)
Another very dim object in a cheap telescope - I can detect it with 70mm binoculars from my moderately light-polluted back garden - 50mm binocs from a dark site.
But notice that word 'detect' - All that's visible is the two cores - two VERY faint fuzzy blobs side-by-side.
A 4" telescope makes those fuzzy blobs a bit brighter - and you need 8" aperture and upwards to see even a hint of the spiral arms - and even then, only under good conditions.
Visible all year round from UK, best time of night varies with the time of year - currently high to the Northwest, around 10pm to midnight.

Hercules Globular Cluster (m13)
A great object - next best on this list after the Orion Nebula.
Quite easy to see even in 50mm binoculars - it's even vaguely visible by naked eye under very good conditions.
Looks like a fuzzy out-of-focus star at binocular magnifications - Looks like a cotton-wool ball in a small telescope at mid-powers - But really comes alive in a larger telescope.
Heres a sketch I made of it using a 8" telescope, at about 150x magnification.
Pencil drawing on A4 paper :
http://i30.tinypic.com/2n895b7.jpg
Scanned then inverted to white-on black so it looks like the telescope view, and finally flipped left-right because the diagonal on the telescope I used. gives a left-right mirrored image.
http://i30.tinypic.com/11hxc1v.jpg
It's a fair approximation of the view through the scope.
Currently fairly high to the west, just after it gets dark - sinks lower as the night goes on.

Cheers Carlos. Which objects would you recommend that someone new to astronomy have a look at?

...according to the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Chile. More on this story here http://www.eso.org/public/. I should add that the initial picture shown turns out to be an artist's impression though. .

Nearer to home, Venus has been in the news as shown in some of the postings above. There's been quite a bit of speculation as to the cause of that bright spot in the atmosphere and according to Scientific American, a volcanic plume could be the culprit - see here http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...olcano-2009-07.

Yeah, thanks Carlos. My 6" probably isn't quite good enough to pick up anything other than Andromeda at the moment - rotten Far Eastern optics! Still, you get what you pay for. Really need to get me a Meade!

The most famous toolbag in history will re-enter the atmosphere today.

Astronaut Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper dropped the backpack-sized kit on Nov. 18, 2008, while she was working outside the International Space Station. Since then the toolbag has circled Earth over 4,000 times, and has even been visible from the ground. Keep track of the toolbag at Heaven's Above or on SpaceWeather.com's Satellite Tracker.

A lot of far-eastern optics are actually very good - and even Meade get a lot of their lenses and mirrors from Chinese manufacturers.
Meade, Bresser, Celestron, SkyWatcher, are all very good brands, and all have optics manufactured in China.

Depends what you have - What make is your telescope?
A decent 6" will 'see' all those objects, it's just that you won't see the colourful views in those pictures, and some will still be quite faint.
Orion Nebula, Andromeda Galaxy, and Hercules Cluster will all be nice in a decent 6" scope.

For a beginner - apart from the obvious Moon and planets....
I'd say that star-clusters and double-stars are probably the most rewarding objects to view - and there are also a few planetary nebulae which are nice in even a smallish telescope.

The Hercules cluster in that article, and my sketch, shows what a typical globular cluster will look like - and there are a good few which are bright enough to be seen by an amateur with a small/medium telescope.
Then there are the open clusters - personally my favourite kind of targets - all sorts of sizes, shapes, brightnesses. Some with different coloured stars, some are well defined, and stand out well from the background, some are a challenge to pick out from the surrounding stars.
Best known open cluster - because it's relatively near, and bright, is probably the Pleiades (m45) a.k.a. The Seven Sisters, or 'Subaru' in Japan (The car badge is a stylised representation of the cluster)
http://taratarotweb.tripod.com/siteb...s/pleiades.jpg
Plenty other nice ones also - The Wild Duck Cluster (m11) is well positioned right now - The Beehive cluster (m44) in Cancer is a bright and prominent example - The Perseus double-cluster...two very nice clusters nestled beside each other - m35 in Gemini - m36, m37, m38, all in a line in Auriga - ngc7789, Herschel's Spiral cluster, has an optical illusion effect that makes it look like it has spiral structure (In reality, it doesn't) - ngc457, the 'Owl' cluster in Cassiopeia, actually looks like an owl if you squint a bit.
http://www.astrosurf.com/jwisn/ngc457.jpg
And many, many more.....

Because of the way the human eye works at low light levels, the only time when you will see colour through a telescope (apart from planets) is in some double/multiple star systems.
'Albireo' in Cygnus is probably the most well-known - a gold-coloured star, with a slightly dimmer pale blue companion close beside it - Almach in Andromeda, another Gold-blue pairing - Eta Cassiopeia, A bright yellow star with a deep red companion - Iota Orion, a 4 star system with two white, a red, and a blue.......
Albireo
http://zcarboni.home.att.net/Albireo_Powermate.jpg
Observing colour-contrasting double stars was a very popular pastime of Victorian 'Gentleman' astronomers - and can be done nowadays with a relatively small, cheap telescope.

Planetary nebulae are the remains of a dead star which has thrown off it's outer layers - and the expanding gas cloud is lit up by the dying white-dwarf star left over.
This is what will eventually happen to our Sun in about 5 billion years' time. The material is often thrown off in 'cones' from the North and South poles.
m27, the 'Dumbell', is a planetary nebula seen from the side
http://www.oa.uj.edu.pl/apod/apod/im...m27_dm_big.jpg
m57, the 'Ring' nebula in Lyra, is looking straight down the cone, of another planetary neb.
http://messier.obspm.fr/Pics/More/m57mp.jpg
m27, and m57 are both fairly easy to see in a small/medium telescope - m57 looks like a ghostly smoke-ring, but is very small though - (needs a lot of magnification)

**pics courtesy of Google images

Some of you who are interested in manned missions might want to take a look at this month's Astronomy magazine It's the American one not Astronomy Now). Has features on future lunar and Mars missions with NASA illustrations of landers, buggies and bases! Great stuff!

I have an Optrons 6". Very cheap and tacky but to be quite honest, as an inexpensive way to get back into astronomy it's perfect for the time being. I don't seem to have the problems many other people have with the optics (loads of bad press on the web for Optrons) and it came with 6 lenses from 25mm-4mm so that wasn't bad. No motor though which is a bit of a pain but the one we bought my father-in-law did and he doesn't use it so I might borrow it once I've got some time to set it up.

If I had the money I'd get a Meade as I used Meades at Uni so am used to their set-up and operation.

The artist's impression turns out to be somewhat more spectacular than the actual picture : http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap090805.html

Yeah - but what most people fail to grasp, are the actual distances, and sizes, involved in trying to see surface detail on another star.
There are only two stars (other than the Sun) which are large enough AND near enough, to be seen as any more than a pinpoint of light, by even the biggest observatory-class telescopes. Betelgeuse is one - the other is 'R Doradus'.

The distance between Earth and the Sun is known as an 'Astronomical Unit' (AU) - Betelgeuse is about 8½ AU in diameter - If it were in our solar system, it would extend out to somewhere between the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn.
There are about 63,000 AU in a light-year (roughly the same number of inches in a mile), and Betelgeuse is about 640 light-years away.
Trying to see detail on Betelgeuse, is a bit like trying to see detail on a 8½ inch disk, from a distance of 640 miles.
Or a 1 inch disk from about 75 miles.

To put that into perspective - it's akin to trying to make out the queen's head, on a 2p coin glued to the side of, for instance, Canary Wharf.................. from as far away as Peterborough.