February 2024 in the sky from Wairarapa New Zealand

Star Safari goes to Haleakalā

Haleakalā in Maui is home of some of the great survey telescopes. Hari and Sam together with 23 students from Mount Maunganui College and their two teachers, went to visit the telescopes, hosted by astronomers at the Institute of Astronomy, University of Hawaii. Here we talk about our visit and the telescopes we saw there, including Pan-STARRS, Las Cumbres telescopes, Atlas (which previously discovered SN2024ggi - which we took photos of from Star Safari).

February 2024 in the sky from Wairarapa New Zealand

We look at what's in the sky in February and what you see when you're stargazing.

Star Safari goes to Mars with Mitch Schulte

We interviewed Mitch Schulte, Mars Exploration Program Scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington DC and our NZ Astrobiology Network official adviser.  Mitch talks to us about Perseverance, Mars regolith, asterisms, working from home and we are listening to sounds from Mars and try to find out how our voices would sound like if we were on Mars. You can do this too at https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/participate/sounds/ Simply record yourself and then play it back.  The interview was taken in July 2021 by Hari Mogoșanu and Sam Leske.

Star Safari in May and June 2021

A tour of our favourite celestial objects in the night sky that you can see in May and June 2021 from Wairarapa, New Zealand one of the darkest places in the world, where the Milky Way stretches from one horizon to the other.  A favourite this month, quasar 3C - 273 and other space oddities, Omega Centauri, Gem Cluster, Eta Carinae. Scorpius is rising and Orion is slowly disappearing. Brightest stars, when to avoid the Moon and why and what did the ancient Egyptians think of the circumpolar stars.  Clear skies and enjoy