This news service is emailed out each week to all requesting radio stations across Australia.  David Reneke ('Astro Dave') is one of Australia's most well known and respected astronomers and lecturers with links to some of the world's leading astronomical institutions. David is radio savvy, well experienced talking to the media and presents information in an easy to understand, up to date and informative manner. Enquiries for interviews or info Ph: (02) 6585 2260 Mobile: 0400 636 363 Email: davereneke@gmail.com

In Time For Xmas - Kids Space Activity Pack Just $15!

We constantly get asked for Kids Educational Material. I've put together a very affordable hands on 'Space Package' for the young budding astronomer. EACH PACK CONTAINS lots of fun, educational Space Astro activity pages. Mazes, Colouring, Dot to Dot, Word Search, and More! (Contents can be copied and reused) 

We've included our popular astronomy & space 'fact sheets,' a set of colourful peel-off Space Stickers, a quick telescope buyers guide PLUS Our "Welcome To Astronomy" booklet.  * DETAILS HERE

US accuses Russia of 'dangerous' behavior after anti-satellite weapons test

The US has accused Russia of "dangerous and irresponsible behavior" after it conducted an anti-satellite weapons test that forced astronauts on the International Space Station to prepare for evacuation. Russia fired a missile at one of its own satellites over the weekend, generating more than 1,500 pieces of trackable orbital debris and hundreds of pieces of smaller debris, which the US said "now threaten the interests of all nations".

Astronauts aboard the ISS floated into special "lifeboat" pods following the release of the debris. The pods can detach from the ISS and fly crews back to Earth. "This test will significantly increase the risk to astronauts and cosmonauts on the International Space Station, as well as to other human spaceflight activities," said Ned Price, a spokesman for the US state department, on Monday.

"Russia's dangerous and irresponsible behavior jeopardizes the long-term sustainability of outer space and clearly demonstrates that Russia's claims of opposing the weaponization of space are disingenuous and hypocritical. "The United States will work with our allies and partners to respond to Russia's irresponsible act."

The UK defence minister Ben Wallace said: "This destructive anti-satellite missile test by Russia shows a complete disregard for the security, safety and sustainability of space." Anti-satellite weapons tests are rare and are criticized by the space community, due to the risk they create for crews in low Earth orbit. Last year US space command accused Russia of having "made space a warfighting domain" after it fired a missile at a satellite as part of a weapons test. The Russian military and ministry of defense did not immediately comment.

Earlier on Monday, amid reports that Russia had conducted an anti-weapons test, Nasa's Russian counterpart, Roscomos, tweeted that the ISS crew had been forced to move into spacecraft owing to an "object" orbiting the Earth.  Friends, everything is regular with us! We continue to work according to the program," Anton Shkaplerov, the current commander of the outpost, tweeted.

The Nasa astronauts Raja Chari, Tom Marshburn, Kayla Barron, and the European Space Agency astronaut Matthias Maurer floated into their SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft for safety, according to a report by Spaceflight Now.

At the same time, the Russian cosmonauts Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov and the Nasa astronaut Mark Vande Hei boarded a Soyuz spacecraft on the Russian segment, Spaceflight Now said. Experts say anti-satellite weapons that shatter their targets pose a space hazard by creating a cloud of fragments that can collide with other objects, which can set off a chain reaction of projectiles through Earth orbit.

The US performed the first anti-satellite weapon test in 1959, when satellites themselves were new and rare. The US fired an "air-launched ballistic missile" from a B-47 bomber at the Explorer VI satellite, but missed. Russia conducted three anti-satellite missile tests in 2020, according to Space.com. Following the launch of an anti-satellite missile by Russia last December, Gen James Dickinson, the US space command commander, criticized the country for "persistent testing" of "space-based and ground-based weapons intended to target and destroy satellites".

"Russia publicly claims it is working to prevent the transformation of outer space into a battlefield, yet at the same time Moscow continues to weaponize space by developing and fielding on-orbit and ground-based capabilities that seek to exploit US reliance on space-based systems," Dickinson said.

He added: "We stand ready and committed to deter aggression and defend our nation and our allies from hostile acts in space." The US military is increasingly dependent on satellites to determine what it does on the ground, guiding munitions with space-based lasers and satellites as well as using such assets to monitor for missile launches and track its forces.

The anti-satellite weapons tests have also raised questions about the long-term sustainability of operations in space that are essential to a huge range of commercial activities, including banking and GPS services.

Longest Partial Lunar Eclipse This Century 19 November 2021 Across Australia

November's Frosty Moon, or the Beaver Moon, rises along with the last lunar eclipse of the year. Although it's not a total lunar eclipse, it's still damn close as nearly 97 percent of the Moon will be covered by Earth's shadow.   This partial lunar eclipse, the last lunar eclipse of 2021, is visible from North and South America, Australia, and parts of Europe and Asia.  As a bonus, this is the longest partial lunar eclipse that will occur this century, so it should be easy to catch! . In fact it is the longest partial eclipse of the Moon since the 15th century, and there won't be one this long until February 8, 2669! 

Its starts for us in Port Macquarie NSW at 8:02:55 pm and ends at 9:47:04 pm.

WHAT DAY IS THE FULL MOON IN NOVEMBER 2021?

The Full Moon will rise on November 19 at 7.20 p.m. But you can still observe its near fullness the previous night, just after sunset. A partial lunar eclipse will accompany this month's Full Moon. The partial lunar eclipse according to NASA will be the longest eclipse of the century, with a duration of three hours and 28 minutes.

WHAT IS A PARTIAL LUNAR ECLIPSE?

A total lunar eclipse occurs when the Earth is wedged between the Sun and the Moon, obscuring the Sun's light from Earth's orbiting satellite and drenching it in darkness. A lunar eclipse can only occur during a Full Moon, but they are much less frequent than solar eclipses. There is typically an average of two to four lunar eclipses within one year.

During a total lunar eclipse, the Sun, Earth, and the Moon align in a straight line for a brief moment. During a partial lunar eclipse, the Sun, Earth, and Moon don't form an exact straight line.

Instead, their alignment is a little off, resulting in the Earth only partially covering the whole face of the Moon. Although we won't be seeing a total lunar eclipse until the year 2022, this one comes pretty close as about 97 percent of the surface of the Moon will be covered in Earth's shadow.

WHAT IS A BEAVER/FROSTY MOON?

A Full Moon shines at its brightest as it positions itself on the opposite side of the Sun from our Earthly view. The Full Moon of each month has a unique name that dates back to Native American tradition. In November, the Full Moon is known as the Beaver Moon or the Frost Moon. It's called the Beaver Moon because it falls around the same time when hunters would set traps for beavers, capturing them for their fur ahead of the chilly winter season.

November's Full Moon is also known as the Frosty Moon because it falls near the beginning of the winter season when the temperatures start to drop.

HOW TO SEE NOVEMBER 2021 LUNAR ECLIPSE

The lunar eclipse will be visible in North and South America, Australia, and some parts of Europe and Asia. From some areas, the eclipse will be visible for its total duration, while the Moon will rise or set during the eclipse in other regions. You can spot the lunar eclipse in the night sky as it appears as though the shadow of Earth is hovering over the Moon, leaving a tiny sliver peaking out to the side.

WHEN IS THE NEXT LUNAR ECLIPSE?

A total lunar eclipse will take place on May 16, 2022. Next year will only see two lunar eclipses, with the second one on November 8, 2022. These lunar eclipses will become less frequent as the Moon slowly moves away from the Earth by about 1.6 inches each year. But it will take a while for Earth's shadow to not cover the surface of the Moon, so we still have billions of years of lunar eclipses to watch out for.

The first 'space hotel' plans to open in 2027

The word vacation conjures many images: pristine beaches, glittering ski slopes, outstretched highways and theme parks. It doesn't call to mind cosmic journeys upon colossal rotating wheels, or vistas defined by the long arc of Earth's surface - but it might soon. 

Six decades in, the Space Age is marching steadily into its commercial phase, allowing more and more private individuals to purchase passage beyond Earth's atmosphere. In just the past few months, the billionaires Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson have paid to cross or arrive at the edge of the Kármán line, the boundary between our atmosphere and outer space. Beside a budding clientele of Bezos and Branson stature, the era of full-fledged pleasure trips to space seems at hand, even for a multi-day escape.

To accommodate such a jaunt, the Sacramento start-up Orbital Assembly Corporation (AOC) has announced plans to open a space hotel by 2027. As the first of its kind, Voyager Station is slated to be a luxury resort designed to accommodate 280 guests and 112 crew members, complete with a restaurant, a bar, a concert hall, a gym and even a cinema.

If this sounds preposterous, Tim Alatorre, OAC's vice president and architect behind the hotel, understands the skepticism. But it won't be long, he insists, before such talk is commonplace. "I think it's going to be a normal thing, where your mom went to space, your dad went to space," he says. "Being an astronaut is not going to be a novel thing anymore, because everyone has done it."

Celestial getaways

Right now, though, it remains emphatically novel, the stuff of humankind's oldest dreams. For hundreds and perhaps thousands of years, Alatorre notes, the idea of traveling to space has captivated our ancestors. Indeed, Voyager's basic structure draws on a century of theorizing about how to colonize the final frontier.

The concept of the rotating wheel, proposed in the early 1900s as a way to generate artificial gravity, was later popularized in the 1950s by the German rocket scientist Wernher von Braun (Voyager was originally named in his honor). Thanks to the centrifugal force it produces, visitors will be able to move about normally, more or less. Or, as OAC puts it on its website: "We provide gravity."

At first its gravity level will be similar to the Moon's, about a sixth of Earth's. That's roughly a revolution and a half per minute. Alatorre says they hope to spin it up to Mars level (a third of Earth's gravity), and eventually to replicate the weightiness of our home planet. But with scant research on how humans adapt to artificial gravity, they want to better understand their guests' physiology before raising the g-force.

Besides, for many, the lunar environment is surely part of the appeal. People with disabilities will face fewer physical barriers, while the able-bodied will find themselves capable of otherworldly athletic feats. Maybe we'll even see a reprise of Michael Jordan's 1996 Space Jam role? (Not that the guy needs any help defying gravity.) At the least, Alatorre expects "a lot of really good YouTube videos."

After blasting off from Earth, guests will arrive at a central, zero-gravity docking hub. From there, elevator shafts will carry them outward to a chain of "habitation modules" arranged around the circumference of the circular station. It's only there, at the edge of the wheel, that the centrifugal force will be strong enough to keep guests and their surroundings firmly grounded.

Wandering the 24 modules, which come in at 125,000 square feet total, they'll find all the aforementioned amenities of this resort in the sky. They'll lift unwieldy weights and practice slam dunks, enjoy live music, taste traditional astro-fare like tang and freeze-dried ice cream alongside world cuisines. Then, of course, there's the view.

Every earthbound resort touts the beauty of its environs, but Voyager's will be truly unparalleled. In renderings of the station, as guests mill about a sparse, futuristic interior, they are typically gazing out the windows. Each scene is a variation on the same surreal theme: a fraction of Earth's gargantuan frame, blue and green and white, curving against the black of an interstellar void.

The price of being an astronaut

On its website, the company urges potential clients to get in on the action: "Be one of the first humans to vacation on a luxury space station. Make history as one of the first humans in history to own real estate in orbit." As if it were promoting any old property in Aspen or Palm Beach, the site advertises short- and long-term leases for "luxury villas, commercial, retail and industrial space" - pun perhaps intended. They're already in negotiations with booking agents, Alatorre says.

Who are those potential clients? The going rate for an out-of-this-world jaunt is still exorbitant, after all. Oliver Daemen, for example, paid $28 million for a seat beside Bezos in space, and historically speaking that's the lower end. For now such travel is the prerogative of the uber-wealthy.

But, Alatorre says, "We want to make this an easy choice. If you want to go to Paris for a week or you want to go to space for a week, we want it to be a question of preference, not of money." Though he wouldn't discuss prices in detail, he says the goal is for a stay on Voyager to rival a cruise ticket.

Relatively speaking, he says, "the resort is cheap, it's the flight that's expensive." And with the development of more efficient launching systems - like the Starship rocket and Super Heavy booster from Elon Musk's aerospace manufacturer, SpaceX - the cost of every pound flown into orbit will decline. In industry parlance, transportation won't be quite so "mass-constrained." Alatorre goes so far as to suggest the hotel could be significantly more accessible within a decade.

Reality or not

If a project of this magnitude seems ambitious, well, it is. SpaceX, which does not yet have any ties to AOC, gave the startup a shoutout on Instagram in March, ending on a note of uncertainty. "Maybe @spacex can offer a two way ticket by the time it's finished?" the post reads, referencing Voyager. "We are curious to see if this plan will become a reality or not."

Alatorre admits that partners and investors are, rightfully, wary. But on the other hand, all signs point to the rapid growth of space commerce. OAC isn't the only player in the game anymore; as the 23-year-old International Space Station (ISS) - the most plausible tourism venue currently in orbit - nears the end of its life, several companies hope to fill its absence with their own ventures.

Axiom already has a contract with NASA to attach a "destination module" to the ISS, which will eventually be combined with other modules into an independent commercial station. Just last month, Sierra Space and Blue Origin, the aerospace arm of the Bezos empire, announced plans for Orbital Reef, a mixed-use station to be launched by the end of the decade. Voyager, however, is the only one billed primarily as a tourism opportunity.

Above all, Alatorre says, he's confident in the theoretical and mechanical soundness of the space hotel. OAC has completed architectural work for the "Gravity Ring," a miniature of the wheel design, as well as "Pioneer stations" with just a few habitation modules. These prototypes - the latter scheduled for habitability by 2025 - will allow the company to test its technologies before the final assembly of Voyager.

"We are committed to this, and we've invested our lives and our fortunes into making this a reality," Alatorre says. "There's nothing technologically standing in our way. It's just a question of time and money, and we can overcome those."

NASA picks landing site at the moon's south pole for ice-drilling robot

NASA has set its sights on the moon's south pole in its quest for ice. This week, the space agency and the company Intuitive Machines announced Shackleton Crater landing site at the south pole of the moon for a small lander set to launch next year. 

The location is called the "Shackleton connecting ridge" and NASA data hint at ice lurking below the surface, the agency said in a statement Wednesday (Nov. 3). The robotic mission includes NASA's Polar Resources Ice-Mining Experiment-1 (PRIME-1) that requires solar power and a view of Earth for communications. The ridge zone should provide both, NASA said.

"Finding a landing location where we might discover ice within three feet of the surface was challenging," Jackie Quinn, PRIME-1 project manager at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, said in the statement.

"While there is plenty of sunlight to power the payloads, the surface gets too warm to sustain ice within reach of the PRIME-1 drill. We needed to find a 'goldilocks' site that gets just enough sunlight to meet mission requirements, while also being a safe place to land with good Earth communications."

This data visualization image from NASA shows the area of a ridge near the lunar south pole's Shackleton Crater (seen at far right). NASA has picked this spot to land its ice-drilling Prime-1 experiment on Intuitive Machine's Nova-C lander in 2022. (Image credit: NASA)

NASA frames the PRIME-1 mission as a key step in learning how to mine resources from the lunar surface. The agency plans to land a series of longer human missions on the moon, known as Artemis, later in the 2020s. But to make such an effort sustainable, NASA argues, scientists and engineers need to practice in-situ resource utilization (ISRU), which is the practice of using resources in the local environment.

PRIME-1 aims to deploy a drill, called The Regolith Ice Drill for Exploring New Terrain (TRIDENT), which will attempt to burrow as deep as 3 feet (almost 1 meter) underneath the surface. The experiment also hosts a mass spectrometer that will measure gases TRIDENT may uncover from volatiles, which are elements and compounds that easily transform from gas to liquid to solid.

NASA plans to use the "lessons learned" from PRIME-1 to prepare for a more ambitious lunar rover mission, the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER), which will also land at the south pole in 2023. In September, the agency announced VIPER's landing site would be just west of Nobile, a crater near the moon's south pole.

The Intuitive Machines lander, known as Nova-C, will host other technology demonstration experiments. For example, Nokia will test a "space-hardened" 4G and LTE network to attempt high-speed networking on the surface, while an Intuitive Machines rover-hopper called Micro-Nova will try to pick up pictures and science data inside a nearby crater.

Intuitive Machines, along with Astrobotic and Orbit Beyond, were selected in May 2019 for NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative. CLPS aims to test science experiments and technology demonstrations on the moon through private companies. Selection for CLPS places companies in a pool of qualified applicants, from which NASA may draw for future missions.

NASA next announced in October 2020 that it would pay Intuitive Machines up to $47 million to deliver PRIME-1 to the surface, and then in August this year, Intuitive Machines said it would task a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with launching the lander to space and aiming it towards the moon.

SpaceX 'excited' about building moon bases and Mars cities at the same time

SpaceX has big dreams to build cities on Mars and bases on the moon at the same time, one of the plan's key architects revealed over the weekend. 

Paul Wooster, SpaceX's principal Mars development engineer, explained that the Starship vessel under development is designed for versatility. That means, as the company aims to complete its first city on Mars by 2050, there's no need to switch development priorities or move the focus to complete one or the other.

"The [Starship] system also opens up capabilities, for example, to deliver very large payloads to the moon, set up and operate lunar bases," Wooster explained on Saturday at the 22nd annual Mars Society Convention at the University of Southern California. "Because it's the same system that's being used for going to the moon and going to Mars, it's not something where you have to stop going to the moon in order to go to Mars...we're really excited about the possibilities of doing both, having bases on the moon while we're also setting up these cities on Mars."

The comments highlight how SpaceX is aiming big in its plans to make humans a multi-planetary species. The Starship, under development in both Texas and Florida right now, is designed for full reusability with a Raptor engine powered by liquid oxygen and methane. The goal is to establish propellant depots on Mars that harvest resources from the planet, use that to create more fuel, and potentially establish a planet-hopping network that explores the solar system. These missions are all within closer reach thanks to the ongoing work to develop the Starship.

Wooster also shared what appeared to be a new concept image of the Starship on the moon. Unfortunately, as the image was shared on a projector screen in a bright conference room, the concept art appears rather washed out:

SpaceX Starship: how the company plans to expand out further

When CEO Elon Musk unveiled the first Starship prototype in September, he outlined a speedy timetable to get this plan in motion. It involves a 20-kilometer test jump in a couple of months, followed by an orbital flight sometime thereafter.

From there, previous public comments suggest Starship could launch a satellite as early as 2021. A trip around the moon, featuring Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa and six to eight artists, is scheduled fro around 2023. Sometime after the moon mission, SpaceX plans to send a series of manned and unmanned ships to Mars to establish a very early base.

Although the Starship has enough cargo space to eventually hold 100 people, Wooster explained over the weekend that these early missions would likely ferry a handful of people with a bias more toward cargo. That allows SpaceX to use existing technologies that have been demonstrated on the likes of the space station and Crew Dragon, increasing efficiency over time.

Once the first humans have established a propellant depot and basic life support systems, the team can start building out multiple cities. These cities could then support scientific research, act as an outpost and support third-party projects when needed. Wooster explained at last year's Mars Society Convention how this may work in practice:

SpaceX has said relatively little about its plans for the moon, instead focusing on its long-term goals for Mars. Musk did note earlier this month that a major challenge for a lunar base may be finding the carbon to create a propellant depot like on Mars.

With NASA aiming to establish a base on the moon within five years' time, an Ad Astra-style permanent settlement may not be too unreasonable. As the Starship was built with these multiple missions in mind, it could play a role in any further developments as they arise.

"The idea would be to expand out, start off not just with an outpost, but grow into a larger base, not just like there are in Antarctica, but really a village, a town, growing into a city and then multiple cities on Mars."

SpaceX has said relatively little about its plans for the moon, instead focusing on its long-term goals for Mars. Musk did note earlier this month that a major challenge for a lunar base may be finding the carbon to create a propellant depot like on Mars.

With NASA aiming to establish a base on the moon within five years' time, an Ad Astra-style permanent settlement may not be too unreasonable. As the Starship was built with these multiple missions in mind, it could play a role in any further developments as they arise.

Search for life on other worlds tops astronomy to-do list

The latest report recommends that NASA create a new office to oversee space observatories and overlapping missions in the coming decades.

A US survey of astronomers puts the search for extraterrestrial life at the top of their to-do list for the next 10 years. In a report issued Thursday by the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, astronomers stressed the need to continue the hunt for potentially habitable planets circling other stars, building on the "extraordinary progress" already made. The ultimate goal, they noted, is to capture pictures of any Earth-like worlds that might be out there.

"Life on Earth may be the result of a common process, or it may require such an unusual set of circumstances that we are the only living beings within our part of the galaxy, or even in the universe. Either answer is profound," the report stated. "The coming decades will set humanity down a path to determine whether we are alone."

Also ranked high: exploring the origins and evolution of black holes, neutron stars, galaxies and the entire universe. At the same time, the 614-page report stressed the need for greater diversity among astronomy's ranks - still predominantly male - and suggested that NASA consider a science team's diversity when doling out money for research or projects. The survey is done every 10 years and draws input from scores of mostly US-based scientists.

The latest report recommends that NASA create a new office to oversee space observatories and overlapping missions in the coming decades. First up should be a telescope that's significantly bigger than the Hubble Space Telescope that would be capable of spotting planets that are 10 billion times fainter than their stars, the report stated. Once the necessary technologies are ready, this telescope could be ready to launch in the 2040s for around $11 billion, followed by other mega observatories in the billions of dollars.

Here's Something Not Many People Know - Apollo Emergency Salt Remover

For emergency landings, survival equipment was provided to support Apollo astronauts for up to three days. The survival items were in two rucksacks made of Armalon, a Teflon-coated glass fabric.  

They included numerous items like a raft, a radio and beacon transceiver, three water containers, a machete, a desalter kit, sunglasses, and combination survival lights.

Desalter Kit
Humans cannot drink seawater, so Apollo astronauts had a special kit that turned salt water into drinking water. The desalter kit was a standard off-the-shelf Department of Defense (DOD) survival item for military crews.

It consisted of two processing bags, eight chemical packets, and mending tape. The chemical packets were designed to be used in conjunction with the processing bags. The processing bags were plastic with a filter at the bottom. 

Each chemical packet could produce one pint of drinking water. Eight chemical packets could produce one gallon of drinking water. The water was processed by mixing sea water and a chemical packet for an hour. The mixture was then filtered through a valve in the bottom of the bag.

The Apollo requirements were tough on flammable materials, so the standard DOD mending tape was replaced with fiberglass tape.
Sources: [1] NASA Technical Note TN D-6737, [2] National Air and Space Museum; 

Best Astronomy Apps for Stargazing

In this page, I've rounded up a list of useful astronomy apps for your mobile phone or tablet. If you're looking to inject a little more astronomy into your iPhone or Android Device the following list of apps should come in very handy. 

I've reached out to the astrophotography and astronomy community on twitter to find out which astronomy apps are the most popular. I was absolutely astonished to find out just how many amazing astronomy apps I hadn't heard of before, that I now use and enjoy on a daily basis.

In particular, there were some incredibly useful weather forecasting apps I was not taking advantage of (such as Astrospheric) to help plan my astrophotography sessions in the backyard.

For other apps, such as Stellarium, seeing how many other people were using the app in the astrophotography community helped validate its relevance and practicality in 2021. For each mobile app on this list, I have stated whether it is available in the Apple App Store or the Google Play store. Some of these astronomy apps are only available for one or the other.

I have also included the publisher of the app, category, and description of the application so you can get an idea of what to expect before downloading it. I have not included the price of the app (because this may change), but have included whether it is currently free or not.

Astronomy Apps for Stargazing

Whether you use these resources to assist you in stargazing at the cottage, or a quick observation session with your telescope, these astronomy apps can improve your overall experience. They can help you better prepare for the weather, and find out when key astronomical events are taking place.

Due to the evolving nature of mobile apps and the sheer number of new astronomy apps popping up each day, I have not used all of these astronomy apps personally. Consider this page to be more of a round-up of the most popular apps, with good reviews and ratings throughout the astronomy community.

The goal of this post is not to rate the apps against each other, but to provide a useful resource for amateur astronomy enthusiasts. I've included a brief description for each app from the author, and you can click the app name for more information about each one. Without further ado, here is a list (in no particular order) of the best astronomy apps for your iPhone or Android phone.

Stellarium

• Created By: Noctua Software
• Operating System: Android
• Category: Planetarium
• Paid or Free: Free, Paid Pro Version

Description:

"Stellarium Mobile is a planetarium app that shows exactly what you see when you look up at the stars.

Identify stars, constellations, planets, comets, satellites (such as the ISS), and other deep sky objects in real-time in the sky above you in just a few seconds, just by pointing the phone at the sky.

This award-winning astronomy application has an easy-to-use and minimalist user interface, that makes it one of the best astronomical applications for adults and children who want to explore the night sky."

Stellarium is an extremely popular planetarium app for mobile phones. I also enjoy the desktop and web versions when planning my astrophotography imaging sessions at home.

Polar Scope Align Pro

• Created By: Dimitrios Kechagias
• Operating System: iPhone
• Category: Polar Alignment Tool, Utilities
• Paid or Free: Free (In-app purchases)

Description:

"Polar Scope Align will calculate the position of Polaris or σ Octantis in your Polar Scope reticle for your location (using your phone's GPS or entering a location), allowing a quick and accurate polar alignment.

It is one of the few programs that are accurate in lower latitudes by correcting for atmospheric refraction (so expect results to agree only with precise software and not most simplistic "polar align" apps)."

I have good things about this polar alignment tool for equatorial telescope mount owners. I have been using a similar app called Polar Finder (listed further down the post) for many years on my Samsung Galaxy S10 (Android) phone.

SkySafari 6 Pro

• Created By: Simulation Curriculum Corp.
• Operating System: iPhone, Android
• Category: Planetarium, Education
• Paid or Free: Paid

Description:

"SkySafari 6 Pro will revolutionize your astronomical viewing experience. It has the largest database of any astronomy app, includes every solar system object ever discovered, offers unparalleled accuracy, flawless telescope control, Augmented Reality (AR) mode, and provides the very best experience under the stars when you depend on it."

I downloaded SkySafari 5 Pro with plans to use the functionality with my ASIair camera control device and telescope mount. I must admit, I have put this task off for a long time and have not tried it out yet.

PhotoPills

• Created By: PhotoPills S.L.
• Operating System: iPhone, Android
• Category: Photography, Planning
• Paid or Free: Paid

Description:

"Unlock your creative potential! Discover how to easily turn any Sun, Moon and Milky Way scene you imagine into a real picture... and start shooting truly legendary photos every time you pick up the camera!

Whether your passion is to capture beautiful landscapes, immortalize the infinite night sky, surprise the bride and the groom in their happiest day... or to travel the world, PhotoPills will make you love exploring new artistic possibilities to tell visual stories in a way it wasn't possible before."

Here is a recent video shared by the PhotoPills team about how to use the app to help plan a Milky Way photography session.

Clear Outside

• Created By: First Light Optics
• Operating System: iPhone, Android
• Category: Weather Forecast, Planning
• Paid or Free: Free

Description:

"Reliable weather forecasts for astronomers with an emphasis on cloud cover. Updated hourly. Frequent hourly updates are important because often the clear spell between showers provides excellent seeing and 30-minutes under a clear sky with a grab-&-go telescope is pure gold!"

Clear Outside has been my go-to resource for the most accurate (and sometimes depressing) astronomy weather forecast for the night. It's not perfect, but in most cases, it's pretty realistic.

Astrospheric

• Created By: Daniel Fiordalis
• Operating System: iPhone, Android
• Category: Astronomy Weather Forecast
• Paid or Free: Free

Description:

"Astrospheric is the most advanced forecasting service for North American astronomers. Using the amazing astronomy data produced by the Canadian Meteorological Center, NOAA, and more, Astrospheric quickly produces a highly accurate 48-hour forecast for any location in the continental United States or Canada."

This one was new to me, and so far, I absolutely love it. You can dig deep into the weather map layers to get a better idea of the type of cloud cover in your location. As stated in the description, this app is currently only useful to North American users.

Meteoblue

• Created By: Meteoblue
• Operating System: iPhone, Android
• Category: Weather forecast, Planning
• Paid or Free: Free

Description:

"Meteoblue shows high precision weather forecasts combined with a beautiful, simple and easy to use design. Weather forecasts can be requested for any place on Earth easily and comfortably."

I recently installed meteoblue for a realistic weather forecast to help me better prepare for upcoming stargazing sessions. For all of the weather forecasting apps to function properly, you'll need to allow the app to know your location.

I enjoy this weather app over a more traditional one (such as the weather network). Where this app really shines is with the satellite imagery. You can watch developing cloud patterns and movement. Highly recommended!

NightCap

• Created By: Realtime Dreams Limited
• Operating System: iPhone
• Category: Photography
• Paid or Free: Paid

Description:

"NightCap Camera is a powerful app that takes amazing low light and night photos, videos and 4K time-lapse. Long exposure produces beautiful photos in low light and unique Astronomy modes capture the stars, Northern Lights (Aurora) and more!"

Star Walk

• Created By: Vito Technology Inc.
• Operating System: iPhone, Android
• Category: Education
• Paid or Free: Free, In-App Purchases

Description:

"Star Walk is the most beautiful stargazing app you've ever seen on a mobile device. It will become your interactive guide to the night sky, following your every movement in real-time and allowing you to explore over 200,000 celestial bodies with extensive information."

SkyView Lite

• Created By: Terminal Eleven LLC
• Operating System: iPhone, Android
• Category: Planetarium, Education
• Paid or Free: Free. In-App Purchases

Description:

"SkyView® Lite brings stargazing to everyone! Simply point your iPhone, iPad, or iPod at the sky to identify stars, constellations, satellites, and more."

I recently installed this astronomy app on my Android phone, and the first thing that impressed me was the augmented reality function. Rather than placing a planetarium overlay that covers the screen, SkyView places a translucent overlay over the camera view of your phone, and I must say, it's really cool.

The presentation of the constellation overlays and descriptions are beautifully done. Expect the "Lite" (free) version of the app to deliver messages about upgrading quite frequently.

The Moon - Phases Calendar

• Created By: Vitalii Gryniuk
• Operating System: iPhone, Android
• Category: Moon Phase Calendar
• Paid or Free: Free, Paid "Pro" version

Description:

"Moon Phases Calendar - universal lunar calendar for any Locations from 0001AD to 2100 years.

The lunar calendar is one of the oldest calendars in modern society. A lunar month can only be 29 or 30 days long. This is different than a solar-based calendar, where the length is arbitrarily fixed."

I have had a number of moon phase calendars installed on my Android phone in the past, and they all seem to work well enough. The problem with some of them, however, is the number of ads placed in the app, and the UX design.

I found this one to have the nicest design out of all of the moon phase apps available, with easy access to a monthly calendar (available in the Pro version).

Sky Tonight

• Created By: Vito Technology
• Operating System: iPhone, Android
• Category: Planetarium, Education
• Paid or Free: Free, In-App Purchases

Description:

"Made by the developers of Star Walk apps, Sky Tonight is a customizable stargazing tool that is designed for users with different needs and wants. You can adjust the constellation's appearance, set a reminder for any space body configuration, explore the unique relative to the observer trajectory, set up a magnitude limit to filter our space objects, and much more."

This app is nicely designed while also providing and a lot of great information. It includes augmented reality of the constellations but also the latest news in astronomy, a calendar of celestial events (including a daily stargazing index and weather), and a list of objects that are visible tonight (i.e. planets, constellations, stars) through binoculars, a telescope or using the naked eye.

ISS Detector

• Created By: Derk Vrijdag
• Operating System: iPhone, Android
• Category: Planning, Education
• Paid or Free: Free, In-App Purchases

Description:

"ISS Detector will tell you when and where to look for the ISS. You get an alarm a few minutes before a pass. You will never miss it. ISS Detector will also check if the weather conditions are right. A clear sky is perfect for spotting."

I know there are a lot of people interested in capturing the space station passing overhead. To do this, you must know exactly where and when the event will happen, and this app can help you plan for that moment.

I've caught a limited number of space station passes myself, but would love to start paying more attention to this activity.

Use this app to send you an alarm before an upcoming ISS pass.

NightShift: Stargazing & Astronomy

• Created By: Waddensky Astronomy
• Operating System: Android
• Category: Education, Planning
• Paid or Free: Free

Description:

"Nightshift is the ideal free night sky app for the experienced amateur astronomer as well as the casual stargazer. Nightshift helps you find perfect nights for stargazing, assists you in observing your favourite planets, meteor showers and deep-sky objects and keeps you up-to-date about the celestial events in tonight's sky."

I originally included the SkyWeek app from Sky & Telescope on this list, but realized that it has not been updated in some time. The NightShift stargazing and astronomy app is a great replacement.

It delivers useful information at a glance including the sunset time, observing conditions, moon phase, visible planets, and even meteor showers. I really like this app, but it's only available for Android users at the moment.

NightShift is one of my favorite new astronomy apps (Android only).

DarkLight

• Created By: Petro Julkunen
• Operating System: Android
• Category: Astronomy Observing Aid
• Paid or Free: Free

Description:

"DarkLight app allows you to use your phone as a source of light in the dark without your eyes having to adjust for light. This simple, quick and easy app allows you to analyze the lighting conditions via light sensor, and displays the information on the screen when required."

If you've ever been to a star party with strict rules about white light, you'll know that having an app like this on your phone is essential. You can also help preserve your night vision when doing some casual visual observing with your binoculars or telescope in the backyard.

Polar Finder

• Created By: TechHead
• Operating System: Android
• Category: Polar Alignment
• Paid or Free: Paid

Description:

"This utility helps you solve this problem by graphically showing you the current position of the Polaris. The application tracks and draws the position of the Polaris (or Octant) in real-time and also displays its hour-angle, the local sidereal time, current local time and the longitude of the place."

I've been using Polar Finder for many years to aid me in the polar alignment process of my equatorial telescope mounts. It's a simple app that does its job. It gives me the position of Polaris for my location, and I just need to replicate the view through my telescope mount.

My Aurora Forecast

• Created By: JRustonApps B.V.
• Operating System: iPhone, Android
• Category: Aurora
• Paid or Free: Free

Description:

"My Aurora Forecast is the best app for seeing the Northern Lights in Canada and the rest of the world. Built with a sleek dark design, it appeals to both tourists and serious aurora watchers by telling you what you want to know - whether that is exactly how likely you are to see the aurora borealis or details about the solar winds and high-resolution sun imagery. With this app, you'll be seeing the Northern Lights in no time."

Seeing the northern lights can be an exhilarating experience, and can be very rare depending on your location. It is an astronomical event that you definitely want to receive a heads-up (literally) about. If you care about space, not knowing about a beautiful aurora display in your area until after it has happened could be a painful experience!

Heavens-Above

• Created By: Heavens-Above
• Operating System: Android
• Category: Education, Planning
• Paid or Free: Free, Paid Pro Version

Description:

"When can I see the ISS? What's that light in the sky? The official Heavens-Above app provides you with precise pass predictions for the ISS, visible satellites and radio satellites."

DSO Planner Pro

• Created By: Leonid Vasiliev, Alexandre Koukarine
• Operating System: Android
• Category: Planning
• Paid or Free: Paid

Description:

"DSO Planner is an astronomy observation planning tool with excellent star charting capabilities made by active and experienced amateur observers with a passion for visual observations. It has large integrated deep sky objects databases and provides an opportunity to create any number of user own object databases."

Finding The Darkest Skies - Understanding the Bortle Scale

You may have noticed that amateur astronomers and astrophotographers will often describe their sky quality reading when posting pictures or discussing observations.  

 One of the easiest ways to identify the brightness of your night sky is to use the Bortle scale. The Bortle Dark-Sky Scale is a nine-level numeric scale that measures the night sky's and stars' brightness (naked-eye and stellar limiting magnitude) of a particular location.

A light pollution map will show that a large city radiates white to red from the center, and rural areas will appear green to blue. These colors represent the amount of artificial light in the area, and how bright the night sky will look.

A light pollution map showing the location of my backyard

There are a number of ways to measure how much light pollution affects a given location (SQM, NELM), but my personal favorite way to gauge the quality of a location is the Bortle scale.

I have personally battled with light pollution in my backyard when taking deep sky astrophotography images. The sky quality at my home is a class 8 on the Bortle scale, which is the second brightest sky possible. As discouraging as these readings may sound, it doesn't mean that you can't enjoy astronomy (and astrophotography) in conditions like this.

I later moved from a house under Bortle Class 8 skies to a Class 6, which made a big difference in the amount of light pollution I observe from home. Aside from the opportunity to collect astrophotography images with improved signal, I am also able to see many more stars in the night sky from my backyard visually.

What is the Bortle Scale?

The Bortle scale is a way of measuring the quality (brightness) of the night sky for a particular location. There are nine levels to the Bortle scale with Class 9 being the most extreme amount of light pollution.

Unfortunately for many backyard astrophotographers, their primary imaging location is much farther down the Bortle scale then they would like. For example, my Class 8 backyard sky has the title of "City Sky". This is an appropriate description of my night sky quality, as I live in the center of a medium-sized city (Population of 130,000).

The Bortle scale uses astronomical observations to measure the amount of light pollution for a given location. For example, a Class 1 Bortle sky means that one can observe M33 (Triangulum Galaxy) as a direct-vision naked eye object.

How to Measure Light Pollution

There are specialized tools available to measure sky brightness from a very localized area such as a sky quality meter. I prefer to use online resources such as light pollution maps that will give you an approximate reading for any location on Earth.

The free light pollution map tool lets you plot a specific point on the map for a Zenith sky brightness reading. In the example below, I can see that Cherry Springs State Park is a Class 2 on the Bortle scale.

Another easy way to measure the sky brightness of my backyard and the dark sky sites I visit is using a smartphone app called Clear Outside by FLO. This uses your current GPS location to present you with an accurate readout of where your night sky lands on the Bortle scale. It also provides you with an estimated sky quality magnitude.

The "Clear Outside" smartphone app tells you your current Bortle scale class

Stellarium, a free planetarium software, lets you adjust the amount of light pollution in the settings. This is useful for matching up the view in the software with the brightness of the night sky from your coordinates. The faint stars begin to disappear as you increase the light pollution number.

Related Post: Recommended astronomy apps for stargazing.

Adjusting the light pollution settings in Stellarium to match your sky

John E. Bortle created the scale in 2001, which was published in Sky & Telescope magazine. Its goal was to help amateur astronomers get a better understanding of the darkness of a particular observing site. It uses practical celestial observations to estimate the overall brightness of the sky.

The 9 Classes of the Bortle Scale:

Below is a summary of the benchmarks used to classify each of the 9 classes of the Bortle Scale. For a detailed description of each class, you can read the full article from Sky and Telescope.

Class 1: Excellent dark-sky site

• Zodiacal Light, Gegenschein, and Zodiacal Band Visible.
• M33 Galaxy visible as naked-eye object with direct vision.
• Scorpius and Sagittarius region of the Milky Way cast diffuse shadows on the ground.
• Viewing Jupiter or Venus degrades dark adaptation of your eyes.

Class 2: Typical truly dark site

• The summer Milky Way is highly structured to the unaided eye
• The brightest parts of the Milky Way look like "veined marble" when viewed with binoculars.
• Zodiacal light is bright enough to cast weak shadows.
• Clouds in the sky are visible only as dark holes in a starry background.
• Several Messier globular clusters appear as naked-eye objects.

The Milky Way from Cherry Springs State Park (Class 2)

Class 3: Rural sky

• Slight signs of light pollution along the horizon.
• Clouds appear faintly illuminated in the brightest parts of the sky.
• The Milky Way still appears complex.
• Globular clusters M4, M5, M15, and M22 are all distinct naked-eye objects.
• M33 is easy to see with averted vision.
• The zodiacal light is striking in spring and autumn.

Class 4: Rural/suburban transition

• Fairly obvious light-pollution domes apparent over population centers.
• Zodiacal light is clearly evident but doesn't even extend halfway to the zenith.
• The Milky Way well above the horizon is impressive but lacks all but the most obvious structure.
• M33 is a difficult averted-vision object.
• Clouds in the direction of light-pollution sources are illuminated but only slightly.

The closest dark sky site to my home (45-minute drive) is an excellent example of Bortle Class 4 skies

Class 5: Suburban sky

• Hints of the zodiacal light are seen on the best spring and autumn nights.
• The Milky Way is very weak or invisible near the horizon and looks rather washed out overhead.
• Light sources are evident in most if not all directions.
• Clouds are quite noticeably brighter than the sky itself.

Class 6: Bright suburban sky

• No trace of the zodiacal light can be seen.
• The Milky Way is apparent only toward the zenith.
• The sky within 35° of the horizon glows grayish white.
• Clouds anywhere in the sky appear fairly bright.
• M33 is impossible to see without binoculars, and M31 is only modestly apparent to the unaided eye.

The above image shows the difference between my Class 8 backyard to a Class 6

Class 7: Suburban/urban transition

• The entire sky background has a vague, grayish white hue.
• Strong light sources are evident in all directions.
• The Milky Way is totally invisible or nearly so.
• M44 or M31 may be glimpsed with the unaided eye but are very indistinct.
• Clouds are brilliantly lit.
• Even in moderate-sized telescopes, the brightest Messier objects are pale ghosts of their true selves.

Class 8: City sky

• The sky glows whitish gray or orange.
• M31 and M44 may be barely glimpsed by an experienced observer on good nights.
• Only the bright Messier objects are detectable with a modest-sized telescope.
• Some of the stars making up the familiar constellation patterns are difficult to see.

My previous homes Bortle Class 8 backyard sky

Class 9: Inner-city sky

• The entire sky is brightly lit, even at the zenith.
• Stars making up familiar constellation figures are invisible.
• Dim constellations such as Cancer and Pisces are not seen at all.
• Aside from the Pleiades, no Messier objects are visible to the unaided eye.

How Your Bortle Level Affects Your Astrophotography

In terms of backyard astrophotography, your sky quality can have a huge impact on your images. Deep-sky imaging under a bright city sky means that you'll have to put a lot more exposure time into your projects than someone in a rural location.

You'll need to work harder to improve the signal-to-noise ratio of your final image because the signal (light emitted from the object) is buried underneath a layer of light pollution. To help capture images with improved contrast and less background skyglow, I use light pollution filters that isolate specific wavelengths of light.

A typical CLS filter (City Light Suppression) will ignore many of the common sources of artificial light from the city including streetlamps. The only downside to using a filter like this is the change in natural star color you may notice, which will need to be addressed in post-processing.

In general, broadband filters such as the Optolong L-Pro aim to capture true-color images in RGB with less light pollution. However, if you really want to cancel out almost everything but the light your deep sky object is emitting, consider using a narrowband filter.

For example, a 12nm Ha filter like the Astronomik EOS clip-in will record light from emission nebulae using a very narrow bandpass. Narrowband filters are a tremendous option for amateur astrophotographers shooting in challenging Class 6-9 skies.  There are unlimited ways to enjoy the night sky, even if you're under heavily light polluted class 8 skies. 

I really enjoyed putting together this list of stargazing apps, because I found a bunch of great new astronomy apps in the process. My favorite new apps (to me) were Astrospheric, and NightShift.

The best astronomy app for you will likely be something that works especially well on your operating system, and that fits your specific needs. Whether you're looking to plan your next nightscape image, or simply want to know what the bright star is in the east, astronomy apps make life a little nicer.

INTRODUCING OUR NEW PARTNER & ASTRO SUPPLIER

Many thanks to Peter and the crew at ASTRO ANARCHY Queensland. A New business with the amateur astronomer firmly in mind.  Astro Anarchy has the experience, the stock and the knowledge to set up the first timer, to assist in the development of our hobby for the experienced observer OR cater to any other size need or desire in the field of amateur astronomy. 

ATRO ANARCHY AS OUR SPONSOR: My business partner Peter Davies and I have set up a new Astro Tourism business focusing on the recently 'Dark Sky Town' accredited to Norfolk Island. We call it 'Norfolk Island STARGAZING'. When approached, Pete from Astro Anarchy had no hesitation in organizing and supplying all our Telescopes, Binoculars and associated gear to get started. Nothing was any trouble allowing us more than enough time to set up and become fully operational. He and he and his business come highly recommended for anyone wanting any astronomical gear in Australia.

Web: https://www.astroanarchy.com.au/    Sales: sales@astroanarchy.com.au   Phone: 0412 085 224

'Stargazing' - Astronomy Nights At Your Place

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