Professor Fred Watson: Hi there.
Andrew Dunkley: Thank you for joining us. This is Space Nuts
and it's a Q and A edition. My name is Andrew
Dunkley. What's Q and A stand for? I don't
know, but we've got questions, uh, from our
audience, which we will answer.
Qa. Oh, there it is.
Um, Casey wants to know about dark matter
stars even though they don't exist. And we
can't answer the question.
Professor Fred Watson: Uh, Michael.
Andrew Dunkley: Um, he's sent one in about dormant
comets, uh, which, uh, I found most
intriguing. So it'd be interesting to
discover what that's about. Uh, Derek is
asking about gravitational slingshots,
and Jason is asking what
Fred Watson thinks of the new wave of
smart telescopes. Ooh.
Uh, we'll talk about all of that on this
episode of space nuts.
Andrew Dunkley: 15 seconds. Guidance is internal.
10, 9.
Professor Fred Watson: Ignition sequence start. Space nuts.
Andrew Dunkley: 5, 4, 3, 2. 1, 2, 3, 4,
5, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
Andrew Dunkley: Space nuts. Astronauts report at mill.
Andrew Dunkley: Good.
Andrew Dunkley: And he's, uh, back again to try and sort all
that out. It's Professor Fred Watson Watson,
astronomer at large. Hello, Fred Watson.
Professor Fred Watson: Hello, Andrew. Very good to see you again.
Andrew Dunkley: And you too. It's been minutes.
Professor Fred Watson: It has. Um, uh, I might add a postscript
to, um, when we recorded the last session.
Yeah, I just, uh, got back from the annual
science meeting of the Astronomical Society
of Australia. And I meant to mention that,
um, an old friend of Space Nuts was
there and I had dinner with him, um,
on the first night. And that is Peter
Verwein, who is our contact in
the world of mond. Uh, modified Newtonian
dynamics. Yeah. So, uh,
terrific. Nice to do. He's still
monding, although, um, I think
he's had some hurdles to overcome. So
we might have to do an update on that down
the track.
Andrew Dunkley: Well, while we're sending shout outs, I'll
send a shout out to an Instagram, um,
presence person named the Greens
Goddess, Uh, a female golfer who,
uh, started following me, I don't know, some
time ago. And I thought, I'll do the honour
of following her back. And, uh, she posted a
video of her swing the other day and I noted
a couple of issues with it. So
I sent her a note and said, look, you got a
bit of a reverse pivot going there.
Try this drill to sort it out.
Anyway, she sent a note back and said, oh,
that's very helpful. By the way, big fan of
Space Nuts.
Professor Fred Watson: Okay, that's nice.
Andrew Dunkley: Might have been why she followed me in the
first place.
Professor Fred Watson: But anyway, good on the Green Goddess.
Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, good for her. All right,
um, shall we answer Some questions,
Fred Watson.
Professor Fred Watson: Yes, we might as well might.
We know we're here.
Andrew Dunkley: Let's get into our first one. And it comes
from one of our regular contributors. This is
Casey.
Andrew Dunkley: Hello, Fred Watson, Andrew and Huw. This is
Casey from Colorado. I know
that dark matter stars are completely
hypothetical at this point. I've read
before that they would be some of the
brightest objects in the sky. If they do
exist though, I was wondering if you could
please explain why that is and also how they
can get so hot without any fusion.
Hope you're both well and thanks for the
podcast.
Andrew Dunkley: Thank you, Casey. I just knocked everything
over on my desk, but, um, it'll wash out,
um, dark matter stars.
I think somebody's brought these up once
before, if I'm correct in my thinking.
But, um, maybe we should start by
trying to explain what they're supposed to
be.
Professor Fred Watson: Yes, well, that's right. Uh, um,
uh, first of all, Dark matter
is still hypothesised, really,
notwithstanding, uh, what we're just saying
about, um, Peter Verweil. And that is an
alternative theory to try and account for
the, uh, low, um,
the way, uh, the galaxies tell
us that there is something there that we
can't see. Uh, um, his
uh, version of that is something called
modified Newtonian dynamics that suggests
that accelerations, uh, do not follow the
normal Newtonian rules at very low levels.
I think that's going into doubt though now.
So I think, I suspect that dark matter
is, um, basically
consolidating, uh, its position as the
number, um, one theory for why galaxies don't
just fly apart because they've got all this
stuff in them that we called out matter. So I
think it's true to say, um, that
despite a few people looking in other
directions, most of the scientific community
believes that we are in a universe
whose matter content is dominated by
something that we see sort of outweighs
normal matter by five to one. Yeah, uh, and
it's probably some sort of subatomic particle
that we just have not, uh, come to grips with
yet. Now, once you accept
the idea of new
species of subatomic particles that only
interact with, uh,
everything else through gravity, they don't
interact through electromagnetic radiation or
any other kind of, uh, particle physics.
It's only gravity that lets us know that
these things, uh, these dark matter
particles are there, hypothesised still, but
likely to be there. Uh, and it's their own
gravitational attraction that stops galaxies
falling apart or flying apart because they're
rotating too quickly. So that's what dark
matter is now, um,
on that bare
framework or foundation. Scientists have
built up some models of what dark matter
particles might be. And
um, in particular there is an
idea that if dark matter
particles come together, then
a bit like matter and antimatter,
they would annihilate and
basically produce radiation.
And that's the idea of a dark matter star
that you've got a, uh, hypothetical object,
um, bigger than your average solar system.
So they're very large.
Andrew Dunkley: Wow.
Professor Fred Watson: Uh, made of dark matter. Uh, but
what makes them shine is the dark matter
particles self annihilating.
Uh, and there are some
pundits who believe
that the very first stars that
formed when the universe was in its infancy
were actually dark matter stars. Uh,
were these ones that are super
bright in the sense that they emit a
large amount of radiation, but not,
not super bright in a way that you
might imagine. And that's because they are so
big. Um, they are
basically puffed up by the
energy coming from this radiation. Uh,
but because they're so big, their surfaces,
uh, are relatively cool. And so
what you see is an object in the infrared.
Uh, if you're looking out for a dark matter
star or what you would see
if they existed.
Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, I get it.
Professor Fred Watson: Um, so that's why that's basically where the
energy comes from, the annihilation of dark
matter particles. Self annihilation.
Um, but yet
they're bright, um, because of
basically the amount of radiation
that they generate with these, uh, uh,
annihilation that makes them bright and they
get uh, to something like 10
billion times more
energetic than the sun in terms of the
energy that they release. Uh, but as I said,
it's infrared radiation. So they're really
releasing it, um, in the form of
heat.
Andrew Dunkley: So in terms of naked eye observation, you
can't see a thing.
Professor Fred Watson: I think that's right, yes. I mean there would
also be. If we're seeing them in the early
universe, these things will be very highly
redshifted. That means their light will not
only be infrared, but it'll be even redder
than red infrared, uh, because of the
expansion of the universe stretching out the
light waves. Um, so, uh, they
might be quite difficult, might be quite
difficult to detect. However, uh, it's
basically, uh, one of the things that the
James Webb telescope is looking for. It's
looking for any evidence of dark matter
stars.
Andrew Dunkley: So where a normal star like ours, um,
depletes its fuel and then turns into a
red giant and then collapses into a white
dwarf, a dark matter star
annihilates itself.
Professor Fred Watson: I think that would be right. I think it would
just basically fizzle out
Evaporate and fizzle out. Yeah.
Andrew Dunkley: Okay.
Andrew Dunkley: Wow.
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah.
Andrew Dunkley: Thank you, Casey. Um, haven't found one yet,
but if you do stumble across one, let us
know.
Professor Fred Watson: Just hand it in, please.
Andrew Dunkley: Yes, yes. Just don't forget to put it in a
lead box.
Professor Fred Watson: That's right.
Andrew Dunkley: Thanks for the, the question.
Our next question, Fred Watson, comes from
Michael. Uh, he said, I understand that. Oh,
uh, he says, andrew, I apologise. I still not
do not have questions, uh, about dark matter.
It's all right, person before you did it. Uh,
as I have a firm understanding of how coffee
and Coca Cola power my day, uh, I understand
that dormant comments have been suggested
with a few even confirmed inside the snow
line, I'm wondering how many might exist.
Seven. There's seven. I have
no idea. Uh, and how, uh, a, uh, best
guess might be made to arrive at that number.
It was my best guess. I'm going. Well here.
Professor Fred Watson: Uh, you are, you're guessing.
Andrew Dunkley: Well, other than infrared telescopes and
cameras looking for low temperature dark
objects, what instruments on a smaller
satellite might be best for searching for
either or both of the Earth Sun Trojan
Lagrange points? Uh, that comes from Michael.
Now I'm assuming Michael's in Alberta because
I'm going off his email address and it had
the abbreviation AB And I looked that up and
that's the abbreviation for the Province of
Alberta, Canada. But I might be wrong and I'm
sorry if I'm way off the map,
Michael, but thanks, uh, for the question.
Okay, um, are there,
are there, um, yes.
Comets?
Professor Fred Watson: Thought to be. So, um, what's a dormant
comet? Uh, well, it is,
it would be a comet that has,
uh, gone past the sun several
times in its lifetime. I think that's
probably the bottom line. Uh,
it's an old comet
and uh, because
every time a comet gets near the sun,
it's basically radiates its uh,
gas and dust into space. Uh, the gas
turns into a kind of plasma. It's excited by
the sun's radiation. Uh, and
so you get what we call a gas tail for a
comet. And um, you can also get a dust tail
because comets are dusty objects with this
sort of frozen gas around them. The
dust leaks out when the gas blows away.
And so you get uh, comets that have two
tails. So um,
imagine, uh, one of these things that's
gone, ah, round the sun several
times. And basically
it would have a kind of crusty
layer to it, an outer layer,
uh, which is the dust sort of
coagulating on the surface. So the
gases has been blowing dust off.
But there's still a residual dust layer
that might give you this crust
around the edge of it. That means that even
though it goes near the sun, the sun doesn't
penetrate, uh, the sun's radiation and heat
don't penetrate the dust. And so it doesn't
actually, uh, stir into action. It doesn't
start behaving like a comet which is to
release its gas and dust.
Andrew Dunkley: Okay.
Professor Fred Watson: Um, and so, uh, that,
uh, you know, that would, that would be a
dormant comet once one that's gone to sleep.
Um, what might stir it back into
action is if you
had a dormant comet colliding
with something else. Uh, hopefully not the
Earth. Uh, but you know, maybe another,
another, um, an asteroid or
something like that, uh, that might
disturb that, that
dusty crust on the outside or crusty
dust, uh, the sort of crust of the. Over the.
I. If you could expose
the icy surface to the sun's radiation, then
it would basically start giving you what, ah,
we would call an active comet as well. Um, I
mean the way they are. And this is really the
nub of the question, I guess, how do you
detect them? Because the problem is,
um, if you've got a comet, even though it's
made mostly of ice, uh,
uh, if it's got this, um, dark
crust on the outside of it, there's very
little to distinguish that from an asteroid.
Um, and so how do you know whether this
is a dormant comet or an asteroid?
And it's really quite hard to do. Um,
there's not that much to choose between them.
You will be looking at a kind of thermal
signature because, um, asteroids are cold
rock. Uh, dormant comets
are cold ice with a kind of rocky,
sort of dusty, um, rocky layer on the
outside. Uh, there's not that much to
differentiate between them until you knock
some of the dust off and the thing. Thing
wakes up.
Andrew Dunkley: Yes.
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah. Um, so, um,
I think, uh, there's scope for us
trying to do a survey. But it will be hard
to know, uh, whether
you've picked a dormant comet or you've got
an asteroid. And it may well be that some of
the asteroids that we consider to be
asteroids are actually dormant comets.
Andrew Dunkley: So they're super duper old. I suppose the
smoking gun would be. Most of them have got
Zimmer frames.
Professor Fred Watson: Could be, yep. Um, comet. Zimmer frame.
Yes. I like the sound of that.
Andrew Dunkley: You never know.
Professor Fred Watson: Um,
Andrew Dunkley: worth looking for or not. But
yeah. Okay, so, um, so
they might be out there. When Michael said
that, uh, a few have been confirmed in the
snow line. What's, what's he
Meaning there.
Professor Fred Watson: So that means. So the snow line is,
um, basically it's on the far side
of Mars's orbit. Ye, where, um,
water vapour stops being vapour and
freezes. It's the, uh, sort
of outer side of the
Goldilocks zone.
Andrew Dunkley: Okay, fair enough. Michael, thanks for the
question. Um, that was fascinating. Um,
and um, yeah, I suppose one day someone might
go, aha, I've found a way. And then
we've got the answer. This is Space
Nuts, Andrew Dunkley with Professor
Fred Watson Watson.
Space Nuts. Oh, that was. That
was it. That was so short. I'm going to
do it again. Space Nuts.
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah. He's got a very nice voice, hasn't he?
Andrew Dunkley: He has, yes. I can do that on my
machine. Hang on. Yeah, wait for
it. Uh, not there.
Professor Fred Watson: Okay.
Andrew Dunkley: Uh, no, not there. Oh, here it is.
Space Nuts.
Professor Fred Watson: I, um. Yeah, I think you need some, uh,
Gaviscon or something.
Andrew Dunkley: I can do it with this one.
Yeah, I could go on forever.
Professor Fred Watson: I know you could,
Andrew Dunkley: but I won't. Um, we'll go to it.
Andrew Dunkley: Yeah.
Professor Fred Watson: Anyway, I'm sure you can use that, uh, in
suitable, uh, environments that, um, I
mean audio environments that might intrigue
our listeners or otherwise, um, confuse
them.
Andrew Dunkley: Indeed.
Our next question comes from Derek.
Andrew Dunkley: Hi guys, this is Derek from southern Ontario
and Canada. Again, um, just wondering if
you could explain the orbital
mechanics behind Slingshots. Gravitational
slingshots. And uh, I'm trying
to understand whether the rotation of
the planet has anything to do with that
slingshot or if it's just, uh, uh, in
terms of how close you get to the planet. Um,
if you can elaborate a little bit on that,
that would be great. Thank you. Love the
podcast. Have a great day.
Andrew Dunkley: Thank you, Derek. Uh, it's a good question,
uh, and I think we've seen
it used, uh, many times for some of these
probes that have been sent, um, way out
into the solar system because we
find it's uh, a much more efficient way of
doing things because we haven't got the fuel
to send them all the way in under their own
steam. That was certainly the case with the
Voyagers, uh, and they were two
of the best examples of using the gas giants
for slingshots, um, but
even launching things off our own planet.
There's a bit of slingshot effect, isn't
there?
Professor Fred Watson: Uh, yes, that's right, there is. Um, so,
um, it's not just getting to the outer
solar system. I think, um, the uh,
Bepicolombo, uh, spacecraft which is on
its way to Mercury, I think that's had
Something like seven slingshots with Venus
and the Earth. That's right. Might be
exaggerating, but, um, it's had a large
number, and that's in order to make
its velocity, uh, match the velocity of
Mercury, um, which you'd think will be
easy as you drop things into the inner solar
system, but it's not actually. It's quite
hard to do. You've got to kind of catch up
with Mercury as it steams around in its orbit
because it's going faster than the Earth is
in its orbit around the sun. Um,
so, um, yes. So it's a very useful tool
for exploring the solar system. I think
you're about to confirm how many it's had.
Andrew Dunkley: I haven't found it yet. I'm usually pretty
quick, but I'm not.
Professor Fred Watson: You are pretty quick, yeah.
Andrew Dunkley: It's proving elusive at the moment, but I'll
get it.
Professor Fred Watson: I will get. Has had an elusive number
of slingshots, uh, uh,
but the bottom line is that it's a process
that works well and is actually
very much a part of the
astrodynamicists toolkit when they're
actually working out the, um, orbits
and um, trajectories of planets.
Andrew Dunkley: Exploring the nine slingshots.
Professor Fred Watson: Nine slingshots. There you go. Seven was an
underestimate.
Andrew Dunkley: Yeah. One at Earth, two at Venus, and six at
Mercury itself.
Professor Fred Watson: Yes. Fantastic. That's what you need to
match Mercury's orbital speed. Quite
remarkable. So, um, how does it work? Well,
it's counterintuitive, isn't it, because you
think that a, uh, spacecraft falling in
towards a planet, uh, it's going to
gain velocity, but then as it leaves the
planet, it's going to decelerate and so it
would lose velocity. And you might think the
two would balance up, but the bottom line is
they don't. And it's all about the angle that
you come in, uh, when you intercept
the planet's orbit. And if you get the
angle right, you can have this situation
where, uh, without making contact at
all, where some of the momentum of the planet
is transferred to the spacecra.
Um, and so the spacecraft gets
a, uh, push in velocity, its velocity
increases. The planet doesn't even notice the
difference because the spacecraft has so
little mass compared with,
um, the planet. Um, so it's
balancing the momentum.
Momentum, of course, is just the mass times
the velocity. Uh, and so you've got a very
big mass transferring momentum to a very
small mass. And, um, that means you get
quite a significant velocity kick, uh, in
doing that. And so it's not to do
with the rotation. Um, so Derek is
right to point out that as a query, is it to
do with the rotation? The answer is no. So if
you had a planet that wasn't rotating at all,
uh, you could still do a gravitational
slingshot very successfully with it. Oh,
okay.
Andrew Dunkley: So does the spacecraft, when it's doing
this slingshot, actually steal some of
the planet's energy?
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah.
Andrew Dunkley: Is that how it works?
Professor Fred Watson: It's stealing momentum, uh,
and um, using that to accelerate
and sometimes quite dramatically. So the
change in the orbital trajectory is really
significant. But it's a fantastic tool
for exploring the planets.
Andrew Dunkley: Yeah, it is until the day we can
come up with a new way of,
a new form of engine
propulsion. That's the word I was wanting.
Uh, that um, renders
gravitational assist unnecessary.
Professor Fred Watson: Yes, that's right. At the moment, we haven't
got there yet. No, you're right.
Andrew Dunkley: But it might. Yeah, it could be
scramjet technology, it could be
nuclear power, like fusion engines, things
like that. We're a long way from that. But,
uh, those are possibilities. Yeah, yeah.
Um, who knows? Um,
but the more you speed up in space, the more
you've got to be careful because there's lots
of stuff you can bump into. You don't really
want to do that at pace, do you?
Professor Fred Watson: You've got to know where all this stuff is.
And that's what astronomers are for.
Andrew Dunkley: Indeed.
Professor Fred Watson: Tell you where it all is.
Andrew Dunkley: Uh, thank you, Derek. I hope that covered,
uh, your question adequately.
Space nuts. What we're going to do
now, Fred Watson, is, um, we've got, uh,
we've had quite a Canadian influence in, in
today's show by the look of it. Uh, this
comes um, from Jason in Montreal, in
Quebec. And uh, he says, I'm a big fan of the
show.
I have a question regarding the rapid rise of
fully automated smart telescopes
and their place in the modern hobby.
Uh, on one hand it feels like these devices
are, ah, an incredible cost effective
gateway. They allow beginners to dive
straight into astrophotography and see almost
instant results without spending thousands of
dollars on complex gear right away.
That immediate reward seems to be a fantastic
way to spark a lifelong interest in
astronomy. On the other hand, there
seems to be a, uh, bit of a divide in the
community with some traditional
astrophotographers viewing them as cheating
because the automated software removes so
much of the steep learning curve. What
are your thoughts on this technological
shift? Do you see smart telescopes as a
positive tool for opening up the night sky to
a broader audience, or do you Feel
something valuable is lost when we automate
the setup and tracking process.
Uh, I actually bought one recently and I've
already learned a lot over the past few
months. Getting those quick results didn't
stop me from wanting to learn more in. In
fact, it did the opposite. Uh, it got
me watching more astronomy and
astrophotography videos than usual, uh, on
YouTube and joining Facebook groups to learn
from other users. And of course, let me
find your podcast. Uh, thank you for the
great episodes. Uh, that comes from Jason in
Montreal. I'm going to show you something,
Fred Watson.
Professor Fred Watson: Yep. Let me see.
Uh, I've got one.
He's got one.
Andrew Dunkley: Um, I've got one. And yes, it simplifies
everything. It does all the hard work for
you, but if you someone who doesn't like
doing the hard work, it's a godsend.
Yeah, that's my take on it. I'll keep it nice
and short. I know a couple of people
who've got both. They've got a traditional
telescope with the whole kit set
up with their computers and the programmes
and all the tracking technology.
They like to do it the old fashioned way.
And, uh, they've also got smart
telescopes, um, which
do the same thing. But, um, you know,
you've got to rob Peter to pay Paul. The
efficiency and simplicity of that,
uh, also means that your images aren't going
to be nearly as good as a
traditional telescope. Uh, so
it ebbs and flows. There's a cost for
the, um, let's not say the word cheating,
but there is a cost. Um, uh, but it
does make astrophotography
immensely affordable for a lot of
people.
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah. And accessible too. Yes. Um,
so, yes, look, um,
I think Jason sort of answered his own
question in exactly the way I would. Uh,
that, uh, you've got
the two aspects of it. It's a
brilliant way of getting
into astrophotography,
um, almost painlessly, um,
on a very good level too.
Uh, and if you then wanted to do
more, if you wanted to go for a bigger
telescope and do your image processing
in a more, um,
perhaps a more precise way that's,
uh, still open to you, I think, as a tool
for getting people involved in astronomy.
I think they're absolutely fabulous. I don't
have one myself. Uh, I'm glad you've got one
one, Andrew, because I've seen some of the
results from that and they are very
impressive. Uh, I've got a number of other
friends who've got them as well, who are
themselves professional astronomers.
Andrew Dunkley: There's a photo I took the Other night of the
M8.
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah. There you go. And it's lovely.
Colour balance. That's pretty well what you'd
expect to see from a David Malin image.
And that's what's like.
Andrew Dunkley: David Malan was a pioneer in this stuff.
Professor Fred Watson: He did.
Andrew Dunkley: Now you can do it from your lounge room.
Professor Fred Watson: Yes. With. You can literally with your mobile
phone. On your m. Mobile phone,
Telescope outside. Um, yeah. I think
it's fantastic. I'm very, uh,
much old school. I love pottering around with
a telescope with nothing more than an
eyepiece. I've never really ventured into
astrophotography. The nearest thing I've got
to that has been a lot of aurora
photography. Uh, um, which I
love and is now also a lot more accessible
just with a smartphone. Uh, so I don't
carry around. Found all the kit I used to.
When we go up to the Arctic, uh, to look for
the aurora, just take my smartphone.
Um, but you're right. Um,
I think, as I said, I think Jason's answered
it perfectly. It's obviously
stimulated him to go further. Uh, he loves
what he's got and he's finding out more. Uh,
best of all, he found space nuts. Yes, nice.
But, um. Uh,
I would not be somebody who
would frown upon these devices and
saying, in my day we did not
have this sort of thing. You know, we had to
do it properly. We had to understand what was
going on. Well, you can still do it
and understand what's going on, uh, with
your smart telescope. Well, what's. Sorry, go
ahead.
Andrew Dunkley: On mine, when I pick a target, it then gives
me an audio briefing on what the target is,
who found it, when it was found.
Professor Fred Watson: That is fabulous.
Andrew Dunkley: It is amazing.
Good stuff.
Professor Fred Watson: It's an astronomy class as well.
Um, I think I'm right in saying that
the first of these smart telescopes was a
Unihedron. I think, uh, that was probably
six or seven years ago when I saw the first
one of those and I was very impressed with
it. But what I was going to say was that they
have now come down in price to be,
um, really quite affordable.
Andrew Dunkley: Yeah.
Professor Fred Watson: And it's not beyond the realms of possibility
that one day there might be one in the Watson
household. Although I do like things that are
made of brass. And do you look through one
end and see how they.
Andrew Dunkley: There are a mass of them out there and quite
a few are, uh, well under a thousand dollars.
Professor Fred Watson: Yes.
Andrew Dunkley: So, you know, that makes
a pretty wide target audience.
The other thing mine does is you can click on
the map on your phone and you can see where
other uh, people are that are using
the same gear as you.
Professor Fred Watson: Interesting.
Andrew Dunkley: I'm not sure, I'm not sure that goes down
with the privacy laws.
Professor Fred Watson: But anyway, uh, I was going to say is there a
privacy infringement there? Maybe, yeah.
Andrew Dunkley: I've got um, satellite navigation in the car
that does the same thing. It shows you other
users of that particular device but um,
they've um, curtailed it in Australia so it
only shows you where they were like 10
minutes ago.
Professor Fred Watson: Okay.
Andrew Dunkley: Which is pointless. Just turn it off.
Professor Fred Watson: Yes, it is of a waste.
Andrew Dunkley: Yeah. Uh, well, you know, we live in nanny
state New South Wales, so you've um,
everything's on the table for uh, some sort
of scrutiny. Probably me now after saying
that. But yeah, Jason, look, I'm a big fan
and you are too. And uh,
I don't think it does spoil the tradition,
uh, or the traditional approach to um,
astrophotography because vinyl um,
records have come back, back. So you know,
you can't write anything off.
Yeah, but I wanted that question
to um, I wanted you to hear
that question Fred Watson, because I know
you've got a long history in um, in
telescopes, you've written books about them
and um, this is, this is the next big thing,
I suppose.
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah, yeah.
Andrew Dunkley: While we're talking about it, um, when you
were away last, um, Jonty
Horner grabbed a couple of astrophotographers
and we did a special on astrophotography
which I'm not sure if Huw's released it yet,
but I think he's still working on how to get
that out there. It's quite a, I think it's an
hour long special on
astrophotography and the techniques and how
they did it and what you can do. So if you
really want to get into the nuts and bolts of
astrophotography, have a look for that one.
Um, I'm not sure it's been released yet. Yet.
Um, it took some pretty heavy editing because
there were four people on it. So it was okay,
it was a big show. But uh, yeah, that one
will be available soon, if not already.
Uh, and thanks for all your questions. Please
keep them coming at our, ah, website,
spacenutspodcast.com or spacenuts
IO and click on the Little AMA tab at the
top and send us your text or audio questions.
If you're sending us an audio question,
please remember to tell us where you're from
and your name.
Andrew Dunkley: Name.
Andrew Dunkley: Um, it doesn't do that by itself. Uh,
although I know sometimes people forget to
tell us their name on where they're from on
text as well. Um, but that's
okay. Um, it's not mandatory, but, uh,
it just helps us to know where everybody's
at. Fred Watson, we're done. Thanks very
much.
Professor Fred Watson: Oh, thank you, Andrew. Good fun and great to
hear from the listeners as well. Especially,
you know, when we get questions that, uh,
cover everything from, from dark matter,
stars and dormant comets to the latest in
telescope technology. Where else can you hear
about all that?
Andrew Dunkley: Uh, exactly.
Professor Fred Watson: Right.
Andrew Dunkley: Yeah. All right. Thanks, Fred Watson. See you
soon.
Professor Fred Watson: Yeah. Cheers. Cheers.
Andrew Dunkley: For now, Professor Fred Watson Watson,
astronomer at large, and thanks to Huw in the
studio, couldn't be with us today because he
bought a smart telescope. He's
not smart enough to use it. Uh, and from me,
Andrew Dunkley, thanks for your company.
We'll catch you on the next episode of Space
Nuts. Bye bye. Space Nuts.
You've been listening to the Space Nick Nuts
podcast, available at
Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
iHeartRadio or your favourite podcast
player. You can also stream on demand at
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Professor Fred Watson: Com. This has been another quality podcast
production from Bytes. Com. Um,