Astronomy

Telescope optics – test time!

- 23 June 2023

Testing optics on a star does not require any special instruments and can be done outside in the night sky. Despite this, the test is so sensitive that it detects and indicates the smallest defect in the optics of the telescope. The test also reveals many problems that are not due to the telescope structure per se and those can be fixed.

Which star is the biggest out there?

- 13 June 2023

It is not easy to determine which of the known stars is the biggest. According to recent research, it turns out that some stars are twice as massive as what was thought to be possible. Apart from that, there is also a terminological problem: do we mean the star with the largest diameter or the star with the largest mass?

Saturn’s rings are dying

- 3 June 2023

Saturn’s rings are eye candy for keen sky observers. They were first noticed by Galileo in 1610, but he did not know what he was seeing at that time. He had a small telescope with modest magnification, and it seemed to him that Saturn was a planet composed of three parts.