The world’s best-selling astronomy magazine

The mystery of FAST RADIO BURSTS p. 20 FEBRUARY 2018 EXPLORE the Large Magellanic Cloud p. 32 Hunt Orion’s deep-sky gems p. 50 E ...

SEND US YOUR OLD EQUIPMENT FOR CREDIT TOWARDS A NEW L-SERIES MOUNT DIRECT-DRIVE • HIGH-RES ENCODERS • ALT/AZ OR EQUATORIAL • SLE ...

You’ll have 5 uninterrupted evenings of private, southern sky stargazing from the grounds of our star lodge, plus: Daily birdin ...

CONTENTS Trips and To u r s Travel the world with the staff of Astronomy. News The latest updates from the science and the hobby ...

WWW.ASTRONOMY.COM 5 The Sky-Watcher USA Star Adventurer multi- purpose mount is perfect for anyone — Milky Way photographers, ec ...

Follow Astronomy http://www.twitter.com/ AstronomyMag http://www.facebook.com/ AstronomyMagazine plus.google.com/ +astronomymaga ...

QG QUANTUM GRAVITY EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE UNIVERSE THIS MONTH... WWW.ASTRONOMY.COM 7 SNAPSHOT Don’t let the Horse ...

8 ASTRONOMY • FEBRUARY 2018 t the end of some sci-fi movies (think To t a l Recall or Outland), the bad guy is pushed out the sp ...

ASTROLETTERS WWW.ASTRONOMY.COM 9 Finding cloudshine I was really surprised by Stephen James O’Meara’s column, “Cloudshine,” in t ...

ASTRONEWS FOR HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF YEARS, two city-sized stars in a galaxy not so far away circled each other in a fatal danc ...

WWW.ASTRONOMY.COM 11 LIGHT SHOW. Merging neutron stars 130 million light-years away unleashed a gravitational wave detected on E ...

ASTRONEWS Uranus 0.5% CETUS 1.5% SCORPIUS LE O AQ UA RI US P IS C E S 9 .^8 % AR IE S TAU RU S GEMINI CAN CER (^6). (^4) % (^9). ...

WWW.ASTRONOMY.COM 13 32 Elkay Drive, Chester, NY 10918 845.469.4551 TeleVue.com “I can’t say when I’ve ever enjoyed owning anyth ...

14 ASTRONOMY • FEBRUARY 2018 S eeing is believing. Or is it? In his inf luen- tial 1950 book The Perception of the Visual World, ...

ASTRONEWS WWW.ASTRONOMY.COM 15 Jupiter’s polar cyclones don’t add up Novae result when a white dwarf, the remnant of a Sun-like ...

ASTRONEWS 0 500 1, 1, 2, 2, 0 30 60 90 120 Kepler Telescope Lunar Reconnaissance OrbiterHeliosphericSolar and Observatory Chandr ...

ASTRONEWS WWW.ASTRONOMY.COM 17 The estimated maximum number of undiscovered near-Earth asteroids more than 0.6 mile across. SELF ...

18 ASTRONOMY • FEBRUARY 2018 W ith the focus on the Moon’s shadow on the wane after the August 2017 total solar eclipse, I’d lik ...

ASTRONEWS 349 °^12 ° (^34) ° (^57) ° (^79) 28 ° 2 ° 30 5 °^ 327 °^ (^26) (^0) ° (^23) (^7) ° (^215) ° (^192) ° 170 ° 147 °^ 12 5 ...

20 ASTRONOMY • FEBRUARY 2018 These bright but f leeting explosions unleash more energy than the Sun produces in a day — and yet ...