THE ASTRONOMY SCENE
62 Telescope care
Part 2 of our series on how to take
care of your Newtonian. This issue,
how to wash and clean mirrors.
By Jerry Oltion
66 Test report
Explore the Sun with Daystar’s Solar
Scout 60C hydrogen-alpha telescope.
By Johnny Horne
72 Astronomer’s workbench
Make a telescope out of buckets!
By Jerry Oltion
74 NightLife and Astro Calendar
Events, activities and what’s
happeningintheastronomyworld
75 In profile
A new section of the magazine where
we interview leading amateurs.
76 Gallery
Latest images from our readers
80 Marketplace
81 Indextoadvertisers
82 Focal Point
Star lore for Australia’s space logo.
By Paul Curnow
ON THE COVER
Saturn’s largest moon has a remarkably
complex atmosphere, with all the
chemical ingredients for life as we know it.
Turn to page 26.
JUST BEFORE THIS ISSUE WENT TO PRESS,the world learned the
sad news that’s NASA’s intrepid Mars rover, Opportunity, had finally
succumbed to the harsh Martian conditions and had fallen silent. The
last signals from the craft were received in June 2018 after it had gone
into hibernation mode from being covered by dust following one of
Mars’ infamous storms. More than 1,000 signals sent between then and
February 2019 failed to wake the rover, and on February 13 NASA formally
announced the end of the mission.
One of two craft (the other was Spirit) deposited on the Red Planet’s
surface in January 2004, Opportunity had far outlived its original design
lifetime (Spirit succumbed in 2010). Having spacecraft last longer than
expected is not uncommon, but Opportunity did it better than just
about any other. Of course, as much as we like to anthropomorphise
and attribute the rover’s longevity to its ‘pluckiness,’ the reality is that
lasted so long because it was built so well, and because the engineers and
scientists who conducted the mission and kept it ‘alive’ did so with skill
and determination. It is to them who we should extend our admiration for
a job well done.Farewell to
Opportunity
Jonathan Nally,Editor
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Australian Sky & Telescope.EDITORIAL
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