Enjoy your regular monthly treat for all naked-eye celestial observers, telescopers, and astrophotographers from Dr Ian Musgrave, amateur astronomer, molecular pharmacologist and toxicologist.
Ian gives us the dates of the moon phases and the best times to observe clusters and deep sky objects and tips and times around the coming equinox to observe the Zodiacal  Light.

We also get a great challenge for those who have infrared filters on their telescopes.

See if you can emulate the Parker Solar Probe and pick out some surface features on the dark side of Venus while it is in its crescent phase.

In Ian’s Tangent, he continues his theme to discuss the problems with our naming of celestial objects, in this case the naming of different sized exoplanets. And there are some peculiarities in the size groupings of exoplanets discovered so far. 

Currently with exoplanets we have named Super Earths, Super Jupiters, Hot Jupiters, Hot Super Mars, Super Earths, Mini Neptunes, Hot Mini Earths, and then Ian introduces us to Pulsar Planets and we now have also discovered a real supermoon which is a neptune sized moon orbiting a Jupiter sized exoplanet, Kepler 1625b.

What’s next? Let’s just wait till the JWST starts exposing novel exoplanets!

Astrophiz

Astrophiz143-March SkyGuide

Duane is based in the School of Physics at the University of Melbourne and is part of the ARC Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in 3D. This episode covers Duane’s entry into science and culture then his journey as a graduate from the University of Missouri-Columbia who ventured down to Sydney Australia to do his Masters Degree by Research followed by his Doctorate in Cultural Astronomy at Macquarie University, and without too many spoilers on his magnificent book, we cover his epic adventure into Indigenous Astronomy which represents 14 years of research and 4 years of writing for Duane and the co-authors he worked with. With Allen & Unwin, this amazing newly-released  book is called ‘The First Astronomers ~ How Indigenous Elders read the Stars’ which he co-authored with 6 First Nations Elders and Knowledge Holders, including Yuwaalaraay Senior Law Man Ghillar Michael Anderson, who is the only surviving member and one of the founders of the original Aboriginal Tent Embassy outside Parliament in Canberra, which still proudly stands there 50 years later. Co-authors are Ghillar Michael Anderson, John Barsa, David Bosun, Ron Day, Segar Passi, Alo Tapim 'The First Astronomers' demolishes the commonly held views that Indigenous ways of knowing do not contain science. Enjoy!

Astrophiz144-The First Astronomers-DuaneHamacher

Astrophiz 145: Dr Ian Musgrave’s April SkyGuide

Enjoy your regular monthly treat for all naked-eye celestial observers, telescopers, and astrophotographers from Dr @IanfMusgrave, amateur astronomer, molecular pharmacologist and toxicologist.

Ian gives us the dates of the moon phases and the best times to observe planets, clusters and deep sky objects 

In Ian’s Tangent, he continues his theme to discuss the problems with our descriptions of celestial objects, in this case the way the size of these objects are compared with the size of familiar animals. eg recently an asteroid’s size was expressed as ‘the size of a giraffe’. 

Not helpful, but Ian suggests an alternative.

Astrophiz145-AprilSkyGuide

You’ll love this wonderful interview with Accelerator Physicist Dr Suzie Sheehy, who is doing groundbreaking work with particle accelerators to develop compact instruments that are changing the way nuclear medicine is used in clinical treatments worldwide. 

Dr Suzie divides her time between her research groups at the University of Oxford where she is Visiting Lecturer, and the University of Melbourne where she is a Senior Lecturer and Baker/ANSTO Fellow in Medical Accelerator Physics.

For Science lovers, get her new book; it’s a ‘must have’ for every library.
“The Matter of Everything ~ Twelve Experiments that changed our world”
Out online or in your fav bookstore.

Astrophiz146-Dr Suzie Sheehy - Accelerator physics and Cancer Therapies

Astrophiz 150: Floor Broekgaarden~Gravitational Waves
Floor is an amazing astrophysicist doing her PhD at Harvard in Massachusetts in Gravitational Wave research. She is a prolific and effective ambassador for early career astronomers.  
Floor is a well-established mentor and supervisor for astrophysics students and has been published in highly respected journals.
You will hear about her most recent papers where she investigates the first two black hole–neutron star mergers detected in gravitational waves as well as her paper on binary black hole mergers.
Floor does beautiful GW research and powerful outreach and has done a wonderful interview here for your enjoyment.

Astrophiz150-Gravitational Waves

Astrophiz 151: Dr Ian Musgrave’s July SkyGuide. 
Enjoy your regular monthly treat for all naked-eye celestial observers, telescopers, and astrophotographers from Dr @IanfMusgrave, amateur astronomer, molecular pharmacologist and toxicologist.
Listen: 
Ian gives us the dates of the moon phases and the best times to observe planets, clusters and deep sky objects along with the exact time to view the fully illuminated full moon. Morning skies continue to be a treat worth getting up early for, and Saturn begins is now visible in evening skies. Reddish Mars is easily viewed as it is  brightening as it approaches opposition later in the year and Mars and Uranus have a close encounter at the end of the month and will be very close together on the 1st of August.
In the evening skies, Scorpius is a highlight, looking magnificent with Antares as its red centrepiece, and below the Scorpion’s sting, you can identify the centre of the galaxy via the ’Teapot of Sagittarius’. Ian also talks you through the opportunity to view area around the Pre-cataclysmic spectacle of Eta Carina.

For Northern hemisphere listeners, Ian introduces ‘Galaxy Season’ and our closest galaxy, the Andromeda nebula.

Watch out for the Southern Delta Aquariid meteors from the 12th of July to the 23rd of August, peaking on Sunday July 30th with a rate of about 1 meteor about every 4 or 5 minutes under good conditions.
 
In Ian’s Tangent, we discover what it would be like if the moon was made of compressible green (unripened) camembert cheese.  A thought experiment for astronomy and gastronomy lovers.

A great listen and lots to see in the sky in July.
Thanks Ian

Astrophiz151-July SkyGuide

Astrophiz 152 Dr Sofia Gallego ~ The Cosmic Web.

Dr Sofia Gallego paints the clearest picture of the Cosmic Web you will ever hear.

Originally from La Serena in Chile, growing up near some of the world’s most awesome telescopes, Sofia is now a postdoc researcher at Caltech in Pasadena and has her PhD in Astrophysics. She has a strong interest in cosmology and extragalactic astronomy from both the theoretical and observational perspectives. 
Sofia has also studied musical theory, violin, singing, and acting, but today’s focus is on the detection, extent and nature of the Cosmic Web and she also introduces us to the wonders of UV Astronomy and we are thrilled to have her on the show.

You will love to listen in as Sofia takes us on this astronomical journey of discovery as we reiterate that it is curious and creative people with inquisitive and determined minds that make such powerful telescopes and their attendant instruments sing so loudly and clearly.
Enjoy!

Astrophiz152 The Cosmic Web Dr Sofia Gallego

Astrophiz 154: Dr Emily Moravec - Active Galaxies in Galaxy Clusters

Emily is a postdoctoral fellow at Green Bank Observatory.

She is an AGN researcher who works on active galactic nuclei, radio galaxies, galaxy clusters, and radio interferometry.

She is active in a number of radio AGN and cluster collaborations and does wonderful outreach work supporting early career astronomers. For her PhD at the University of Florida, Emily researched Radio Galaxies in Massive Galaxy Clusters up to 10 billion light years away at redshift 1, then her first post-doc was in the Czech Republic where she worked at the Astronomical Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague, and was also an ALMA Support Scientist working with the Czech ARC Node.

Now Emily is back in the States up in West Virginia where she works at the famous 100m Green Bank Observatory, the world’s largest fully steerable radio telescope.

Dr Moravec's research, outreach and insights into science policy through her work with the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine make this episode a great listen. Enjoy!

Astrophiz154-Dr Emily Moravec

[ Full transcript at Astrophiz.com ] 
In this fabulous episode of Astrophiz, Greg Sleap, the Software and Systems Team Leader at CIRA, the Curtin Institute of Radio Astronomy, a node of ICRAR (The International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research) discusses the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) and its role in capturing radio data from the cosmos. 
The MWA is a low-frequency radio telescope array located in remote Western Australia. It is used for various scientific studies, including the search for the signals of the Epoch of Reionization, detecting black hole radio jets, studying supernova remnants, and monitoring space junk. 
The MWA has been successful in producing over 300 journal papers and is preparing for future developments, including the use of all 256 tiles and collaboration with the Square Kilometer Array (SKA) telescope.

Astrophiz 175-AstroDataWizardry

Highlights:
Blue Moon
Opposition Of Saturn
We lose Venus from Evening skies
Mercury is at its best this month

Moon Phases

August 2nd Perigee Full Moon
August 8th Last Quarter Moon (ideal for observing galaxies and globular clusters in the early evening)
August 16th New Moon is ideal for stargazing anytime
August 24th First Quarter Moon
August 31st Perigee Full (Blue) Moon ie the 2nd Full Moon for the month and the best perigee full moon of the year.

Mercury is best seen at the start of the month rising higher and higher in the evening sky and passing above the sinking Venus, which will reappear in the east in the morning twilight at the end of the month as the ‘Morning Star’.

Mars is getting further away from us and dimming

Saturn is at its closest to earth (in opposition) on 27 August and will be excellent viewing in the northern/north east evening skies all of August and well into next month. Saturn is close to the moon on the 3rd and the 30th.

Sagittarius and the centre of our Milky Way galaxy (look for the upside down Teapot) are directly overhead and M22 is a brilliant globular cluster galaxy of millions of stars often seen as a faint cotton ball in binocs and smaller telescopes. Also nearby are the lovely Triffid Nebula and the Lagoon Nebula.

Highly recommended:
Get out your telescope
See when you local astronomical society or club is having an ‘open day’ or public viewing night, because seeing Saturn through a telescope is truly amazing!

Morning Skies.

Jupiter (and its moons) is easily seen in the north as the brightest object in morning skies and looks great even in binoculars. 

Ian’s Tangent

Ian tells a tale about Solar System objects with tails, how they are formed and how they can be detected.

Well comets of course … but that’s not all!

Mercury has a sodium tail.
The moon also has a very faint tail which has been detected.  
The asteroid Phaethon has a sodium tail, raising all sorts of questions for further research.

Thanks Ian …. that’s a great tale!

Astrophiz 176: August SkyGuide

How do we "autopsy" a galaxy from billions of light-years away? Join  world-renowned astrophysicist Dr. Elisabete da Cunha as she  sits down with Astrophiz host Brendan O’Brien to explore the life, evolution, and eventual "death" of the most massive structures in the universe.

From her early inspirations under the stars of Portugal to her groundbreaking work in Extragalactic Astronomy, Elisabete shares her personal journey and the high-tech tools used to decode Starlight, Cosmic Dust, and Spectral Energy Distributions (SEDs).
In this episode, we dive into:

Galaxy Evolution: How star systems grow and transform over billions of years.

Radio Astronomy: Using invisible light to peer into the deep universe.

Stellar Populations: What the chemistry of stars tells us about the history of space.

Cosmology & Dark Matter: The invisible forces shaping our galactic neighborhood.

Whether you are a student of astrophysics or a casual stargazer, this conversation offers a unique, charming, and deeply insightful window into the forensic evidence of our universe.

Read the full transcript and see the show notes at: https://astrophiz.com/2026/03/18/galaxy-forensics-with-dr-elisabete-da-cunha-astrophiz-230/

Subscribe to Astrophiz for your monthly dose of space science, telescope technology, and expert interviews.

Full Transcript

Elisabete230V1

Exceptional Interviews with exceptional scientists.
Brendan sometimes even gets how and why science works, and each month he conducts in-depth interviews with leading astro and space researchers. In each episode we feature Astrophysicists, Space Scientists, Particle Physicists, Data scientists, Antenna engineers, Instrument scientists, optical & radio astronomers, Satcomm engineers, project leaders and aurora hunters. For Astrophotographers, also each month we also hear from Dr Ian ‘Astroblog’ Musgrave who tells us when, where and what to look for in the sky over the coming weeks and explains astronomical phenomena in ‘Ian’s Tangent’.
This ongoing series has taken us through the history, theory and practice of radio astronomy from Faraday to Gravitational waves. Each episode includes the latest news roundup in this golden age of astrophysics. Enjoy!  This podcast is free, ad-free and unsponsored, the way all good science is.

Elisabete230V1

Astrophiz : The Astrophysics Podcast