Author Archives: Allen Versfeld

About Allen Versfeld

Allen is an amateur astronomer, an IT professional, a podcaster, a father of five growing kids, a barely competent chess player, and the owner and publisher of the Urban Astronomer podcast and website. He has formerly served as Director of the Astrophotography and Citizen Science sections of the Astronomical Society of South Africa. You can find his personal social media feed on Mastodon!

Vesta size comparison

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Over the weekend, shortly after entering orbit, Dawn snapped the highest resolution photograph ever taken of Vesta.  This image was used to create the composite image on the left, showing eight different asteroids which have been visited by robotic spacecraft.  With its diameter of 530 kilometers, Vesta not only dwarfs the other asteroids but is massive enough for gravity to have forced it into a spherical shape.  This means that Vesta is not only an asteroid, but fits the IAU … Continue reading →

23 July at SAAO: Searching exoplanets: Is there life out there

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Thanks to Thembela Mantungwa for sending this notice On Saturday, July 23 at 20h00, Getachew Mekonnen Mengistie will give a free public lecture at S.A. Astronomical Observatory (SAAO) in Cape Town. The topic of his lecture is “Searching exoplanets: Is there life out there” After the talk, there will be stargazing (weather permitting), tours of the library, the McClean museum and telescope. Visitors are advised to arrive at least at 19h30, this will give them time to park and find … Continue reading →

A Reader Responds: James Webb Telescope

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A few days ago I wrote about the current scandal regarding NASA funding, which involved a bill being put forward requiring drastic cost-cutting measures for the space agency.  If the bill were to be passed, NASA would be forced to slash their Space Technology program’s budget by 60%, focus on a heavy lift rocket that is not needed, and cancel the James Webb Telescope project.  It was a depressing and angry piece, and prompted the following response from one Jim … Continue reading →

USA gives up on outer space

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I wrote a few days ago about the shocking bill put forward by the US House of Representatives to slash the budget for NASA’s space program, specifically targeting the James Webb Telescope (which would have been the next, big space telescope, set to replace the Hubble in 2014).  While American commentators do their usual tail-chasing about whether to blame president Obama or Bush, the fact is that the US space program is now pretty clearly focused on one target alone: … Continue reading →

Happy Birthday Neptune (sort of)

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On the evening of 23 September 1846, Johann G. Galle of the Urania Observatory in Berlin saw the planet Neptune within 1° of where Urbain Le Verrier and John Couch Adams predicted it would be.  Tomorrow night, it will have been exactly one Neptune year since the discovery, according to Sky and Telescope.  However, I’m not entirely sure their maths is correct.  My own calculations show that the big day will not be until next week, while Wolfram Alpha says … Continue reading →