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!

Carnival of Space #313

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This week’s Carnival of Space is hosted by Pamela Hoffman of Everyday Spacer.  The carnival of space is a weekly phenomenon, passing on to a new blog each week.  The sacred duty of finding and collecting the best news on astronomy and space science from around the Internet is entrusted to each new blogger, to ensure that the reader will always have the news that matters. This week’s Carnival has some good stuff:  We learn about using interstellar X-rays to … Continue reading →

Smallest exoplanet directly imaged

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A team of European astronomers, working with the ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), have successfully imaged an exoplanet orbiting the star HD 95086. This exoplanet is about four to five times the mass of Jupiter, making it probably the smallest object ever to be photographed outside our Solar System. The exoplanet, called HD 95086 b under standard naming conventions, orbits about twice as far from its star as Neptune is from the Sun, and the entire system is about three … Continue reading →

Proved: Supernovae cause Cosmic Rays

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 A century ago, scientists first discovered cosmic rays, subatomic debris which travel through the universe at relativistic speeds and which smash into our upper atmosphere with energies exceeding those of our most powerful particle accelerators. But it’s only now, thanks to a new study using observations from NASA’s Fermi gamma-ray space telescope that we know where they come from. The bulk of cosmic rays are protons, with the remainder being either electrons or atomic nuclei. Since these particles all carry … Continue reading →

Welcome to Urban Astronomer

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  Welcome to The Urban Astronomer, where we understand what it’s like to be trapped in the city and denied the full glory of a properly dark night sky. Here you will find articles on how to set up an observing site to minimise the effects of light pollution, and guides on how to get the most enjoyment from naked eye, or small instrument viewing. There are more detailed articles explaining the science behind common astronomical concepts (from Eclipses to … Continue reading →

Another great day at Scopex 2013

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  ScopeX 2013   As planned, I spent Saturday at ScopeX, the prime astronomy and telescope exhibition in South Africa.  I was one of the volunteers manning the ATM desk for an hour or so, entered a photo in the astrophotography competition, sat in on a few talks, took loads of photos (I think I got almost all the telescopes), caught up with some old friends and generally had a great time. The only blight on the day was learning, … Continue reading →