AWESOME ASTRONOMY

The Discussion: You'd be forgiven for thinking we recorded this episode drunk – but we assure you, we weren't. And you'll have to forgive us for our crappy audio and shameless national stereotyping!

But in this show, recorded from our dark sky star party in the Welsh Brecon Beacons, we discuss the event, Jeni's talk on exoplanet research and we take a look at listeners' emails.

The News: Rounding up the space and astronomy news this month we have:

• A fresh look at the age and high metallicity of an observable star cluster
• Australia takes the plunge and announces the creation of its own space agency
• Research giving hints of water on planets in the TRAPPIST 1 system

Hat of Woo: Paul's festering Hat of Woo gets another airing as we take a look at the end of the world on 23rd September as planet Nibiru collides with Earth (or the beginning of The Rapture, if the world doesn't end). Assuming you're reading this or listening to the podcast, the world clearly didn't end!

Q&A: Listeners' questions via email, Facebook & Twitter take us on a journey into the astronomy issues that have always plagued our understanding or stretched our credulity. This month we're tackling a question about the consequences of discovering life on another planet to planetary exploration:

"Let's say the next Mars rover that is tweaked to find life on Mars finds some microbial life what impact would that have on the whole Mars exploration plans? I cannot imagine that one can send a crew of astronauts to Mars' surface and avoid contamination. If Mars is declared some sort of reserve shouldn't we then shelve all these plans? Clemens Unger, Melbourne Australia

What to look out, and up, for in October.

Jeni, Paul & Ralph pick their highlights for this month's skies; starting with the solar system objects on offer to observers and imagers:

• Blue/green ice giant Uranus
• The Orionids meteor shower brings us the debris from Comet Halley
• Saturn, recently liberated from the perpetual gaze of Cassini
• A not-to-be-missed conjunction of Venus and Mars on 5th October.
• Finally, a couple of comets that may be visible

Next up, we take a deep sky pick from our list of favourites for this time of year:

• Paul – Spiral Galaxy NGC772 in Aries.
• Jeni – Brocchi's Cluster or The Coathanger Cluster in Vulpecula
• Ralph – The Triangulum Galaxy in Triangulum

And we finish this sky guide with October's moon phases.

In this podcast extra episode for the dark sky star party held by the Podcast Crew, we discuss:

• Fighting light pollution by getting local authorities to dim & turn off street lights
• The value of star parties to boosting your practical astronomy knowledge
• What to expect at the Autumn 2017 AstroCamp
• A round up of Ralph, Damien & Paul's seasonal astronomy targets

The Discussion: Jeni's back and the band is back together to discuss watching this year's Perseid meteor shower and coverage of the Great American Eclipse

The News: Rounding up the space and astronomy news this month we have:

• The shortlisted explorer and missions of opportunity being considered by NASA
• Jellyfish galaxies feeding supermassive black holes
• Goodbye to the Cassini Saturn explorer

'The Other Section': This month we keep Paul's festering Hat of Woo out of sight and take a long look at the Voyager spacecraft on the 40th anniversary of this programme, which revealed the solar system unlike any other space mission.

What to look out, and up, for in September.What to look out, and up, for in September.

Ralph, Paul & Jeni pick their highlights for this month's skies; starting with the solar system objects on offer to observers and imagers:

• Saturn and its ring system in the evening
• Mercury at greatest western elongation in 12th September
• Neptune at opposition on 5th September in Aquarius.

Next up, we take a deep sky pick from our list of favourites for this time of year:

• Ralph – The Saturn Nebula in Aquarius
• Jeni – The Andromeda Galaxy and its satellites
• Paul – NCG 7479 barred spiral Seyfert galaxy

And we finish this sky guide with September's moon phases.

In this podcast extra episode we present our full length interview with test pilot, astronaut and lunar module pilot on Apollo 16, General Charlie Duke.

Drawing on this unique set of experiences, we asked Charlie:

• What surprised you or what weren't you expecting to see on the moon?
• How did having a rover change the way you could explore the moon?
• How much fun was the lunar rover?
• Which was most exciting, being capcom on the 1st moon landing or walking on the moon on Apollo 16?
• Is the proposed 2032 launch window for a human Mars mission achievable?
• Did you see any colour other than grey on the moon?
• Are there any features on Earth you can see from the moon?
• Were you able to see any star fields during the Apollo 16 mission? Then we turned the interview over to listeners' questions:
• @BrewsterNorth asked, what do you think of the commercial plans for lunar exploration?
• Gavin Price (@pillarscreatio) asked, how important is the moon as a staging post for Mars?
• David Blanchflower (@Davidbflower) asked, would you return to the moon now?
• @Openmind asked, did your attitude towards humanity and our planet change for having gone to the moon?
• And the now regular Cornwell Question (from @samcornwell): What's the most expensive thing you've ever broken?

The Discussion: Jeni's bizarrely decided that a holiday is preferable to being locked in a bunker with two megalomaniacal Martians, so you're left with an exhausted Paul and a jetlagged Ralph this month. What could go wrong? We discuss outreach at science festivals and a happy resolution to the light pollution issue in the Brecon Beacons dark sky reserve.

The News: Rounding up the space and astronomy news this month we have:

• The new Doctor is upsetting some people (get over it!)
• The hunt Planet 9 takes another turn
• Have astronomers discovered the smallest possible star?
• A deep dive on the Great American Eclipse on August 21st
• And an update on the gravitational wave data debate

Astronomy You've Probably Never Heard Of: This month we give Paul's festering Hat of Woo and airing as we kick start another occasional feature looking into the science progress in areas (or astronomers) you've probably never heard of. This month we look at cosmology and the expanding universe from the perspective of the much-overshadowed astronomy giant, Vesto Slipher.

Q&A: Listeners' questions via email, Facebook & Twitter take us on a journey into the astronomy issues that have always plagued our understanding or stretched our credulity. This month we're tackling a question about the effects of using a centrifuge to simulate gravity in space:

"Let's say we build a spaceship which contains a massive wheel which rotates to generate 1G. If you are standing on the inside of the outer wall of the wheel, you will be rotating at the same speed as the wheel and therefore feel the 1G. (Like you see in 2001 – A space Odyssey). So the artificial gravity is only created by the rotation and centrifugal force and not by the distortion of space time due to a massive body.

Now what will happen when I jump? When I jump up, I am no longer connected to floor of the wheel. What happens to me? As I understand it, I should start to float inside the wheel, like they do in the ISS. The reason is that the centrifugal force generated by rotating wheel no longer applies to me as I am longer connected.

If this is the case, then you better never run inside the wheel (running means you will have both feet of the ground between steps) and most likely need to wear Velcro shoes to ensure you stay connect to the floor of the wheel.

Am I missing something as a lot of proposed interplanetary spaceships include some sort of wheel to generate artificial gravity? Your humble listener and collector of your podcast posters.

Raoul (@QuidneIT on Twitter) in Oxfordshire

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What to look out, and up, for in August.

Ralph & Paul pick their highlights for this month's skies; starting with the solar system objects on offer to observers and imagers:

• Dwarf Planet Ceres for small telescopes in the constellation Gemini
• Saturn in the evening, Venus at dawn and Uranus high up in Pisces
• The long anticipated total solar eclipse for observers in the United States
• The Perseid meteor shower peaking on the night of 12/13th August.

Next up, we take a deep sky pick from our list of favourites for this time of year:

• Ralph – Globular Cluster Messier 56 between Lyra & Cygnus
• Paul – Peculiar Galaxy NGC7727 in Aquarius.

And we finish this sky guide with August's moon phases.

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In this podcast extra, Jeni recalls her most recent research trip at the Japanese Infrared Survey Facility (IRSF) situated outside Sutherland in South Africa. This research trip continues Jeni's endeavours to collect exoplanet transit data.

In this episode we cover:

• The IRSF observatory
• The life of a research astronomer
• The heartbeat of professional astronomy equipment
• Future research for Jen

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The Discussion: Combating light pollution for the AstroCamp in the Welsh Brecon Beacons and fighting to help the National Park retain its International Dark Sky Reserve status. Then we turn our attention to politics in space science and listeners' views on politics in podcasts.

The News: Rounding up the space and astronomy news this month we have:

• Another gravitational wave detection and what we're learning from it
• The European Space Agency's latest mission approvals
• NASA's last exoplanet data dump from the Kepler mission
• China's experiment observing long distance quantum entanglement
• Britain's ambitious space ambitions and Europe freezing out the UK
• Has the origin of the Wow Signal finally been solved?
• How common are the ingredients for life in the universe?

The Hat of Woo: This month we look at EM drives and NASA's cover up hiding the warp drive they've developed at their super-secret Eagleworks and aren't using but they definitely, definitely have it. Honestly.