Not your every day job: Professor Roger Deane of the University of Pretoria studies far away objects in the universe using an extraordinary technique in astronomy called gravitational lensing. This is where a massive object such as a black hole distorts light coming from objects far, far behind it, acting as a kind of cosmic telescope in space. Things get weird.

Astronomers face many technical challenges observing, but you may not have thought volcanoes were one of them. If you build your observatory on top of a volcano however, you can expect some problems. Here Dr Grazia Umana from the Catania Observatory in Sicily talks to Kechil about how they manage being on the slopes of Mount Etna, one of the most active volcanos in the world.

What all about space telescopes: Kechil runs through some facts about the Hubble Space Telescope and its 2021 successor, the James Webb, which has recently passed a major engineering milestone. It's a big complicated project so it can be forgiven for being 12 years late, so if your projects are running a tad behind the times take heart. This one has a budget of 10 billion USD - a lot at stake on the launchpad.

The latest from the Chang'e mission to the Moon where they've found unexplained gel-like substances on the surface. Plus name a planet! The South African Astronomical Observatory is running a competition. Go to www.saao.ac.za for more details.

Prof Christo Venter tells Kechil about Gamma Rays, what they are and how they are detected

These are a few of my favourite things: the Voyager 2 mission, and that Tesla roadster in orbit around the Sun. Kechil describes why she likes the Voyager mission and what is so special about it. (Warning: Nudity).

Sutherland is where the South African Astronomical Observatory has its telescopes, and many international ones besides. Dr David Buckley talks to Kechil about what's happening and about the latest telescopes coming online. You can pay a visit! See www.saao.ac.za for tour details.

As it's Women's Day today Kechil is talking to Carla Sharpe, African Programme Manager at the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory, about women in space. Carla and Kechil are both space enthusiasts and have met a number of astronauts. Here they talk about the qualities needed and about the changing requirements for becoming an astronaut.

Dr Lee Townsend, an astronomer at UCT, tells us about the merry dance going on in the universe revealing the strange and extreme physics of binary systems, where one dense neutron star sucks the living daylights out of its companion. Sometimes these binaries end up as black holes, and other strange couplings, outputting unimaginable energies when they merge, collapse, explode, and all the other violent things that can go bump in the night.

What is observational cosmology? Dr Kurt van der Heyden of the University of Cape Town's Astronomy Department tells Kechil about his interests. He asks big questions ...