#83 - May 2019 Part 1

U: Recording from the Mars/Earth-analogue biome cottage at the
AstroCamp starparty in the Welsh Brecon Beacons, we start off by
discussing stargazing during a hurricane(!) and get ready for
Jeni’s Pint of Science events this month.


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


The rate of the universe’s expansion is 9% greater than we
thought?

Greater understanding about the lakes of methane on Saturn’s
moon Titan.

LIGO gets its jiggy on; giving us gravitational wave
detections EVERY week!

The value of occultations to modern astronomy

A possible discovery of an exocomet!



And a round up of some of the best astronomy April Fool’s gags
from last month, including how winter would come on a Game of
Thrones type world.


Main news story: 1) The first ever image of a black hole


The Sky Guide: Covering the solar system and deep sky objects on
offer to amateur astronomers in May:


An unwelcome dearth of solar system objects with Jupiter, Mars
and Saturn low on the horizon, but dwarf planet Ceres is at
opposition and we also have a few nice conjunctions to enjoy in
May.


Messier 5 and Palomar 5 globular clusters in Serpens and Messier
57, and the Ring Nebula, and the Double Double in Lyra.


Main Object: the much-overlooked Northern Star, Polaris.