All language subtitles for The Sky at Night BBC 2013 Reaching for the Stars 1080p HDTV_Subtitles01.ENG

Good evening, and first of all,
a very happy New Year.

Have you had a new telescope
for Christmas

or are you going to get one?

I'd like to give you a few tips on
how to set it up and how to use it.

So for the moment,
out to the garden.

Well, happy New Year to you
and let's hope we get some better

clear weather this year.

It certainly couldn't be any worse
than it was last year!

This programme's about
your first telescope.

Perhaps you had a new
one for Christmas.

Getting your first telescope
can be really, really exciting

and it can literally open up a whole
new world of astronomy for you.

It can also be rather daunting
so we're going to present some

simple tips on how to get set up
and how to get started.

And crucially, we'll try

and pick out a few objects that you
can look at for the first time.

Over the years on The Sky At Night,
Patrick always tried to steer us

on which telescopes we should get
and what to use them for.

As you can see, we are doing this
programme from my home in Selsey

where I've got an old thatched house
within sound of the sea.

In the garden,
I've set up my two telescopes,

the big ones -

a reflector inside a run-off shed
and another one inside a dome.

It's from here that I carry out
my own observational work.

His telescopes were for
the advanced astronomer,

but he also had
lots of advice for the beginner.

I'd like to begin by showing you
my own first telescope.

Here it is.

It's a three inch refractor,
and I had it when I was a boy of 11,

and that goes back to 1934.

It wasn't new then. I think it must
have been built around 1910.

I called it a three inch refractor

because it collects its light
with a lens, or object-glass,

three inches across.

I am very refractor minded.

They give lovely, crisp images
and of course, I am essentially,

an observer of the moon and planets
so I like refractors,

but if you're more interested
in star clusters, nebulae

and what they call deep sky work,
I think the reflector is better.

That advice is still good today.

We have invited along some newcomers
to astronomy who have all acquired

a new telescope in the past year
but are finding them a challenge.

Danni Rochman has come from London
and works in children's publishing.

Danni is struggling
to get her telescope aligned,

something I'm sure we can help fix.

I'd really like to learn my way
around the sky a bit better.

I've had my telescope for the best
part of a year but the weather

and living in London means I don't
get to get it out very often.

I'd like to see a galaxy
through my scope.

I've never seen any nebulae.

So that would be something I'd like
to look out for tonight.

Stephen and Peta Bosley
are both retired

and bought their telescope
earlier this year.

Unfortunately, it's still so new,
it's in the box it arrived in.

I want to get the beast
out of the box.

I want to get it set up
on its tripod,

I want to point it at the sky

and I want to be able to know
I'm looking at the right things

and just plain enjoy it.

I absolutely agree. There are so
many wonderful things there to see.

I'd love to show our grandkids
the marvels of the universe.

Derek has had his telescope
for six months and whilst it now

lives in a golf bag,
it's yet to see some proper action.

I'd like to learn
how to use the scope.

I bought it because I've always been
a little bit interested,

but how do I use it?
I don't know...yet.

Finally, we have Julia Gosling
who has managed to leave

her two young kids with her partner

and brought her telescope along
for us to look at.

I'd really like to get to grips
with using it properly

and understand it a bit better.

New technology means there's a whole
range of telescopes on the market

so let's see what everyone
has brought.

It's going to be
a surprise for all of us.

So this looks like a tripod.

It does come out. It went in!
There we go.

Some of the telescopes cost around
£300 while others are nearer 1,000.

That's the scope itself. OK.

One thing I notice is we've done
something slightly wrong
to start with.

We've got the eyepiece pointing
downwards, so let's spin it around.

So we do that with it. And there's
the lens cap falling off.

These telescopes all have
a computerised GoTo mount.

When set up correctly, the telescope
should take you to any object

you want to see in the night sky.

There we go.

First,
we have to assemble the telescopes.

For the first few times, it can be
fiddly, but there is a lot

you can do in the daylight
which makes things much easier.

Once you've done it
a couple of times,

do you find you sort of know
the routine?

Once I've done it a couple times,
I find I like to keep it together!

That's why I have mine set up,
because what actually happens is

you get half an hour to set up and
then the clouds come in!

Do you find it easy to set up?
Um, at times.

Yes, it really is quite easy
once you've done it once

and had someone supervise
you doing it.

I'm still not wonderful
at aligning it.

Do you find it difficult to find
things in the sky? Yes, definitely.

That's still a big problem for me.
Right.

But it's just about
a one-woman job to set it up.

It's rather good, isn't it?

So this is the bit that attaches
to the telescope

and this has all the motors in it.

So we place that on there.

Right, now the most important bit -
the tube itself.

I think the thing which is
quite misleading

with a scope like this is that
it looks like a small telescope

but in fact,
it isn't really that small

because it is equivalent
to a telescope much longer...

Yes.

..and that means that
the focal length of it -

that's the number
which is on the side here.

You see that number? "F = 1,500."

That means it's got a focal length
of one and a half metres.

So it's actually equivalent to a
one and a half metre long telescope.

That will make things
difficult for you to find. Yes!

Which is probably why
I've been having so many problems.

So the other thing you have here,
for this telescope to work,

is an eyepiece.

The different eyepieces magnify
different amounts so we have,

for example here, a 25mm eyepiece.

That's what we call
a low power eyepiece.

It has a longer focal length. Right.

That's the best one to start with
so we can put that in. There we go.

Right, OK.

The best thing to do when
you're starting is start off
with your wide-angle lens.

You get your object in the view.

If you want a more zoomed-in view,
this eyepiece in here

is a 10mm eyepiece
so it's got a shorter focal length

and that means it will actually
give you a higher magnification.

Right.
This is what we call a finder scope.

It's basically a little telescope
and all it does is slide onto here.

You can now use that to line up the
telescope on the lamp down there.

Right, OK, let's have a look.

I can see a building.
I think I'm on that building. OK.

So...it must be that one.

Ah, there it is.

You've got it? Yeah. OK.

Well, we're roughly lined up there,
so if we look to the telescope,

what can we see?

Do you know what I can see?
I can see a tree.

Oh, no! Yes. It's not lined up.

So that shows it's not
lined up at all.

So basically, do you want me to move
that round so we're looking up?

Yes. So if we go...
up and then across...

Oh, yes.

Now, if you look through there...

It's not quite in focus but you can
see the lamp. Yes, that's it.

OK, if you look through the finder
again, is that way off? Yes.

So if you adjust the finder
so the lamp comes into view

and it's in the crosshairs...

I can't get it. Oh, there we go.

..then it becomes second nature.

Have you got it? Just about.

So we've got, more or less,
the middle of the lamp there.

We now know that that
is lined up with that

so when the sky goes dark tonight,
if you get something in there

then theoretically, it should be
lined up with that as well. Yes.

So we can give that a try
later on tonight.

Well, guys, we've got a few other
guest telescopes here.

It's a nice array actually.
An impressive array, yes.

We should talk about our first
telescopes and what we got started.

This is yours, is it?

This isn't actually my first
telescope, it's my second telescope.

You've upgraded, then!

Well, my wife saw this
in a charity shop for £20

so I'm not sure how it got there.

My guess is that someone got
it for Christmas or a birthday

and in the end,
didn't know what to do with it.

The biggest problem with
the telescope like that is the mount

because you only have to touch it
and it wobbles like a jelly,

and the problem is if that gives
somebody a bad experience

when they're trying to move
the telescope or trying

to view something and the
telescope's moving around,

they get fed up with that
and it ends up in a charity shop.

I don't have my first telescope here
but we have brought Patrick's out

and Patrick's is
a lovely brass refractor.

Is one of the simplest
forms of telescopes you can get.

It's got a primary lens at the top
and an eyepiece at the bottom

and the light is
magnified in a very simple way.

I believe he bought that
for seven pounds and ten shillings!

That was in the 1930s, I think.

So in today's money
that's a little over £100.

Which is quite a good buy.
It's on a good tripod, as well.

But now, Pete, we come to this.

Why don't you tell everybody
what this is?

I saw that and I thought
he'd been catching lobsters

because it doesn't look like it
catches photons to me!

You are just so rude about stuff!

My first ever telescope
was actually a 40mm refractor

so that's quite
a small refracting telescope

but I really wanted to go bigger
and I couldn't afford it

so at the end of the day,
I decided to make my own.

So basically, I ground my own mirror

which was an eight
and three-quarter inch mirror

so it's quite a big telescope, but I
had to get the tube from somewhere,

and somebody was throwing out
a galvanised steel fence,

and this is all that's left of it,
and it is built like a tank.

Is that satisfying?
That was incredibly satisfying.

So your first proper
view of the planets

and the universe was with
a home-grown optics that you'd done.

And it worked brilliantly.

I think the first deep sky object
I ever saw through that telescope

was the Ring Nebula.

Hopefully, we'll be able
to show our newcomers some
interesting stuff later on.

It does look like it's going to
clear, doesn't it? What do you think?

Do that optimistic thing
you do when we're camping.

It's awful when you say it's going to
clear. I think it's going to be fine!

There you go!
Oh, we might as well go in now!

Well, let's hope for
the clear skies later.

Patrick's garden has always been
a great location for a star party.

There's a real
feeling of anticipation

and excitement
as darkness approaches.

Over the years, Patrick has hosted
some great star parties here

and we've been lucky
with the weather.

The transit of Venus in 2004 was
an amazing event with astronomers

flocking to Farthings to share this
unique experience with Patrick.

And we're about to see something
that no-one now living has ever seen

so let's hope the sky stays clear.

But Patrick has not always been
lucky with the weather.

His live show for the 50th programme
of The Sky At Night put him off

observing on live TV for some time.

I can't see one single star.
Can you, George? Any luck?

No, I must be able to see
it before I can get onto it.

That's the trouble, of course.

There is the moon, I can see it
for the moment. No, it's gone again.

It's gone.

Yes, and there is Saturn for the
first time on direct television.

Has it gone? Oh, no!

Just as I got it on the crosswires,
it blacked right out.

How absolutely typical,
there's nothing we can do about it.

I can't move a 24 inch telescope
quicker than that.

No, I'm afraid you can't.

Let's hope we're a bit luckier
with the weather tonight.

Back in Patrick's garden,
we are waiting to show everyone

how to use their telescopes

but the skies have been teasing us
with clouds.

Finally, it clears
and Paul has got all excited.

The sky is really delivering for us
now and on Jupiter,

there's something
rather special tonight.

Can you make out the Great Red Spot?
Yes, I can. It's amazing!

It's absolutely the best
view I've ever had.

And to think that that spot is
three times the size of the Earth,

you can see just how large Jupiter
is compared to the Earth.

Once you been looking
at Jupiter for a while,

the colours are quite spectacular.

Are you finding any colour there?
Yes, definitely.

You know, with my telescope, which
is smaller, I don't see colour,

so this is wonderful.

I've never seen this much detail.

The advantage of a computerised GoTo
mount is that you can find

faint objects in the sky
quickly and easily.

But setting up the telescope
needs to be precise.

So the first task -

we have to make sure the telescope
is aligned with the sky.

To do that, we pick out
some bright stars

and check the telescope
is looking at them.

I've come to give Derek a hand
and we've chosen Deneb

in the constellation of Cygnus
as our first bright star.

So we're nearly pointing up at Deneb

so if you point up towards Deneb
up there,

you can see a very bright star.

So that's Deneb.
Is it right in the centre? It is.

So, on the paddle,
we're going to align.

Do you have the time on you?

9.16.

It says "brightest star"
or "two star align"

so we'll do two star align.

and then we choose a second star.

So let's pick...

We want something as far away
from Deneb as we can.

Which is...

Now, ideally, there's Aldebaran
up near Jupiter.

So I reckon we spin all the way
around and try and find that.

It looks like it's trying
to guess where Aldebaran is.

So because we've given it one star
and it knows where it is

and what time it is, it can get
a good guess of where it is.

What it does is it slews over
really quickly

and the beep says it's aligned. OK.

So, let's see if we're anywhere...

How does that look?

Does that look like
a bright star to you?

Yes, it does. Yes?

Then we've got to hit enter.

"Alignment successful."

Hooray, it works. Now we test it.

So, pick something we want
to try and find.

Is that the Square of Pegasus?

That is the Square of Pegasus,
so shall we try and see

if it will find us
the Andromeda galaxy?

That sounds interesting. Yes? Yes.

So, Messier Catalogue, 31.

Yes, please. And in theory...
It's going in the right direction.

It's going in the right direction.

I tried this with a GoTo mount
that I borrowed from work once

and I tried to point
it at something

and it tried to go below the horizon
so I knew my alignment had failed.

So let's hope this goes
to the right place.

It's beeped.

Now, here's the test.
Here's the test.

Let's see...
Is there's anything in there?

Ah, it's in the viewfinder.

If we look through the main scope
is there anything there?

It might just be that our finder's
not aligned. Is there a fuzzy patch?

It's right smack in the middle.
Is it? Near enough, yes.

Oh, excellent. Very fuzzy. Look at
that. That is a very good shot, look.

Yes, that's definitely
the Andromeda galaxy. There you go.

The sky, as they say now, Derek,
is your oyster.

I will hand over the paddle to you
and you can pick anything you want

in the sky and in theory,
your telescope will... Find it.

..find it.
Absolutely, that's great stuff.

The Reverend Graham Smith
has joined us in the garden.

He confessed he's having some
difficulties with his new telescope.

Let's see if we can show him
the heavens.

Is the GoTo working?

I think, for the first time ever,
I've got it going, yes.

I give you a round of applause,
it's very impressive.

Why don't you give us
a little demonstration, then?

Could we find the planet Uranus?

Well, we shall try.

Let's hope it goes
in the right direction.

There's something rather magical
about this, isn't there? Yes!

Can I have a look?

No, I think you might be slightly
off-kilter.

It all depends on
whether I recognise the stars

I was aligning on correctly,
of course.

It seems that Graham's telescope
isn't set up properly

and we need to realign it.

There are a number of bright
stars we can choose

depending on the time of year
and what's visible.

The winter constellation of Orion
is high in our night sky.

It has Betelgeuse and Rigel,

both ideal for aligning
the telescope.

It gets easier every time you do it.

Danni wants to learn how to find
objects by star hopping

so we are switching off the sky
sat-nav and I am helping her to find

her first galaxy -
M31 or the Andromeda galaxy.

Right, that should be it. OK.

Let's see.

Oh, oh, nearly!

Oh, look at that!

I can hear the excitement now

as Danni finds deep sky objects
on her own.

Not quite on my own!

With the Andromeda galaxy,

what you see is just
the core of the galaxy.

You can't actually see the spiral
arms and things which you see in
beautiful photographs of it.

That's wonderful...having never seen
a galaxy through my scope before.

Is that your first galaxy? Yes. Wow.

It's tricky to find,
but I got there.

And it gets easier
every time you do it.

You learn that pattern of stars and
you'll remember how tricky it was.

Yes! And it will get a lot easier.

So after a few mis-starts,
we finally realigned the telescope.

We've done quite a good job,
haven't we, Graham? Yes, I think so.

It's asked for a couple of bright
stars so we did Rigel in Orion

and Capella in Auriga.

We got it to find Jupiter,
which is good,

so now we'll try and find Uranus.

Do you want to press the
button and send it on its way?

Have you ever seen Uranus before?
No, no.

It should be immediately obvious.
It will be an emerald green object.

Got it? Yes.

Can you make out the green colour?
Just, yes.

It's quite impressive, isn't it?

It is, and I didn't think you'd see
something that far away with this.

Right out in the icy depths
of the solar system,

it's probably warmer there
than it is here tonight!

It is quite impressive,
isn't it? Amazing.

And actually, the scope found it,

which I've not been able
to do before.

Congratulations,
you have a working telescope

and a wonderful view of
the outer solar system.

So, Steve, Peta, I know you've just
got your telescope aligned. We have.

Do you fancy a test to try
and find something off
the Moore Winter Marathon?

That would be great. Absolutely.

OK, so how do you reckon
to the Owl Cluster, NGC 467?

Never seen it so...

So, that would be good. Right.

January is a great
month for stargazing.

The nights are long and the weather
can be more favourable.

It's also the last month of
our Moore Winter Marathon.

You can still take part. The closing
date is the end of January.

For details see our website.

Julia, we've got a very
simple telescope here.

Do you like how simple it is?
It's very simple.

It might be simple enough for me.
It's got no GoTo mount.

It's not even got a viewfinder
cos Chris left it at home.

I've set it up to look at
the Pleiades star cluster.

Are you familiar with Pleiades?

I call it the little shopping
trolley. Ha, that's brilliant!

The little shopping trolley, it is.
It is quite impressive.

Even a telescope that size.
Oh, yes, it's very pretty.

An object like this is
better in a telescope this size

because it's a lot smaller.

If you use a bigger telescope,

the whole thing gets
magnified much more

so a small telescope is
better for something like this.

What colour stars do you see?

Properly one of the brightest ones,
towards the top of the view,

is quite blue.

Yeah. They're beautiful things,
aren't they?

Yes, it's very bright like
little jewels. Little jewels!

Your shopping trolley
full of little jewels!

A telescope this size is sort of
a good beginners' one, I think.

It's easy to handle.

Yes, and also, you can pick
the whole thing up, move it,

and actually, quite quickly, get
into position and do something else.

You haven't got to fiddle about
with too much setup, have you?

No, that's right.
It is very accessible, isn't it?

You are up and ready to go.

Danni is trying to find M35,

the lovely star cluster
in the constellation

of Gemini The Twins.

Oh, there we go, yes.

You've got the two stars?
I think I do. Do you want to check?

Yes, yes, sure.

Yes, you've definitely got them.

Now you need the scope to go up
and slightly round to the right. OK.

What am I looking for? It's a little
cluster. Like a little hazy patch.

Oh, goodness, yes. OK,
now I know what I was looking for.

That's fantastic, yes.

Lots and lots of stars.
Yes, lots of stars.

When you finally see it,

you realise what you should have
been looking for, it's obvious.

That's part of the thrill of sort
of hunting things down yourself

because when you see it,
you get really excited.

That's brilliant, thank you very
much. That's a pleasure.

Has this been a good evening for
you? It's been a fantastic evening.

The chill's beginning to set in now
but it's been really fantastic

and I do feel a lot more confident
even just after one evening

of being told how
to find each object

and what to look for and
how to direct myself to it.

So it's not going to go back in
its box. It's not.....

No, no! It will come out again
very soon, definitely. Brilliant.

Thank you very much.
No problem at all.

Right, Derek, how's it going
at the end of the night?

It's been really good, great.

I've got a nice view at the moment
of the Crab Nebula...

Oh, wow. ..which is just visible.

So you're starting on
the Moore Winter Marathon.

Well, apparently so!
Excellent. Well, that's number 26.

So Peta, early on when we started,

you said you wanted to get
the beast out of the box

and wanted to master it.

Do you feel you've accomplished that
this evening?

The beast is definitely
out of the box.

I've been involved
with setting it up.

I feel I've got a lot further
than I have before.

You feel you can build on that
and go on to master the thing?

Absolutely.

Jupiter was the best view, I think.

It was really amazing and I did make
the mistake of looking down

a telescope
that's much bigger than mine.

How beautiful it looked in it.

It's definitely going to make me

get the telescope out
a bit more often next year.

It's been great, actually,
to see people get started

and the best thing was seeing people
make mistakes because it is hard
when you make a start.

Of course it is. And then getting
them sorted out, persevering.

We all made mistakes when we started
out. I'm still doing it now!

We're fairly competent now,
but we did make mistakes.

But it was also interesting to see
how excited they were

when they were overcoming those
mistakes and solving them.

And seeing some objects
for the first time as well.

People seeing either the planet
Uranus or the Crab Nebula

or whatever they were looking
at for the first time was brilliant.

We've been looking at a few
planets in our solar system.

Over the past year there's been
a lot of stories about planets

and other solar systems -
some very exciting news.

Chris Lintott's been
finding out more.

The astonishing discovery
late last year of a rocky,

Earth-sized planet rocked astronomy.

It's orbiting a star
called Alpha Centauri B

in our nearest star system

and at just four light years away,

it's almost imaginable that man
could one day journey there.

Science fiction may just be
transforming into science fact.

The planet, rather unfortunately
dubbed Alpha Centauri BB,

sits in a three star system
comprising a faint red star

and two brighter stars,
all bouncing a gravitational tango.

The planet is right in the middle
of that dance orbiting

one of the brightest stars.

Lewis Dartnell is an astrobiologist

and speculates about
life in other worlds.

He joined me to talk about the planet
and the system it lives in.

Now, this planet is on a very, very
tight orbit around its host star.

It orbits what's quite
similar to the sun.

It's roughly sun-like,
Alpha Centauri B,

and it orbits about ten times closer
to its star than even Mercury does.

So it must be very hot.
So it's exceedingly hot.

Well over 1,000 degrees
on its surface

so it wouldn't really be a
rocky world in that sense.

It would be a kind of magma
or lava ocean world.

So no hope for life on this world

but what is very promising
and exciting about this

is that from the Kepler
space telescope we now know
that terrestrial rocky planets

tend to form as part of
families of clusters.

In the same way as you'd
have several puppies in a litter,

we'd have several puppies or planets
in the litter around its star.

So where we find one rocky planet...
We'd expect to find others.

So the race is now on
to look for planets that are
a lot more like the Earth -

they're orbiting further away,

that aren't scorchingly
or rock-meltingly hot

that are in what's known
as the habitable zone.

The Goldilocks Zone. Yes, not
too hot, not too cold, just right.

Just right for liquid water. This is
the interesting point, isn't it?

Every time we find
one of these weird worlds,

one of these strange systems,
it tells us something about
how planets form

and that's what we're trying
to understand here,

and understand how
unusual our solar system is.

It's also that every time
we try to make some general,

sweeping statement about "this
is how planetary systems are,"

we find a counter example
almost as if on cue,

to get everyone thinking again about
how the things we work.

The list goes on. We have seven
planets around double stars,

so not orbiting individual stars
but orbiting both stars, like this.

We have one planet around four
stars just to make things
more complicated.

Let's come back to Alpha Centauri BB.

There's a planetary system
four light years away.

We've got to go there, surely.

It's on our doorstep.

It's invitingly close,
tantalisingly close,

and in astronomical terms,
it is our next door neighbour.

It's the closest star system
to the sun.

In practical terms,
in real terms, on a human scale,

it's so far away - four light years.

The fastest spacecraft we've
built yet, would take tens of
thousand years to get there.

What would we get from such a trip?

Presumably,
we'd fly through the system.

Stopping is going to be hard
when we get there. Yes.

What would you get?
You're a planetary scientist.

What would you see of the systems?

You do a flyby mission
in exactly the same way

as the earliest missions to other
planets launched from Earth

were all flyby missions,

but it would be a close-up
view of another world,

another solar system, and that would
tell so much information

about another example,
which we can then compare.

If we start doing comparative solar
system studies

between Alpha Centauri Alpha
Centauri BB or any other planets
we discover there,

and Earth or Venus or Mercury.

It's just another way of finding
out as much as we can

about ourselves by comparing and
contrasting against other examples.

This is the best shot, so let's hope
we head off soon. Lewis, thank you.

Thank you.

When Patrick presented the first
Sky At Night in 1957,

space travel of any sort
was science fiction.

So who knows, in the next 55 years,

a voyage to Alpha Centauri B
might just come about.

If you look up into the sky on any
dark night, you will see

thousands of stars and all these
stars are suns in their own right.

Of course, they are much too hot
to land on but many of them

may have other planets going around,
other Earths if you like.

I'm sure they have and I'm also
sure that many of these other Earths

are inhabited.

Some by people who
know as much as we do,

and others by races who know
a great deal more.

If we're ever going to contact
those other civilisations
which must exist,

it's got to be done,
I think, by some methods about which

we know absolutely
nothing at the present moment.

And I suspect we're just about as
far away from that kind of thing

as King Canute
was from television.

But some things never change.

For more than half a century,
Patrick encouraged us

simply to look up at the night skies
and to wonder.

That pleasure is still there for
all to enjoy as we, like Patrick,

reach for the stars.

Next month, we'll be talking about
the sun and those lovely things -

the moon and the Southern lights.

Until then, goodnight.

Venus, goodbye.

Goodbye, Venus and thank you.

Well, that was absolutely great.

And so from Scotland,
at the end of our annual eclipse,
for the moment, good night.

I think it's not too early,

I hope, to wish you a very happy
Christmas, New Year and clear skies.

Goodnight.

Well, we told you it was like
science fiction, goodnight.

And for now, goodnight.

Is Mars a dead world
or is it a world

where there are things
which live and grow?

Goodnight.

And so from Brighton, where the
sky is now completely overcast,

goodnight.

Goodnight.

Goodnight.

If you have got any kind of
telescope, well, have a look

at the Pleiades and you'll be
astonished at the richness of it.

Even a small telescope will
give you a superb view

of this magnificent cluster of suns.

Goodnight.

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