Preserving the dark skies of the world and raising awareness of this critical conservation effort is one of the cornerstone projects of the International Year of astronomy. I speak with Graham Murry of the Earth and Sky observatory at Mt John on their efforts to take a leading role in this field, in my third and final interview of my NZ tour …..

Dark Sky Reserve - Mt John NZ Play Now

Now, most of the time those of us who are astronomers have a gaze fixed skyward, but if you were anywhere in the top end of Australia or in the Banda sea region in the early hours of Sunday morning (12:10am CST ) the 25th of October your concerns would have been much more earthly.
An earthquake in the Banda sea at magnitude 6.9 saw tremors, that my estimate puts between Magnitude 4 and 4.5 were felt by all (who did not sleep through it !)
I would love to hear your report of the tremor, in the comments below.

PS: I have done a science show segment on the quake that I will post up here shortly ……

In this second interview I discuss the History, current projects and the future for NZ’s #1 research telescope “the Moa” on Mt John. I am speaking with Alan Gilmore, the resident superintendent at the Mt John Observatory. Alan is a prolific co-discoverer of Asteroids with his partner Pamela Kilmartin, having over 40 asteroids to his name, just to mention one of his many achievements.

We also cover progress in the search for dark matter through to the latest successful discovery of Exo-planets by the Gravity Micro Lensing surveys, being conducted by the Moa team ….

The Moa Telescope - Lake Tekapo NZ Play Now