The Jodcast

It is the 50th anniversary of the launch of Sputnik and we're going back to 1957 with the last part of our Audience with Sir Bernard Lovell. In the rest of the show we talk to Professor Albert Zijlstra about planetary nebulae, get the latest news and find out what we can see in the night sky. We also introduce our new Facebook group and mention the Big Space Draw.

This issue we present the second part of our 'Audience with Sir Bernard Lovell' bringing the story up to the start of October 1957. We also have Ask an Astronomer and get an update on the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity.

We're back from our August break with a bumper show for you. We talk to Professor Gregor Morfill about the ability of dust to form amazing shapes in space. We also have the first of a three part interview with Jodrell Bank founder Sir Bernard Lovell. As usual we also get the latest news from Megan and Ian Morison tells us what we can see in the night sky this month.

Galaxies galore! This month we focus on stellar cities; we have an interview with Martin Bureau about the formation of galaxies and we chat to Chris Lintott about a website which will allow everyone to help sort a million of them. We also get the latest news from Megan and Ian Morison tells us what we can see in the night sky this month.

Dave and Nick are here for the mid-July show. We present part two of our Harry Potter-style intros (The Chamber of Anti-Science) with a special cameo appearance from The Bad Astronomer, Phil Plait. Nick finds out all about white dwarf stars and planets from Matt Burleigh and then stands in for Tim in Ask an Astronomer. We also have reviews from listeners and a preview of the next show featuring galaxy evolution and the Galaxy Zoo.

Despite rumours that Baron Deathmortes is at large, we put on our rather damp Jodcast invisibility cloak and sneaked out to the astronomy tower to record this month's Jodcast. We find out about one of the world's great observatories - the Gemini Observatory - and we play extracts from the fantastic Moon-bounce poetry event. As always Megan brings us the latest news and Professor Morison tells us what we can see in the night sky this month. With so much to do, we might just have time to get it all done before quidditch practice.

Nick, Dave and Stuart are all in the same room to record this mid-month Jodcast. We talk to Benoit Famaey about possible corrections to Newton's famous laws of gravitation, we kick-off a new 60-second astro society segment with the Macclesfield Astronomical Society and we get your questions answered by Ian Morison.

Tick, tick, tick. Forty years on from the first observations of pulsating neutron stars we talk to the discoverer of pulsars, Jocelyn Bell-Burnell. She tells us about her PhD and how an 'annoying bit of scruff' turned into a fascinating area of research. We also hear about the Jodrell Bank First Move Literary Festival happening in June. As always, we have the latest news with Megan and Ian tells us what we can see in the night sky from the northern hemisphere.

This is the first of our new mid-month shows. First we get some breaking news from the Hubble Space Telescope, we listen to the second half of our interview with Carole Mundell about active galactic nuclei and supermassive black holes, and we put your questions to Tim in the Ask an Astronomer segment. For the extra shows we won't be having the normal format intros and outros but we still won't take them too seriously. As a start we work out how many rice crispies you could fit in the 76m diameter Lovell Telescope. Can you work it out?

May 2007 is when everything changes. Well, not quite everything. The Jodcast may have gone twice-monthly, but we remain in roughly the same cheesy format as before. This month we've gone international with Nick joining us from New Zealand and Tim from Chile. In our main interview, Nick chats with Carole Mundell about the Liverpool Telescope and how it is being used to observe hugely energetic gamma-ray bursts. Later we find out what Tim is doing with the New Technologies Telescope at La Silla in Chile. As usual we get the latest astronomy news from Megan and Ian tells us what we can see in the northern skies during May. Now, we must go and sort out our containment fields as they seem to be on the blink. It's probably something to do with phase variances in the deflector grid.