This episode of Astronomy Cast is brought to you by Swinburn Astronomy Online, the world's longest running online astronomy degree program.

Visit astronomy.swin.edu.au for more information.

Astronomy Cast, Episode 328, Telescope Making, Part 2

Welcome to Astronomy Cast, our weekly facts-based journey through the cosmos, where we help you understand what we know, but how we know what we know.

My name is Fraser Kane, I'm the publisher of University Day, and with me is Dr. Pamela Gay, a professor at Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville, and the Director of CosmoQuest. How am I done?

I'm doing well, how are you doing Fraser?

Good, good, so this is the last show that we're recording for the 2013, which was a fantastic year in Space Astronomy, and now launch 2014.

Yeah, that was perhaps the fastest year ever. It's one of those weird things when you're a kid, time never seems to pass, and when you're an adult, you take as many running leaps as you can, and the world still gets ahead of you.

So what was your favorite thing in 2013? We don't do a long intro, but what's the big thing, do you think?

Oh, I think the most awesome thing I did was watch the sunrise with a first seal in New Zealand, which was like the whole Southern Hemisphere thing, so that was all kinds of awesome.

And my favorite science thing was Mars Curiosity keeping on with a whole series of, yes, I'm roving along a riverbed, yes, here's more evidence I'm roving along a riverbed, yes, this is a riverbed, that was kind of awesome.

For me, I got to tour SpaceX, I think that was the big highlight for me for the year, that was amazing, and I think my favorite thing was Voyager, actually Voyager leaving the solar system was pretty awesome.

Or did it?

Well, it left the heliosphere, so it's into interstellar space, but obviously clearly it's still in the gravitational field of the sun.

I think I thought it was great that we've fired a spacecraft that far out, it's still communicating, go Voyager.

Go Voyager, I agree with that.

All right, well, let's rock.

This episode of Astronomy Cast is brought to you by Eighth Light Inc. Eighth Light is an agile software development company.

They craft beautiful applications that are durable and reliable. Eighth Light provides discipline software leadership on demand and shares its expertise to make your project better.

For more information, visit them online at www.eighthlight.com.

Just remember, let's www.thedigit8thlyght.com, drop them a note.

Eighth Light, software is their craft.

...