The Observatory

If the weather permits there are observing sessions open to the public on a Friday evening.

Opening times and location details can be found here.

The observatory also opens on the first Sunday morning of the month from 10am until 1pm in support of Abbey Leys Farmers’ Market – again, weather permitting.

Image of the month

M57 – The Ring Nebula

Image taken by Mark Holmes
Telescope: 12″ Meade at HLCO
Camera: Canon D90, ISO3200, 60s exposure

Meetings

HLCO holds meetings on the second Thursday of each month in St John’s church room (location details here). Talks in astronomy and space research are given by invited experts or members of the HLCO team themselves. A small charge is made for these events.

Next Meeting : Thursday December 14th 2023 7:15 for a 7:30 start

Upcoming HLCO Meetings

• December 14th 2023

  There will be two parts to our festive meeting.

  First up will be Mark Holmes to present the second part of his talk entitled “Venus, from Antiquity, Myth to Hell”, which he started in our November session. Having preciously introduced us to Venus; running from antiquity to modern space probes and even the possibility of life in the Venusian atmosphere, he now moves on to describe how we might begin making observations of this fascinating planet.

  That will be followed, after a special tea break, by Colin’s ever-popular Christmas quiz… and you don’t want to miss that!