The Observatory
If the weather permits there are observing sessions open to the public on a Friday evening.
Details of opening times and the site’s location can be found on the Observatory page.
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.
Recent Images
4th January 2026
NGC 7635 (Bubble Nebula)
1hr internally stacked data, AI denoised.
Image taken by Mark Holmes using Seestar S50
2nd January 2026
NGC 896 (Heart Nebula)
45 live stacked subs of 120″ duration. Processed in PixInsight
Image taken by Eric McElroy using C8 RASA with ASI533 MC camera and Optilong L-Extreme dual band filter
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. See below for details of future meetings.
We are always on the lookout for speakers. If you have an astronomy-related topic you’d like to share with a group of like-minded individuals, please get in touch by emailing hlco.steering@gmail.com
Upcoming HLCO Meetings
- March 12th 2026
GAIA – Global Astrometric Interferometer for Astrophysics
Gaia has spent a decade mapping the Milky Way by making three trillion observations of two billion stars.
In a welcome return visit, Dr. Steve Barrett of the University of Liverpool will explain how this was done and what will we learn when all the data is analysed.Image credit ©ESA–D. Ducros, 2013