We opened exceptionally early at 18:30 on Friday 28th to take advantage of the clear skies and 4 naked-eye planets. Thanks to all for coming along to support our efforts to share the wonders of the night sky; though we were somewhat overwhelmed by the numbers turning out for the ‘planets parade’!

Sadly, Saturn had already set but Mercury was still visible above the trees for half an hour. Venus was the brightest object in the sky for the whole session. Jupiter and Mars appeared out of the dusk before 19:00 so that, at one point, all 4 were visible at the same time.
Later on, as the sky darkened, we did some constellation spotting in the field outside the compound and used binoculars for spectacular views of the Pleiades and the Orion nebula.
Later still Uranus was visible with a telescope, as was a beautiful crescent Venus. Meanwhile, in the compound, some imaging was done with the SeeStar.

We can only apologise for the problems we had with the two larger telescopes, noting that things are in a much better place for future openings…please feel free to come back and take a closer look!

Messier 31, the great Andromeda Galaxy, a remarkable object sitting 2.5 Million light-years away from our Milky Way.

The image was created from 5-minutes’ data collection, with much longer times being the norm.

Messier 42, the great Orion Nebula, a vast collection of gas and dust slowly creating new stars.

The image was created from 5-minutes’ data collection, with much longer times being the norm.

Jupiter, showing the four Galilean Moons, taken with the little robot telescope

Jupiter, taken with the main telescope once this was brought into service.