Cockermouth Astronomical Society to welcome “Earth photographer”…

If you’re free on the evening of October 2nd, and can get to Cockermouth, the astronomical society there is having a special meting for a special lecture by a very special guest speaker… Intrigued? I bet! Full details here: http://www.cockermouthastronomy.co.uk/2010/08/september-meeting-date-changed.html

Here comes the Sun (doo dun doo doo…)

Although I love the wonders of the “deep sky” – galaxies, nebulae and all that faraway faint n’fuzzy stuff – I’m a martian at heart, as you know. I love Mars, especially the Mars rovers,  like Katie Price loves the flash of a paparazzi camera, like Simon Cowell loves mirrors, like a fat kid loves [...]

So, you want to see the Space Station?

How do you do it? Where do you look? WHEN do you look? HELP!! Calm down, dear… luckily there’s an almost embarrassingly-simple guide to seeing the space station right here, on this very blog. To find it, all you have to do is look up at the top of the screen and you’ll find a [...]

Conjunction at the Castle…

Last night’s sky was, amazingly, clear enough to let me enjoy a beautiful sight in the heavens: the Moon shining close to a bright planet, in this case, Jupiter. I went up to Kendal Castle to observe and try to photograph the conjunction – which brought back many bad memories of absolute-waste-of-time trips up there [...]

Two pics to make your jaw drop…

Every now and then a “space pic” comes along that really makes your jaw hit the floor. They’re not that common; typically there’s one “wow!” image a month, even every couple of months… But two have hit the net in the past few days, which I really wanted to share with you. First, there’s this [...]

How did the Solar System Scale Model day go..?

Read all about it here… http://ksssm2.wordpress.com/the-big-day

Solar System Scale Model…

Today’s a BIG day for Kendal’s EDDINGTON ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY! We’re creating a huuuuuge scale model of the solar system right in the middle of town! If you want to know more about it, just go here… http://ksssm2.wordpress.com  Hope to see you there!

Book review: “The Big Questions: The Universe” by Stuart Clark

One of the most surprising and delighting things about writing a blog is that you get emails from readers out of the blue. Some are complimentary, others.. not so much… (I had to look up what a “Noob” was… charming!) Then there are the formal ones that make you realise that not just fellow space [...]

Shooting stars to sparkle this week…

If these cloudy “summer” skies clear in time, stargazers and sky-watchers in the South Lakes  – and all over the UK – will be able to enjoy a meteor shower in the night sky later this week.  “Meteors” are better known as “shooting stars”, but they’re actually nothing to do with stars at all. Shooting [...]

Weather woes…

Seriously, this weather is getting beyond a joke now. It’s ******** August… that means it’s supposed to be Summer, right? You know, “summer”? That hot, dry, blue-sky season always shown in school books when we were kids as a time of kids building sandcastles on a beach, eating ice creams and peering into rock pools [...]