The Night Sky

Calculating Direction Using the Moon – Part 2

In Part 1 we looked at the speed the sun, stars, planets and the moon appear to move through the sky and the reasons behind them.  In part 2 we will look in a bit more depth at the sun’s trajectory through the sky and then how we can use this information together with the […]

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Calculating Direction Using the Moon – Part 1

Like the other celestial bodies (stars, sun and planets) the moon appears to move through the sky from a roughly easterly to a westerly direction, however if studied carefully it will be observed that the moon doesn’t move at quite the same speed as everything else. This is readily apparent if

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Stories in the Stars – Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, the Tale of theTwo Bears

Another in the series of blogs looking at some of the stories depicted in the night sky.  This is the story of  Arcas and Callisto or the Ursa Major and Ursa Minor constellations (which have featured in previous blogs) and the Tale of the Two Bears .

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The Stories Of the Stars – Orion, The Hunter

One of the most distinctive and easily recognisable constellations of the winter sky is Orion the hunter, which from the UK is visable in the southern sky through out the night at this time of year (January), rising on his side in the east in the early evening and setting in the west in the [&hellip

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The Stories Of the Stars – Cygnus, The Swan

One thing I really love about being out at night is looking up!! Looking up and seeing little tiny pin pricks of light and seeing a whole new world. For those of us have learned the stories of the stars this transforms the night sky from something that we take for granted and not pay […]

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The Great Bear

Ursa major Following on from an earlier blog on Ursa minor the aim of today’s article is to expand on your knowledge of the constellations immediately surrounding the pole star. Possibly the best known route to locating Polaris in the night sky is by using the end ‘pointers’ in Ursa major (see

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Polaris and the Constellation Ursa minor

Introduction Modern astrology recognises 88 constellations in total and these help to define portions of the night sky as a whole as viewed from Earth. Many books on the subject present what look a lot like maps of the night sky with dotted lines separating one constellation from its neighbour like

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The Great Hunter: Orion

As the stars have just given me a half decent showing in La France I thought I’d share a quick note on one of the prominent constellations in the Northern hemisphere throughout the winter.

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What do you see when you look at the night sky?

Is it simply a random jumble of dots, balls of gas billions of light years away, or a never ending void of wonder filled with beauty beyond description? Whatever it is you see this series of blogs will hopefully inspire you to get out there and crane your neck on clear nights.

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