Find stargazing locations, astronomy group meetings and stargazing events across the UK.
Following Mark's very interesting talk in November, here is his blog to find out more about him and his work in astrophotogaphy.
Cranborne Chase AONB - Dark Night Skies
Steve's talk in 2023 raised a lot of good points about how we polute our skies with light. The link provides the Cranborne Chase AONB website detailing their Dark Night Skies classification and news.
The handout that Rod created with information on taking your binos/scopes to the Mediterranean and beyond (quite useful for local observing too).
rascnb.ca/telescope-buying-guide
A very useful guide to the basic types of telescope, how they work, what they are good for, their relative cost and complexity.
Image left is part of that guide.
(Released under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License - CC BY-NC-SA.)
https://skysafariastronomy.com/
The best electronic pocket atlas for all things astronomy - a much more advanced (but easier to use!) option than Stellarium. Allows access to many, many catalogues of astronomical objects, descriptions, images, WiFi control of your telescope, observing lists, planning and much more - even pronunciation guides and spoken guided tours. A truly brilliant bit of software. Go for the Pro version if you can - It's not too expensive - and spend a little while learning it (it's not hard!) and it'll be a constant companion on your phone every night under the stars. For iOS/Android only.
A free app for web, PC and phone/tablet that allows you to see what is up there in the night sky. A good introductory app - it is still quite complex to use, though.
A useful app to allow you to see lots of information on the moon.
As recommended by our chairman, Tony!
moonphases.co.uk/moon-calendar
A good online calendar for simple reference of the current and upcoming phases to help plan observing.
An Android app which does much the same: "Simple Moonphase Widget Plus"
www.timeanddate.com/astronomy/night/
Gives a good reference for which planets are visible at any given time from a specific location. For PC and mobile Stellarium and Sky Safari will also show planetary apparitions and moon phases, but they are perhaps best for showing what is available on a given date rather than planning what date is best for a given planet. For Android, also try "Mobile Observatory" - complex, but provides very comprehensive information about apparitions over time.