A 5 billion star astronomy centre!

An Astrofarm visit to the Nançay Radio Telescope At the beginning of April we were fortunate enough to be able to visit the Nançay radio telescope which is located in the small French commune of Nançay, about two hours’ drive south of Paris and about 3 hours’ drive north from Astrofarm. The radio telescope is developing and operating among the biggest radio astronomy instruments in the world, observing the universe at wavelengths between 3 cm and 10 m. What is … Read More

Messier Marathon Sunday 26th- Monday 27th Astrofarm Confolens (To read to story behind the Messier Marathon Challenge check out our previous blog here) Setting the scene – Andrew Davies This month saw the return of Chris Greenfield and his Takahashi telescope to Astrofarm. Chris was with us last year for the Messier Marathon and managed to see 68 objects. This year we made a bit of an event of it and invited local astronomy groups, including ADAES (Association for the Discovery of … Read More

Understanding Magnitude How bright is that star? is actually a very good question and one I am asked many times on our courses and when we have visitors outside here at Astrofarm gazing at our night sky. To answer, the first thing we need to establish is “compared to what?” This may be another star or a planet.  Then we need to look at the scale on which star brightness is measured. This scale is called the “Magnitude Scale” and is … Read More

What magnification is that? When showing people objects through a telescope for the first time, be it the Moon, a planet or another celestial body, one of the most asked questions is “What magnification is that”. It is important that we as astronomers know not only the answer, but also know how to describe the value of the answer. Like all of my blogs I am going to keep this simple and not try and baffle anyone with long explanations and … Read More

Solstice What is a solstice? The word solstice comes from the Latin word for sun (sol) and the word meaning to ‘stand still’ because it appears that the Sun stops and changes direction. Since we can remember we have looked at the Sun, Moon and stars and watched these celestial bodies move across the sky. We have observed, documented and calculated these movements. Some have even built monuments to help predict positions and time, such as Stonehenge in England, the … Read More

Geminid meteor shower The Geminid meteor shower occurs every December and is considered to be one of the best showers as it produces up to 120 meteors per hour at its peak on December 13th. Perhaps known more commonly as shooting stars the Geminid meteor shower can be seen without the use of telescopes or binocular. On the nights leading up to the peak and for a couple of nights after it will be possible to watch this spectacular free … Read More