Electromagnetic radiation (EMR) provides all our information about the physical Universe, apart from meteorites and lunar rock samples....

In 1842 Christian Doppler hired a group of musicians to play on an open train carriage as it was moving on the track and he heard a...

Gravity is a universal force. It is one of the four fundamental forces that act on us all the time. The strong force and the weak force...

Stephan's Quintet is a group of five galaxies that are observed in the constellation of Pegasus in the autumn sky. They were discovered...

The light from distant stars and galaxies has distinct spectral features characteristic of the atoms in the gases around the stars. These...

Stellar classification is usually based on two classification schemes, based on the star's surface temperature (the Harvard system), and...

This is a way of measuring the quality (brightness) of the night sky for a given location and it was created and published in 2001 by...

Precession is a change in the orientation of the rotational axis of a rotating body. The Earth wobbles on its rotational axis as it...

This is the diffuse luminance of the night sky. It involves any scattered light seen at night, including natural ones like starlight,...

The ecliptic is the orbital plane of the Earth around the Sun or, it is the circular path on the celestial sphere that the Sun appears to...

Gegenschein or counterglow is a faint bright spot in the night sky centred at the antisolar point, ie. the abstract point on the...

The zodiacal band is zodiacal light extending along the whole ecliptic. It is thought to be caused by the reflection of the sunlight from...

Only a few generations ago everyone could look up and see thousands of stars, now many of us cannot. This is because of light pollution....

In 1931, a Bell Telescope laboratories engineer Karl Jansky found a source of radio interference originating from the Milky Way, whilst...

For my work experience, I decided to take part in some of NASA’s Citizen Science projects, as there are no opportunities near me for work...

Asteroids are small, rocky objects that orbit the Sun. They are much smaller than planets. Although most of them reside in the main...

Fog is formed when the earth's surface, or near to it, becomes saturated with water vapour by any of 3 processes: • cooling • addition of...

Recently, it has been quite hard to use the telescopes, as leaving them out for a while as the temperature drops causes dew to form over...

Kielder Observatory is an astronomical observatory located in Kielder Forest, Northumberland, within one of largest International Dark...

The conditions for observing vary, depending on the time of year and your location (latitude) on Earth. In summer, twilight may last...