Night Sky
Get to grips with the main seasonal constellations with our starcharts and videos.
As well as the stars on these charts, there’s a great chance you will see many
other spectacles of the night sky - the Moon, planets, space satellites and
shooting stars (or meteors). For more about these, go to The Night Sky – in detail.
Pocket Starcharts
The starchart downloads above are designed ready for you to print-off easily!
Schools and groups can also get copies of our very popular folded pocket
starcharts (see left).
Top Tips for getting the most out of Stargazing
It is easy to do stargazing - just go outside on a clear night and look up, wheverer you are there will be something to see. However there are a few things you can do to make the experience as breathtaking and memorable as possible. We have put together a collection of top tips to get the best out of your stargazing session
A Deeper Look...
So, you have started to find you way around the night sky. What next? The
night sky takes you into some of the big questions being explored today by
research astronomers using powerful big telescopes.
Searching for life on exoplanets - Vega
Is there life elsewhere in the universe? Can we find it? One place to search
is planets around nearby stars that are Earth-like and which therefore might
be home to life as we
know it. Find out more...
Galaxies – the starry sky and Andromeda
When you look up at a starry night, the stars look fairly evenly spread across
the sky. But if you could look deeper into space, you would see that stars
are in fact gathered in great groups, called galaxies, containing thousands
of millions of stars.Find out more...
The life cycle of stars - Orion
The winter's most recognisable constellations
gives us a chance to observe stars in all the different stages
of their life-cycles. Find out more...