Lunar 100 – L3 Mare/highland dichotomy
Mare/highland dichotomy No binoculars or telescopes required! Have you ever noticed how there are dark splotches on the Moon? Well, good news – you’ve already bagged L3! Nice one! A …
Lunar 100 – L2 Earthshine
Earthshine No binoculars or telescopes required! Also known as ‘twice reflected sunlight’, earthshine is a lovely and fairly easy to see phenomenon. It’s clearest when the moon is either quite …
Lunar 100 – L1 The Moon
No binoculars or telescopes required! The first entry on the Lunar 100 is…the Moon! You might have seen it around. The Moon is nearly always visible at some time in …
Past Occurrence – Total Lunar Eclipse 27/7/2018
On Friday 27th July 2018 you will have a chance to see a total lunar eclipse from the UK. There will be 85 total lunar eclipses this century, and when …
Rayleigh Scattering
Rayleigh scattering is the name given to the effect where the path of light is changed. Sunshine ‘white light’ containing all the colours we can see (and lots of things …
Conjunction
A conjunction is when two things appear close together in the sky as seen from Earth. The planets, the Moon and the Sun seem to wander around compared to the …
About our Glossary
We are working on building a glossary of astronomy terms to help explain all things astronomical. It will take a long time to build up this glossary, if there is …
Introduction to the Lunar 100
The Lunar 100 is a list guiding you through observing some of the many features the Moon. It was created by Charles A. Wood in a Sky and Telescope article and …
Brilliant Venus
If you’ve looked west after sunset recently it’s quite possible you’ve seen an unbelievably bright ‘thing’ in the sky. That thing is Venus. Sometimes referred to as Earth’s twin, it is …
How to find the North Star
Finding The North Star is a really good first step for finding your way around the sky. Once you can easily locate North, locating other objects in the sky becomes easier. On …