Learning Zone

The GeminidsThe Geminid meteor shower officially begins on December 7th, but it doesn't peak until the morning of the 13/14th. Unlike the Leonids, the Geminid's broad maximum lasts nearly a…

The Lyrid meteor shower streams from a point in the constellation Lyra near Vega - a brilliant blue-white star about three times wider than our Sun and 25 light years away. The…

The words "solar system" refer to the Sun or a star and all of the objects that travel around it. These objects include planets, natural satellites such as the Moon,…

In 1610, shortly after viewing the sun with his ‘new telescope’, Galileo Galilei made the first European observations of sunspots. Daily observations were started at the Zurich Observatory in 1749…

Our planet takes just over 365 days to orbit the Sun – the basis of our calendar year.The Earth's axis is tilted at an angle of 23.5 degrees.This means that…

The annual Perseid meteor shower is coming. The shower begins, gently, in mid-July when Earth enters the outskirts of a cloud of debris from Comet Swift-Tuttle.Dust-sized meteoroids, hitting the atmosphere,…

This article was written with predictions for 2006, but apart from times and rates, this is still relevant every year. Dr. David Asher from the Armagh Observatory along with Dr. Rob…

Venus is the second brightest object in the night sky (second only to the Moon) and our nearest planetary neighbour, being the 2nd planet from the Sun. Venus is almost…

As a veteran solar observer, I have been asked many times about safe solar observing, and how to go about it.  Firstly, let me stress that the Sun is dangerous, and…

Now that we have entered the beginning of June, members should be on the lookout for Noctilucent Clouds. Nocti and lucent are derived from the Latin where they loosely translate…