This is the first post on this blog, which is initially focussed on a rejuvenation of my astronomical hobby. Since as long as I can remember I have been somewhat fascinated by the night sky, or at least the objects in the night sky on a clear night! I was very lucky to grow up somewhere with dark skies and it was the sparkling Milky Way that fuelled my fascination.

Over the years I’ve aquired a 6″ Newtonian telescope, various sizes of binoculars, recently a goto mount for the ‘scope and various bits of photographic kit, including one of the famous Philips Toucams. Combining all this, a bit of enthusiasm and some clear dark nights gives me an opportunity to explore the celestial backdrop to our nights and, hopefully, share some of the experience by providing some commentary and capturing some images to post here.

Hubble Deep Field - 10,00 galaxies, NASA/courtesy of nasaimages.org

I’ll start with a few useful websites, and a beautiful picture taken by someone else:

• http://www.nasa.gov/ is a good one, obviously as is http://www.nasaimages.org/ for seeing what is “out there”, without even leaving the comfort of your seat. If you’re interested in space exploration then the Jet Propulsion Laboratory is probably the place to start.
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/space/ is the BBC’s space focussed site or catch up with Patrick Moore and “The Sky at Night” here.
• I’ll talk about this in more detail later, but for a good piece of planetarium software for your home computer you can’t do much better than http://www.stellarium.org/ for value for money – it’s free and open source.
• Finally, the website of the British Astronomical Society has a wealth of information.