Spring is coming!

This article originally appeared in Scilly Now & Then magazine's March edition.

The Winter months haven’t been particularly kind this year for us stargazers, with cloudless nights rather lacking. As Spring comes upon us, sadly that does mean the nights grow shorter, however we’re ever hopeful for some better weather!

The biggest news is that we now have an Observatory on St Martins. We’ve had time over Winter to get the kit set up and ready to use – though this has taken more time than we’d like, because you can’t configure a telescope when you can’t see any stars! Our biggest piece of kit is a 14 inch Meade telescope, quite a beauty. On our first proper go, we pointed it at the Moon – I took a very amateur picture just for posterity, out of sheer excitement. It was incredible: the amount of detail you can see, quite mind-blowing.

Next to find the planets and deep sky objects. We’ll have to wait until Summer to see COSMOS favourites Saturn and Uranus at their best, but Mars is currently bright and red in the evening sky, to the West in Pisces.

Our skies – when the clouds are elsewhere – offer a wonderful display at the moment, with recognisable constellations high in the sky: among them Orion, Gemini, Taurus (and therein the Pleiades), Auriga, Cassiopeia and Perseus. This patch of sky is great to learn to navigate with the naked eye, where we must start! Repetition is key to learning your way around. Learn the constellations and then explore within and around them. For example, I’ve learned by heart how to spot neighbouring spiral galaxy, Andromeda, using Cassiopeia as a pointer. It’s only by doing things again and again that you gain confidence.

So it will be with the Observatory, in this, our first year of opening. As we step into the unknown, and open to the public, we have a plan but equally that plan will evolve (and, leitmotif alert, be subject to the mercy of our dynamic weather). We will be open ‘officially’ from 1 April 2019. The site will not be open all the time – as we’re a team of volunteers – but we have set openings on Tuesday evenings and Friday afternoons. These are fixed, come rain or shine. Plus we’ll be open other nights, confirmed nearer the time, for special events and talks. If you’re visiting Scilly this year, we’d love to see you on St Martins. Our website (cosmosscilly.co.uk) has all listed events, or email me for any additional info at [email protected].
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Thank you for all your support in getting to this point. The Observatory really is a community project come to fruition, made possible by the belief and enthusiasm of many of you. Now it’s time to use it!

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