SPACE
Stargazing - A Graphic Guide to the Heavens
1. How The Sky Works
Getting to know the night sky. Why the stars and constellations appear to move across the heavens. The stellar formations always visible from the northern and southern hemisphere. How to view them through binoculars and work out their positions from a sky chart. Why the planets seem to wander against the sky background sky.
2. The Cosmos
January to March
The stars and constellations visible during the first quarter of the year. Firstly from the mid-latitudes of the northern hemisphere, secondly from the tropics, and thirdly from the mid-latitudes of the southern hemisphere. The familiar pattern of Orion, seen both in the northern and southern skies. How the stars in Orion change position on an imaginary spaceflight.
3. The Cosmos
April to June
A guide to the stars and constellations visible from the northern hemisphere, the tropics and the southern hemisphere. Leo and Virgo in the north. Carina and Centaurus in the south. Why the positions of stars look fixed during a human lifetime but how they move over thousands of years.
4. The Cosmos
July to September
A tour of the stars and constellations in the northern hemisphere, the tropics and the southern hemisphere. Cygnus and Lyra in the north. Scorpius and Sagittarius in the south. The glorious highlights of the Milky Way - a massive black hole lurking at the Galactic Centre.
5. The Cosmos
October to December
The stars and constellations visible from the mid latitudes of the northern hemisphere, from the tropics, and from the mid-latitudes of the southern hemisphere. Pegasus and Andromeda in the north. The Magellanic Clouds in the south. How we know by studying galaxies that the Universe is expanding.
6. Vagabond
Comets, asteroids and meteors - the wildcards of the Solar System. Why they hurtle through the sky in apparent random. Originating in the Asteroid Belt, the Kuiper Belt and the Oort Cloud, these icy remnants from the birth of the planets are cosmic vagabonds that both beguile us and threaten us.