Citizen Astronomy The Sky at Night

Good evening.

On any clear night, you'll find amateur astronomers outdoors,

making observations, taking notes

and noting down what they see.

Before we go any further, there are two things I want you to remember.

First of all, astronomy is open to anyone.

You don't need large, expensive telescopes.

You can do a great deal with the naked eye or a pair of binoculars.

Secondly, amateur work is very important.

Amateurs do things that professionals want to do, but can't do or haven't got time to do

and a great deal is learnt from this.

Today, I think amateur astronomy is more important than it's ever been before.

Well, with me now are two professionals - Dr Chris Lintott and Lucie Green.

So really it is now a great time for the amateur.

And he can delve everywhere.

Absolutely. You've hit the nail on the head there.

Even with all this spacecraft,

all the data we can get from professional observatories and access to the data via the internet,

there's still a huge amount of space for the kind of work only amateurs can do.

As professional astronomers, we are unique amongst scientists.

We rely so heavily on collaboration with our amateur colleagues.

Wherever you look, whether it's out into the distant universe, in our galaxy or in the solar system,

we need people to help us sort through data and make discoveries.

You can see that, Lucie, in your field with the Sun.

My interest is in looking at solar activity

and after a really long, prolonged quiet time,

the activity is picking up and we need amateurs and professionals

looking at the data, but we've had this interesting time with the Sun

where it's not necessarily solar science that we've been working on.

The amateur community have discovered a huge number of comets in the SOHO data,

in the LASCO coronagraphs which look at the Sun's atmosphere, unexpected delights,

coming from the fact that amateur astronomers have a different take on what they want to study.

In 1981, when the first comet was discovered to plunge into the Sun, we were very excited about that.

And it turns out it happens all the time. There are 2,000 discovered in the SOHO images?

Yeah, over 2,000 of the Kreutz family

and it's given us lots and lots of information about cometary break-up,

because I think these comets came from a single object, maybe a couple of thousand years ago

and so we're learning about comet fragmentation

as well as doing counts of the number of comets that come into the inner solar system,

seeing more than we realised were present.

We're talking about comets plunging into the Sun, but another really exciting set of amateur discoveries

have been a series of dark spots on Jupiter

that they think have come from the impact of something like comets.

We saw this in the early '90s with Shoemaker-Levy 9, another serious amateur discovery,

this comet that split up and hit Jupiter and left behind this sequence of bruises,

then in the last couple of years, people like Anthony Wesley,

who is an amateur observer down in Australia,

have started spotting these scars on Jupiter's surface,

so what we thought was a once-in-a-few-hundred-years event

back when we saw Shoemaker-Levy 9 turns out to be happening

every few years, comets hitting the giant planets.

We're seeing how dynamic the solar system is, which is relevant to us,

our lives, human space exploration in the future.

Amateurs are looking for asteroids, too. There'll be an impact on Earth.

There are big professional surveys,

but if you want to make your mark as an amateur,

you can discover the asteroid that will kill us all.

But the planets themselves change.

We're used to seeing beautiful images from people like Damian Peach

that show

-a ridiculous amount of detail on the planet.

-I know.

What's interesting is professionals depend upon those images,

not just for the cover of our magazines,

and not just to put on our walls,

cos we often use amateur images for publicity,

but as real science in the solar system.

Spacecraft like Juno, which is NASA's next Jupiter mission

on its way now, have explicitly organised an observing campaign for serious amateurs,

to give them the context.

It's a bit like wandering out into...out on the surface of the Earth,

making one measurement.

Professionals can study somewhere very close. We have a weather station,

but we need amateurs to tell us if it's raining in the rest of the country,

-or what the clouds are doing.

-And they'd have a very

different perspective on what they find fascinating as well.

And it's a great public engagement example, that you can influence

what larger telescopes then focus their time on.

I think it gets really interesting, as we're driven by grants,

funding, career, a lot of the time, so it's really nice

to find people who are driven by their interest.

-The amateur, of course, has the true freedom.

-He does what he likes.

-Exactly.

-And it's important that you have that mix, as well,

because the scientists will have the questions that are the hot

topics for them to work on, and then amateur astronomers have

the questions that interest them as well, and hopefully,

there's some overlap in the middle, but then, at the edges,

there are two different series of questions that are being worked on, so you push forward the science.

I think that today, in spite of spacecraft, and all the equipment,

I believe amateur astronomy is just as important as it's ever been.

And probably more so.

Yes, the more data we get, the more eyes we need,

and the more questions we have, so I think we're more in need

of amateur help than we've ever been, but there's more they can do.

I wonder what will happen next?

Well, thank you both very much indeed.

Supernovae are stars that explode catastrophically,

sending out millions of times more light than they normally do.

It's important to find out how they behave and we never know when to expect them

or which star is going to go supernova.

This is where the amateur comes in.

A supernova that flares up is likely to be detected first by an amateur

because amateurs know the sky better than most professionals.

They don't have to use instruments.

Pete Lawrence went to the Wirral to meet two supernova hunters.

Dave Thomson and Brendan Martin are supernova hunters

and they belong to the country's oldest Astronomical Society - Liverpool, set up in 1881.

They also design and build some extraordinary telescopes.

I look forward to coming to other people's back garden observatories

because you never know what you'll find.

I've come to a small village in Cheshire where behind this house lurks something really special.

The Liverpool Astronomical Society is a thriving group of some 200 members.

They do research and also public shows.

Later on tonight, they're taking me to Sefton Sands for some star-spotting.

Dave designs telescopes and this is his Leviathan.

The mirror is 30 inches wide and the scope must be at least 20 feet long.

Quite a whopper!

Now, I love big telescopes, but this one is a real monster, isn't it?

So why did you build one this large?

For fun. I've always been interested in astronomy.

You start off with a small telescope and they get bigger and bigger.

-We make our own optics as well.

-You grind your own optics?

-We make the mirrors as well.

-For a 30-inch telescope, that is incredible.

-Lots of fun.

-What objects stand out for you?

-The "lollipop" objects are the best objects in the sky.

Orion Nebula M42 is absolutely stunning in colour and detail.

-You can see colour.

-Lots of colour.

-Brendan?

For me, Jupiter. Again you could see

colour, structure within the clouds.

-I didn't want to move away from the telescope.

-That's astonishing.

-So, do you keep these telescopes just for your own use?

-No, these are used at public star parties,

with the Liverpool National Astronomical Society Sidewalk Astronomers Group.

Oh, right, OK. So they're open to the general public.

We've had thousands of people look through this,

-and sometimes 300 people look through it.

-There's one burning question,

if you've the public coming to look through this telescope,

-that eyepiece is quite high up there, how do they get up to that?

-Very tall, stable ladder.

'I would have to overcome my fear of heights before I could even look through the eyepiece,

'but down the bottom of the garden are more my kind of telescopes. They can be operated from your armchair.

'These telescopes were also designed and built by Dave and they are robotic.

'They can be operated via the internet anywhere in the world.'

-This is what they call a telescope farm with telescopes everywhere.

-Yes.

-Fantastic.

-You've built all these telescopes yourselves.

-Yes.

-This is a 20-inch?

A 20-inch, half-metre telescope. All home-made.

With the UK weather, the automation side of things really helps.

It allows us to get on the sky within 30 seconds.

-You don't come out here and stand with the telescope?

-No, it's mostly autonomous. It is robotic.

Right, OK. Anybody who's looking at this, thinking,

well, that must be thousands and thousands of pounds,

you built most of this, so is it really expensive to put together?

No, I think a lot of this, the whole dome and telescope that I've made here,

-it is probably less than £2,000.

-Really?! That's incredible!

-You do a lot yourself.

-Including all the automation and everything?

To be fair, there's probably more from the software side,

but we're starting to develop our own as well.

-And is it difficult to do?

-Yes and no, but...!

Really, some things are obviously quite technical and more difficult.

You've got to learn stuff. If you're good with a saw and hammer, there's an awful lot you can do.

'The telescopes are used by the group for supernova hunting.

'A supernova occurs when a star explodes.

'They're unpredictable with the bright flash gone in a matter of hours.

'In galaxies millions of light years away,

'all we see of this super-massive explosion

'is a brief brightening of a star.

'It's crucial the big professional telescopes get on to them early and that's where the amateurs come in.

'Brendan and his fellow supernova hunters have over 60,000 galaxy images,

'looking for something different.'

We image each galaxy twice,

then the next day, it's going through all those galaxies,

-looking for any...

-That's real dedication.

If you're going through that number of images, that's research stuff.

-It's also the anticipation of being the first one to see something.

-We've been very close to it.

-You haven't actually got your first one yet?

-Not yet.

-But we've been very close.

-So why would you do that,

when you've got the professionals who are doing it, why would amateurs try to do this as well?

Well, the professionals can't really do this any more.

They have limited time on telescopes.

-To search for a supernova requires lots of time and dedication.

-Right.

They can use that time to do other stuff.

The amateurs are doing all the supernova searches now. If we discover one,

then the professionals can turn their telescopes.

-They go along and look at it and do the research.

-And so on.

And also, with the UK weather as it is, sometimes, we may get

a possible supernova discovery one evening,

but then the next night, it's cloudy, and we've got contacts that we can use.

So, the network is going out to try and find it, yes. Fantastic. Absolutely brilliant job.

Dave and Brendan will pack up their kit and take it out tonight to Sefton Sands near Southport.

The society have planned a sidewalk astronomy event for the public.

There have been astronomy gatherings here for over ten years and they're always popular.

It's a very promising night.

There are some clouds, but we can see the stars.

It's incredibly cold, but that does not put off the die-hards.

The Liverpool Astronomical Society are here in force and we have about 200 visitors of all ages.

If the clouds stay away, we should give them all a look at the Moon, Jupiter

and maybe even the Orion Nebula later.

-Hi, David. You're here with the telescope set up for the sidewalk event tonight.

-That's right, yes.

Why do you do sidewalk astronomy?

It's our way of bringing astronomy to the sidewalks. It's an American idea.

-And the idea is to bring astronomy out to the public.

-Right, OK.

Not everybody can get into an observatory and look through an eyepiece,

so we can provide facilities such as this.

We have lectures about what's on in the night sky,

the latest events happening.

A lot of the public want to buy a telescope, but they don't know what to buy.

That is one of the things we do best, I think.

We show the public what we have, and the public can

say, OK, I like the view through that, what do we do, how do we buy one of these?

What do I want to do with the telescope?

Do I want to just look through a telescope, do I want to see galaxies,

or planets? You need to know what these things are.

And there's such a wide range of telescopes available these days.

At the same time, it generates an interest in the science.

It generates interest in the youngsters at school. This is part of the curriculum now.

Right, can you see the Moon?

-It also generates future membership for our society.

-Of course it does.

Which keeps our society going along.

-Creating the astronomers of the future.

-Yes.

Tonight, there is a crescent moon. Our nearest celestial neighbour

is always a good object to show kids and adults alike.

And this is the huge crater Clavius.

-Why is it shaking?

-Why is it wobbling?

Because it was a cold night like tonight and all the hot air from the ground rises up

and it makes all the air waves up above us because of the telescope.

-That's what makes stars twinkle.

-See it?

You've just been having a look through that telescope,

is this the first time you've been to a sidewalk astronomy event?

No, I came to one a couple of years ago,

but unfortunately, the sky was really unclear that night.

Oh, right, OK. This is the first clear sky one.

Yes, I've been so looking forward to looking at Jupiter.

Really? So that's what you've been looking at? What did you think?

I was absolutely amazed by it. It's wonderful to see.

A view of the gas giant Jupiter and its moons,

is something you never forget.

-We're trying to teach him...

-I like what's on the Moon.

-What?

-A flag.

-A flag?

-There is a flag.

-Footprints.

-And footprints.

Who put the first footprints there?

Um...

-Neil Armstrong.

-Brilliant.

-Very good.

A future astronomer in the making there!

I see you've brought a pair of binoculars along with you. You're not an astronomer?

No, I just like to see the stars at night. When it's a bright night, I sit in the garden and look up.

I don't confess to know anything. I just like to watch.

That doesn't matter.

-You can just look at the things and enjoy them.

-Yeah.

So, which are the young craters, and which are the old craters?

-I think they're the young craters.

-The little ones? Yeah.

And the old craters.

Well, the oldest crater here is this big, huge Clavius.

'The craters on the Moon are a record of a brutal past in our solar system,

'when asteroids and comets pulverised the planets.

'On Earth, they have been eroded, but on the Moon,

'we can see impact craters in all their glory.'

-You've been looking at the Moon.

-I've just been getting it focused,

and I'll probably swing around and look at the Orion Nebula.

-Right, that'd be fantastic to see.

-But this kind of equipment,

the advantage is that I can keep it in the car all the time.

And I haven't had time to go home and get my telescope and everything.

'Binoculars are great, but big telescopes can show off the detail.'

-Have you seen anything fantastic tonight?

-Yeah, we saw Jupiter.

-And I saw three stars together.

-You saw three stars together?

-Five.

I saw Jupiter and three moons.

-So you got the little dots either side of Jupiter?

-Yeah.

-Oh, right.

There's this big white circle with these things...these colours.

-And then three dots next to them.

-Right, OK.

One of those dots that's next to Jupiter is one of the biggest moons in the solar system.

-It's bigger than the planet Mercury. It's huge. It's called Ganymede.

-Ganymede.

-Yes.

I'm going to have to watch myself.

Every youngster I've been speaking to so far tonight, has been able to answer my questions.

There are even more people arriving.

Dave has brought his 16-inch Dobsonian with him.

And there is quite a queue of people waiting to look through it.

So, Dave, I've caught up with you at last, this has been fantastic.

-How do you think it's gone?

-It is going fantastically well.

-There must be hundreds of people here.

-I've had a chat with a few people,

and they are delighted with it.

So I think the work you're doing is superb,

because you're inspiring people to go out and look at the sky,

and also, you're teaching them how to use their own telescopes, I think.

The people within the Liverpool Society and, the people that have turned up today,

-they make it a team effort.

-Absolutely.

-For the society, it's great.

-Definitely.

'Everyone has had a fantastic night

'and I have been blown away by the enthusiasm of the group and by the kids' knowledge of the planets.

'For more information about public nights near you, contact your local astronomical group.

'Details can be found on our website.'

Pete was down there having fun with the Liverpool Astronomical Society.

Let's now turn to something else - variable stars.

Most stars shine steadily for year after year, century after century, but there are some that don't.

These are variable stars.

They're bright, then fade. And there are various different types.

It's important to find out how many types there are and how they behave.

And this is where the amateur comes in.

I'm joined now by Paul Abel and by Gary Poyner.

Gary, why do amateurs look at variable stars?

The answer is that professional astronomers don't do it.

Most of our information that we have for variable stars,

binocular variables, telescopic variables,

come from the amateur astronomer.

All the information we've gathered on variable stars over the last 100 or so years comes from amateur sources.

The amateur has played an intrinsic part in doing this.

It can't be expressed enough. Even an amateur astronomer with a pair of binoculars

can make a significant contribution to variable star astronomy, but you need patience.

With binoculars, it doesn't happen overnight. You need to keep going and going.

You're a visual observer,

so we should emphasise the difference

between electronic imaging and visual.

The visual observer uses only his eyes

-to measure the changes in lights.

-Absolutely, and you do this

by comparing the variable star's brightness

with stars in the same field of view which you know aren't variable.

-It's remarkable how accurate the visual system can be.

-Absolutely,

and the more you do it, the more accurate you become.

Do you have a list of variables you've observed, Gary?

Yes, I do. I have about 500 stars on my list.

I'll try and get through as many of those in 12 months as I can.

I have 20 on mine.

I have none on mine!

We might be able to change that.

I'd do my bit if I was convinced I could be consistent about it.

As you say, it takes a lot of practice

to get into it, but once you've done it,

the human visual system's good at picking up

these changes. The other thing to emphasise is the amount of work done

not just in Britain, but in the US.

Lots of amateurs, all coordinated together, all unpaid?

That's right. The great thing about variable star observers is that

the people who observe these things tend to report their observations.

The BAA have over 2 million observations now.

-The AAVSO have 21 million.

-It's all unpaid as well.

This is the spadework of modern astronomy,

all this hard work and effort and dedication

done entirely for the love of the subject.

Yeah. You wouldn't do it for any other reason.

And the data is there for professionals to use as well,

-which is very important.

-Which they do.

So, selling the Moon and planets is easy.

Looking at Saturn's rings is beautiful,

or the polar ice caps of Mars.

The sunrise over the lunar craters is fantastic.

How do you sell variable stars to people just getting started?

That's very easy. I would certainly say to look at a bright Mira star,

something like Mira itself.

You may be looking at a 12th magnitude star for two months,

-then you go out one night, and it's a magnitude 8.

-It gets very bright, enormously bright.

Overnight. If that doesn't capture your imagination,

you probably won't be a variable star observer.

Quite!

-Nice to have seen you. Come back in the future.

-Thank you very much, Patrick.

Over the years, I've done my best to interest young people in astronomy,

I hope with some success, I don't know.

Anyway, nowadays, there are new developments.

There are big telescopes that schools can apply to use -

two-metre telescopes, real giants.

And we sent Chris Lintott back to school to find out just how this works.

HORN BLOWS

Portsmouth - full of naval heritage

and a place from where so many ships have left on voyages of discovery,

quests to find out more about our planet.

These days, the frontiers of knowledge are explored not by ships,

but by spacecraft and by telescopes.

I became an astronomer because when I was at school,

I had access to a small telescope up on the playing fields,

but the school here have access to something a bit more impressive.

Portsmouth Grammar School have asked me to join a Year 7 Science class

to do some asteroid-hunting.

Physics teacher Jeremy Thomas has signed up to the National Schools' Observatory

and they can use real images taken by a professional telescope.

There are two asteroids lurking in these images from the archive,

and the kids must go and find them.

You're going to measure how fast these asteroids are moving.

If we know how fast they're moving, what can we maybe tell about them?

Megan...? Yes, where they're going to hit the Earth.

-Jack?

-You can tell NASA, so they can go and blow it up.

Blow it up. That is the Bruce Willis approach.

-OK. And? Tom?

-How far they've travelled.

Yes, and what orbits they're in, what forces are affecting them. OK.

I'm convinced I'm going to get into trouble for talking at the back, but I think I've got both asteroids.

There's the bright one and there's a faint one at the bottom here.

We're looking for the asteroids moving,

then we can measure the speed they're moving at and their size.

'The National Schools' Observatory

'uses the two-metre Liverpool Telescope

'which is on the island of La Palma in the Canary Islands,

'one of the best observing sites for astronomy anywhere in the world.

'The Liverpool Telescope is primarily used for research,

'but 5% of its time is dedicated to schools and it's provided free.

'Professor Mike Bode helped set up the National Schools' Observatory in 2005.

'It's run by the Liverpool John Moores University

'and they're now taking up to 2,000 observations for schools every month,

'enough to wear out even the most dedicated of robots.'

Where did the idea for the National Schools' Observatory come from?

From the start of the Liverpool Telescope Project,

we wanted to do something

that involved putting our research

and our technology back into the community to help to enthuse schoolkids particularly

about the study of science and maths and technology and so on.

We started this off as a very local programme just in the Merseyside area.

It became a national programme and we now have some international links.

From a very small beginning, we now have something like 2,000 schools

registered with us across the country

-and a goodly proportion of those, more than half, actively use the telescope.

-That's fantastic.

In fact, we've now delivered,

I think today's number was something like 37,000 observations from the telescope successfully to schools.

'There's already an extensive archive

'that the schools can draw on,

'but they can also request observations of their own.

'The robotic telescope has a mind of its own,

'working out how to make the best use of its time, based on the weather.

'The schools put in their request,

'and wait for the telescope to do its job.'

Is anything that the schools do actually useful,

or is this separate from the research?

Well, what we are developing

and what they can already do are so-called projects.

For example, the asteroid that we've seen today,

that can develop kids' interest to take that further,

and they can use observations

we're taking of suspected near-Earth objects, and we can then send those observations.

They measure the positions. Those then go to the Minor Planet Center,

and the orbits of those objects are more precisely defined

from those observations that have been taken for schools.

But the more distant objects that we observe

and have involved schools with are supernova explosions,

classifying the type of supernova.

By looking at these explosions get brighter and dimmer, so you're looking at the shape.

Exactly, using the shape to define the type of supernova.

'Getting kids involved in this kind of hands-on activity is crucial

'in helping them learn how science is really done.

'Mind you, with a world-class telescope at their fingertips,

'there had better not be any late homework.'

Now, for a change, we're going to have a history lesson.

Believe me, the history of astronomy is fascinating

and one man who knows as much as anybody is Dr Allan Chapman.

-Welcome back, Allan.

-It's a great honour and a delight to be back with you, Patrick.

Coming on to amateur astronomers,

it's fair to say that in the early days, all astronomers were amateurs.

Absolutely true, and not just in the early days.

I would say until not much more than 100 years ago.

-You're right.

-In the past, if you wanted to do scientific research,

not just in astronomy, but in all sorts of sciences, you had to pay for it yourself,

so you have brewers,

great clergy, aristocrats,

doctors, working lawyers,

but you also have, and I find a lot of these, working men astronomers

who really did ordinary jobs.

One remarkable one of whom Wales should be deeply proud -

John Jones, a 19th-century Welshman.

He became a man who learned about 15 languages,

built a substantial reflecting telescope,

and earned his living

as what they call a slate teller, or slate counter

on Bangor docks at 12 shillings and sixpence a week, about 70p.

But do you know how he got interested in astronomy?

He was a native of Anglesey, born in 1818.

And he was in love with a young lady.

And he found that he had a rival for her,

so he went to a local Welsh wizard to have a curse put on his rival.

And he found that in the Welsh wizard's house were pictures of the sky.

And he became so captivated by these pictures of the heavens

that he forgot the curse, and he wanted to be taught about astronomy.

And that was the beginning of his interest in astronomy.

You've been a bit of a modern day wizard, Patrick.

-I have some spells.

-You do?

HE SPEAKS INDONESIAN

What does that mean?

"Kindly keep your seatbelt on while in flight."

LAUGHTER

But you've certainly been a wizard in astronomical understanding,

there's no doubt about it.

You have done more to make more people out there aware of astronomy

than anybody has ever done.

-What drove those early amateurs to do this research?

-Intellectual curiosity and a love of learning.

And also, in many cases, a deep faith.

-The wish to find out.

-The wish to find out and a love of technology.

Astronomers have always been concerned in making things

and as we all know, astronomy is a deeply technological science.

You can't just go out there and make fundamental discoveries

in optics or cosmology just with the naked eye. You need instruments.

And with every generation, instrumentation is getting better,

right from Thomas Harriot onwards,

an amateur himself,

who in 1609 first observed the Moon through a telescope.

-Many of those early observers made their own telescopes. I could never do that.

-They had to.

I'm hopeless. Could you make your own telescope, Patrick?

I made a telescope once. It wasn't very good.

I never even tried.

Amateurs are great collaborators, but that's not a modern thing, is it?

Again in the 19th century, the RAS was founded by amateurs.

The Royal Society itself, of which you are an Honorary Fellow,

was founded in 1660 by private individuals.

And let's bear in mind what the word "amateur" means.

We now often think of it in a rather not very good sense.

The word "amateur", of which they were deeply proud in the past, is a Latin word.

The word "amat" means "to love".

-Really?

-It means those who love what they're doing.

It doesn't mean men in sheds as we often think nowadays

and Sir John Herschel proclaimed himself to be an amateur

"because I'm a lover of astronomy".

I would like to ask both of you... You first, Patrick.

-Do you think there will always be a place for the amateur in astronomy?

-I'm certain of it.

You'll find once again, the amateurs lead the way.

I think they do.

I have even heard of it rumoured, and you may too, Patrick,

of an amateur co-operative project using commercial satellite technology

to put something up there, nicknamed the Humble Space Telescope.

LAUGHTER And that could be a beginning.

-Fascinating stuff. There's plenty left for the amateur to do.

-There certainly is.

-We have a fine heritage and history to build on.

-Tremendous.

Well, thank you both very much indeed.

We've been talking about what the amateur can do for astronomy.

Now let's turn the tables

and see what astronomy can do for the amateurs.

Well, we sent Pete, Paul and Chris North up to Northumberland of all places

and there they joined something they've never done before -

a star party. Believe me, there's much to be learnt from that.

'Kielder Water in Northumberland.

'The weather is looking good and the scenery gorgeous.

'For the past nine years,

'enthusiasts have run star camps here

'in spring and autumn'.

'It's the first star party for Pete, Paul and myself.

'It's in the heart of Kielder Forest and has a touch of the wild about it.

'It's well supported

'by the local astronomical societies. Most stay on site.

'I wonder where we will be sleeping?

'The BBC have organised a caravan and tents for us and the crew.

'Paul, did you tell them you hate camping?'

-Hello. Welcome to Kielder.

-What are you doing inside where I'm sleeping tonight?

-We'll see about that later.

-We've got to draw lots.

-We'll draw lots to see who stays in the caravan

and who gets the lovely tents.

-If you're so keen, you should go into them.

-It's only two hours till sunset, so let's get these tents up.

Tom! You're needed to put the tents up. We're going to need a hand.

I'M going to need a hand!

'Tom is the programme researcher and says he knows how to put a tent up, which is more than I do.'

I feel doom and despair coming on!

You just throw it on the ground and it opens up into a full tent?

-We can stick one here.

-And one here.

How difficult can it be?

-What by God in heaven is all this?

-That's the outer layer, Paul.

Are you sure that these are tents and not sleeping bags?

Where does the telly go?

'It all looked so easy in the instructions.'

-Where does the one with the bend go in?

-Across the front.

-Grab the other end of these poles and bend them to the back of the tent.

-Is that what happens?

-Yeah.

Stick that in the corner. See the holes on the tabs in the corners?

-Are you sure?

-No, but...

'My word, this is difficult!'

Oh, I think... Yes, OK.

-Then you just pull that one into that hole there.

-Are you sure that will reach?

-Yeah.

-You don't stretch and bend...

-Agh! Oh!

-Mind your fingers.

-Number one...

This is a three-man tent? LAUGHTER

That doesn't look right to me.

-We'll be there in a minute.

-Pete's turning his into some sort of artistic expression.

-I'll give you a hand.

-I don't know. This is so degrading.

-It is, yes.

Stop making an exhibition of yourself, Peter!

-It's done.

-It's done. That'll do. It's only for the crew.

LAUGHTER

'Time to draw lots about who stays in the caravan and who stays in the tents.'

-Are you ready?

-I do hope I get a tent.

It's a tent!

And Jane, come on.

And vision, do you want to dip your hand in?

-We got a luxury hotel(!)

-Did you?

Come on, sound.

-Yes!

-I haven't had mine yet.

LAUGHTER

Yes, yes!

For sale...

Pete's got the caravan and we're stuck...

In the tents.

'I can't let my fellow astronomers sleep out in the cold on their own.

'I'm giving up my place in the caravan to young Tom.

'Kielder has one of the darkest sites in the country.

'And this time-lapse footage from previous star camps

'certainly looks impressive.

'We should get some extraordinary views

'of the gas giant Jupiter and some of our closest galactic neighbours,

'such as the Andromeda Galaxy

'and M81 with its companion M82.

'The star campers come here for the dark skies and much, much more.'

This event is about people

with a similar passion getting together.

We get novices, some experts.

Some gear here is the same cost as a new car.

Other gear, it's just binoculars or Mark One eyeballs.

It's amazing how people want to share views through telescopes.

Some people want to know where the constellations are. For others,

it's about imaging deep-sky objects.

It's all about sharing that passion,

learning how to do stuff. It's much easier if somebody shows you.

'Most of the star campers arrived yesterday and they had a clear night, so everyone is very cheery.

'There is some serious telescopic kit around.'

Rupert, Paul and John, we've just arrived.

Last night, I hear it was rather clear. What kind of things did you see?

We had an hour and a half clear up to about two in the morning.

Some of the less able people went to bed about then,

but it opened up again an hour later and it was clear until almost five.

Perseverance really paid off!

There was a mixture of visual astronomy and some people getting their imaging rig set up.

We had an extra day to get everything set up, which is a big advantage.

What kind of things do you look at when you're here?

My intention was to get my new telescope pointed at a star.

This new telescope is rather special because you built it yourself.

Yeah, it's taken me about six years. It took me about a year to design and five years to make.

Along the way, I've had to learn about engineering and optics.

It's been a really exciting journey and this is the cherry on the cake -

bringing it to Kielder for the first time and getting it going.

-Did you get to see anything with it?

-I did. I've got a photograph with round stars on it which are sharp,

so I went to bed a happy man.

'Here are some other images Rupert took with his home-made telescope.

'This is the Orion Nebula, our nearest large star-forming area.

'In this dark site, the astro-photographers are going

'for deep-sky objects normally wiped out by light pollution,

'such as the Pleiades star cluster

'which contains hundreds of young stars.

'The Rosette Nebula,

where young stars are lighting up the dust and gas around them.

'Or the North American Nebula, in the constellation of Cygnus.

'And finally M51 or the Whirlpool Galaxy,

'where we think a big galaxy is swallowing up its little neighbour.'

-You've been here for a couple of nights?

-Yes, we arrived on Wednesday

so we had Wednesday and Thursday clear nights, which was better than last year when we didn't have any!

So it's a big plus.

It's probably our favourite star party, the Kielder one. It's really good fun.

It was amazing. On Thursday night it started off quite cloudy

and then as soon as it clears you forget just how dark it is

and it's like, wow!

Some star campers have come from far afield to escape street lights,

so we've been warned to keep our light pollution to a minimum.

There are very strict rules when you come to a star party like this,

so how are we going to get rid of our light?

Well, we have some red cellophane. What you do is,

you place that over the screen.

-So that's taped in place.

-What about mobile phone?

There's an easy way to cope with mobile phones, because we're in a remote location.

There's no signal. So turn them off and don't use them.

Cars are a problem, because obviously you can't be driving about with headlights on.

There are rules which say we're not allowed to drive cars after 7pm.

We're in our caravan here.

We're going to put in, like an airlock,

but it'll be like a light-lock,

so we can move in and out without emitting light through the door.

Torches are a problem as well. They're nice and bright and white. You do need some light to see,

but we've put red filters on them.

There's a cheaper way of doing it as well as a normal filter. This is my wife's idea.

-You stick a red balloon over the top.

-That's a good idea.

Cheap option.

What about these? These look very good.

That's quite disturbing, actually!

I might go around town when I get back, dressed like this.

-You look like an alien.

-Thank you.

It's time to get ready for the night's observing,

but the skies are a bit cloud heavy.

Hopefully, they'll clear later.

From this dark site,

we should easily pick out the Milky Way in all its glory.

Stretching overhead, autumn and spring are the best times to see the Milky Way.

We are seeing the light from billions of stars in our own galaxy.

The caravan is now light-proofed, so nothing can get out of there.

On the motor cars, all of the lights have been taped over. They're safe.

Chris is busily setting up his telescope - good luck with that!

All we have to do now is wait for the darkness.

We've switched to an infrared camera so we don't interfere with people's observing.

Let's see how the star campers are getting on.

I just love M31, M33.

I love the Messier objects.

People will say different,

-but I don't think I've got a really good, outstanding image of M31.

-Right.

That's what I've come here for.

I've seen Cygnus pop out a few times.

Yes, it has, as the cloud has drifted in and out.

-But unfortunately it's...

-Teasing us at the moment.

-Teasing is a very good word.

-What do you get out of coming out to these campsites?

-Trench foot...

-Freezing joints.

-Great(!)

-No, if you want to do visual astronomy, you can't do it from towns.

You must come to places like this.

I've been wandering around and we've found some other astronomers.

-Geoff, you have your telescope here. Very large.

-We've just looked through Jupiter.

-Magnificent.

You've got the moons, the belts.

Looking at a planet through a telescope, you can never beat it.

-Well, Paul, it's about half past eleven.

-Yes.

-So...look at it!

-Absolutely. Look at it.

-What would your verdict be so far?

-Tantalising glimpses of what could be.

-Indeed.

We were looking over there at Taurus and it cleared away. Phenomenal.

Long enough to get my telescope on the Pleiades. That was about it.

Then it cleared over there earlier. We made out the constellation Delphinus. Then that went again.

Throughout it all, Jupiter has been this sad, wobbly affair!

Well, we can but hope that the cloud will clear. It's all moving in different directions.

-Maybe we'll get a big clear spot.

-Let's hope so.

-How are you finding all of this?

-Oh, great fun, thank you.

-It's the first time I've been to a star party.

-And mine.

-It's the first time I've been to one as well.

Even when it's like this, you can still talk to people,

and people still learn.

-This is a real community of telescopes and images here.

-It is.

Do you all live close together or just meet at star parties?

-I came here three years ago for the first time as a total novice.

-Right.

-Met a wonderful set of people

and learnt so much in a weekend.

You know one person, within minutes you'll know 10, 15 people.

Ask a question and you'll get 10, 15 perfectly good answers -

and you can take your pick from a huge amount of knowledge.

'Well, the clouds have rolled in, so it's time for a nice cup of soup

'as we discuss our first night as star campers.

One of the things that struck me

about star camp is the range of kit here.

Some of the telescopes are enormous.

There is a huge range,

and a range of bits which add on to the telescopes as well.

-You wonder how some of them can be lifted with so many things bolted onto them.

-And transported around.

But it's important to remember that you don't need to spend

thousands of pounds to buy these big telescopes,

because you can do stuff with simple gear.

Including these small binoculars. These are yours, Chris.

-Where did you get them?

-I actually bought them for whale-watching in Canada.

-You can still whale watch - the constellation of Cetus.

-True.

I didn't buy them for astronomy, but they do work.

I like doing binocular astronomy, because you can relax with it.

You can just hold them up to your eyes

and see these lovely wide-field vistas of stars, clusters and nebulae etc.

-So I've got a slightly larger pair.

-Wow, these are substantial.

They're 15 by 70, these,

so they're much larger than those.

-And they're magnified 15 times.

-And the widget?

This widget is basically a photographic ball and socket.

The problem is that the higher the power of binoculars you use,

the more shake you get when holding them up.

It's all magnified 15 times.

It is, so by putting that on a tripod, it keeps them stable.

You really appreciate binoculars

when you only get gaps in the cloud and small clear spells.

You can quickly scan, so you feel you've had something.

But even a pair of binoculars like this is less than £100.

So if you really want to go out and enjoy,

you don't have to spend a fortune.

-This is your telescope.

-Yes.

-This really did perform well.

-We had it on Jupiter and the Pleiades.

-Yeah.

For looking at things like that, this is ideal.

It's not much more expensive than those binoculars.

-They're a hundred and something pounds.

-Is that just the telescope?

The telescope, the mount, everything.

What size telescope is this?

This is a 90 millimetre lens

on the front, three and a bit inches.

The thing a lot of people trip up with

when buying a small telescope is, they go

for the highest magnification first,

-and that will give you the worst view.

-It will. I often say to people

starting out with the visual stuff, always start with a lower power.

-You will see more with a lower power.

-That goes for all the kit.

The best thing to start off with is the really little binoculars.

Move up to the bigger ones, and then if you're really enjoying it,

get a little telescope. And once you've got to grips with this,

you can move on to the even bigger stuff.

Yes, because you've found out all the foibles of using a telescope.

Also, the journey from this to this is learning your way around the sky,

becoming familiar with the constellations.

-Definitely.

-Let's hope for clear skies.

-Drink to that.

-Drink the soup.

The clouds stubbornly refuse to move. We can't delay the agony.

It's time to get into the tents.

-I suggest we go to bed.

-I would agree. It's pretty dire.

I'm looking forward to my nice tent.

Let's see how that feels in the morning.

-We'll ask the crew how their lovely caravan is.

-Let's go!

-I think I've got two inches of water in mine!

-That's my tent!

-I know it is!

It's day two of our star camp, and something isn't going to schedule.

During the night, it started raining - heavily.

-Did you hear the rain, Pete?

-As I said, did it rain? I'm not sure.

-Actually, did it stop?

-It didn't ever stop.

-No.

-Didn't ever stop.

Did any come into your tent?

I don't know. I was too scared and crying.

I've had a great time - we've been camping, outdoors, in nature.

OK, it's a bit wet, isn't it?

But we're not going to let the rain dampen our spirits. Later, we have a trip up to Kielder Observatory,

but first there are some talks up at the castle.

There are always interesting people to meet

and some great books.

Adventures In Narrowband looked particularly interesting.

Pete and I are off to Kielder Observatory. It's about a mile away, at the end of a remote track.

-This is spectacular.

-Fantastic.

-Wow.

'It blends beautifully with the landscape, with commanding views of the lakes,

'but that's not why it's here.

'Kielder has two telescopes and a fantastic public observing platform.

'Gary Fildes helps run the observatory and the star camps.'

-And there he is!

-Good afternoon. Hi, Pete.

-Would you like to come in?

-Thought you'd never ask!

-Wow, look at that.

-Impressive, isn't it?

-I do like a big telescope.

Absolutely.

'It's a reflecting telescope. Light bounces off the big 20-inch mirror at the bottom to the eye-piece.

'Being so remote, there is absolutely no light pollution.

'The stars just jump out at you.

'The telescope started working in 2008 and over the past four years they have imaged

'some fabulous objects such as the Horsehead Nebula in Orion,

'the Dumbbell Nebula, where a star

has shed off its outer layers,

'and the Witch's Broom. Lots to feast your eyes on!

'But the telescopes at Kielder Observatory aren't just for pretty pictures.

'They're for the public to get their hands on.'

Let me show you how easy it is to use this. We have step ladders because this is the eye-piece.

You can grab a hold and move the telescope around quite easily.

We use step ladders because we get quite a lot of schoolchildren here

and they get the full feel of how the telescope works.

One interesting feature is, of course, that it does this.

The cage will actually rotate all the way round. It aids viewing.

As well as that, we may point it at different parts of the sky. Like that, for instance.

To do that, we have to do one of the cool things and spin it around.

-Paul, give that a twirl. I know you've been dying to do it.

-Will do!

Very, very smooth, Gary.

-What's the most impressive thing you've seen?

-Through this?

There's a question! I love it all.

From the observatory, from maybe February onwards,

when Leo's quite high in the sky

and you can access the Virgo cluster of galaxies, it's absolutely superb.

With a wide eyepiece, you're counting the galaxies.

It's tremendous. That region is stunning.

It's a region which, to be honest, if you're starting out,

it's difficult to navigate around.

But once you've locked on to a galaxy,

-you can then galaxy-hop around all the galaxies.

-Absolutely.

It's amazing how many star systems are in the one field of view.

One of the big things we like to get across to people is of course

that when you look at the night-time sky,

it appears to be two-dimensional, but it isn't at all.

All of these stars lie at different distances, and the same principle applies

when looking through an eyepiece at fields of galaxies.

These galaxies are not two-dimensional.

They're scattered through space and time, of course. You can pick them off one by one,

whistle through this cluster of galaxies. You can tell people

the galaxy they're in is part of a local group of galaxies probably 40 million light years across.

That one's a bit further, this one's a bit closer.

There's nothing like that information and a real-time view

to give people a real sense of where we are in the universe.

-That is absolutely right.

-And you give people that. That is magnificent.

Yeah, it is. It's quite rewarding.

Kielder Observatory is run by volunteers, and they host astronomical events

throughout the year.

Time to get back to our star party down below.

Our second night camping

is a complete wash-out, with not a break in the rain.

Everyone is hiding in their tents or off to the pub.

Early bed for us, I think.

'It's the end of our star camp. The campers amongst us

'need a good breakfast to buck us up.'

Breakfast is served!

-Oh, look at that!

-Only an hour late(!)

-Well, here's to a fabulous first star camp, chaps.

-Hopefully, not our last.

-Definitely not.

-We survived!

The spring star camps are coming up all over the country. It's your chance to visit them

for the day or camping like us.

Visit our website for more details:

It's great fun and if the skies stay clear, you're in for a real treat.

We're going to finish the programme

by thinking of ways you can make discoveries with no telescope.

All you need is a computer.

With me now, Dr Chris North and Dr Rob Simpson.

Tell us a bit more about that.

Yes, so at Oxford,

we're running a suite of projects online called the Zooniverse.

To get there, you just go on your browser on your computer

to zooniverse.org and we have a whole bunch of projects, many of which are astronomical.

For example, one is called the Milky Way Project,

where we get people to look at infra-red data from Spitzer.

We try and get them to draw bubbles.

Another one is based on NASA Kepler data,

where we get people looking for transits in the fluctuations

of light coming out of stars which show you there's a planet visible.

The point of this is that people can genuinely help contribute to science.

We call it citizen science. We've made some interesting discoveries

in this in the last few years. With Galaxy Zoo,

there's Hanny's Voorwerp, well known.

There's also one called the Green Peas.

What are the Green Peas?

The Green Peas are these very compact,

star-forming galaxies in the fairly nearby universe.

They've been discovered by these users on the Galaxy Zoo forum,

just spotting these green dots and images and saying, "That's interesting. That looks like a pea".

It literally looks like a pea in our images.

It turns out to be this new type of galaxy that we've found,

thanks to the community at work.

So why can't computers do it?

Computers have to be told what to look for, and people don't.

They just go and explore. So they may find different kinds of planets.

In the case of Galaxy Zoo,

they spot the unusual in what was thought to be fairly ordinary images.

There's a galaxy in each image in Galaxy Zoo,

but users see more than that where computers don't. In the case of the Milky Way project,

we have these beautiful images from the Spitzer space telescope,

which have been explored in that detail by the human eye,

just by so many thousands of people, all looking at different parts and different places.

They'll spot that interesting nook or cranny in the galaxy

where something curious is happening.

It really has been a great success, then.

Yes, it's been really great to be part of and to engage the public

in genuinely participating in the scientific process

and to make discoveries for real.

What you're doing is, you're using people power.

How many people are we talking? These are fairly popular projects.

Zooniverse.org is the overarching site

where you can find all of the projects. That has a count on it.

At the moment, we're approaching 600,000 people that have taken part worldwide,

in many languages, of many ages.

What's the youngest person who's taken part?

We don't ask for information like that. But I certainly know of six and seven-year-olds

who have taken part in our projects,

and I know of 80- and 90-year-olds who have too.

-Catch them young.

-Yes!

-Well, thank you very much.

-Thank you.

I hope we've shown how the ordinary person interested in astronomy can really make a difference.

Next month, we come to our 55th anniversary

and we have two special programmes.

Here is Chris Lintott to tell us more.

Have you ever dreamt of leaving the Earth behind and travelling out into space?

Well, next month we're travelling at warp factor 55,

to the edge of our known universe, stopping en route

to take in the view. That will be the first of our two special programmes

to celebrate 55 years of The Sky At Night.

For the second, we'd like you to spend April

taking part in a Moore marathon.

Patrick has picked out his favourite 55 objects

and he would like you to see as many as you can,

whether with the naked eye or with a telescope.

In the meantime, see our website for more information

about these two very special programmes.

You know, 1957 and that first programme seem long, long ago

and you've been with me all the way. It seems like yesterday.

So now, until next month, good night.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd