This October I’ve been carrying out night sky survey work as part of a community project to certify Strathnairn as an International Dark Sky Park. This has involved lots of travelling about late at night taking sky quality meter (SQM) readings when conditions are just right – clear skies and the Moon and Sun well below the horizon. You can read about this dark sky conservation work here.

While I’ve been out under the stars I’ve filmed a few stargazing video for my community pages. Here’s a popular one on finding the Andromeda Galaxy – our biggest close galactic neighbour. It always amazes me that you can observe this object with the naked eye, and see the accumulated light from over 100 billion stars at a distance greater than 2 million light years!