Astronomy

December Stargazing at Abriachan – Featuring Professor Martin Hendry

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Join me on December 13th up at Abriachan Forest (a Dark Sky Discovery site) for an evening of stargazing and astronomy with Professor Martin Hendry. (ticket links in comments)

If skies are clear Martin and I will host an outdoor stargazing session and discussion under the stars (with potential telescopic views of Jupiter and Saturn). Following this Martin will present his indoor guest talk titled “Empire of the Sun”: the past, present and future of Solar System Exploration.

The Abriachan team will also be on hand to keep younger (and older) audience members entertained with some suitably themed STEM activities.

Martin Hendry is Vice Principal at the University of Glasgow and Vice President of the Royal Society Edinburgh. As former Head of the School of Astronomy and Physics he continues to be a passionate advocate for STEM education and science engagement with schools and public audiences. He is the author of more than 200 scientific articles and is a senior member of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, the global team of more than 1400 scientists which made the first-ever detection of gravitational waves – a discovery awarded the 2017 Nobel Prize for Physics.

Due to site and classroom capacity, booking via Eventbrite is essential. Admission is free for under 16s with accompanying adults but please inform Abriachan of any large booking requests.For directions to the forest classroom please follow directions to Abriachan Forest Classroom.

Ticket Links can be found here.

New Astronomy Season at Abriachan begins November 22nd

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I’m delighted to announce the first date of our 2025/2026 Astronomy and Stargazing programme at Abriachan Forest, which kicks off on Saturday, November 22nd, with an evening of outdoor stargazing and indoor planetarium guiding.

We also have guest talks planned later in the season covering deep space, the solar system and the Moon, with Professor Martin Hendry first in line on December 13th to discuss the “Empire of the Sun”: the past, present, and future of Solar System exploration. Astronomer Steve Owens will be visiting after Christmas for more tales of dark skies, with further announcements to follow in the new year.

As ever, tickets go live on Eventbrite and are promoted on my Facebook page.

Finding the Andromeda Galaxy Naked Eye

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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!

Stargazing at Abriachan – Scotland’s Night Sky Special

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Feb 22nd – Stargazing at Abriachan – Scotland’s Night Sky Special

Join us up at Abriachan Forest (a Dark Sky Discovery site) for a stargazing and night sky photography special as we welcome guest astrophotographer Andrew Allan from Perthshire.

Andrew runs the widely followed community page Scotland’s Night Sky and is a prolific aurora chaser and Milky Way photographer. Andrew’s talk will include tips and tricks on how to photograph a wide range of celestial events, how to forecast the Northern Lights plus images and stories from Andrew’s adventures abroad to Iceland, Norway and Tenerife.

If conditions are clear astronomer Stephen Mackintosh will also be guiding you under the Milky Way class dark skies of Abriachan Forest (with a backup astronomy presentation if clouds roll in).

Due to site and classroom capacity, booking via Eventbrite is essential. Admission is free for under 16s with accompanying adults but please inform Abriachan of any large booking requests.

Eventbrite ticket links are here.

Burns Beneath the Stars

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Burns Beneath the Stars at Abriachan Forest (25th January)

Join us up at Abriachan Forest (a Dark Sky Discovery site) for an evening of stargazing and astronomy with a Burns night twist.

If conditions are clear astronomer Stephen Mackintosh will be guiding you under the Milky Way class dark skies of Abriachan Forest (with a backup astronomy presentation if clouds roll in).

Plus a Burns themed activity hosted by Abriachan with Haggis hand warmers and refreshments for a simple Burn’s supper fare.

Due to site and classroom capacity, booking via Eventbrite is essential. Admission is free for under 16s with accompanying adults but please inform Abriachan of any large booking requests.

Tickets now SOLD OUT.

Sounds of the Cosmos

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We had a wonderful evening of music and astronomy this Saturday up at Abriachan Forest.

The evening began with a unique premier – a live analogue synthesiser set from Nick Scroggie and Maarten De Vries of QRM, riffing beautiful melodies, sounds and effects in realtime against a montage of space and astronomy themed visuals I’d created for the evening.

Afterwards we had a virtual planetarium tour and talk on Supernovae, before finally getting some breaks in the cloud and heading out to see Jupiter and several nearby constellations and bright stars.

The development of the musical and visual concept is worth mentioning. Maarten and I discussed the idea of bringing astronomy visuals together with drone music about a year ago, but various other commitments got in the way of execution until earlier this year when Maarten and Nick agreed to test out the concept at Abriachan.

I developed a rough chapter outline for the visuals based on a journey of increasing scale through the universe. Beginning on Earth, then moving past our solar system into the distant stars, before finally arriving at the grandest realm of all – the galaxies. I sourced hundreds of images and video clips from NASA and other space agencies, downloading the highest resolution renders I could find.

During the visual editing process I used one of QRM’s ‘Drone Day’ sets for musical inspiration, timing the fades, pans and transitions to match the general pacing and atmosphere of the music. After a first draft I handed the visuals over to Nick and Maarten who then used it to develop some very rough musical concepts, split into acts to match the visual chapters .

It should be stressed that Maarten and Nick’s music was not in any way pre-recorded. The whole performance was live, with melodies, drums and base lines setup and generated on the fly via analogue synthesisers as they watched the visual footage. The only samples used were some spot effects Nick either recorded locally or sourced from BBC repositories.

I’ve put together footage of the event on Youtube and embedded it above for your enjoyment. Feedback from the audience was incredibly positive and we have tentative plans to deliver something similar in the future..

The next Star Stories event will be mid December. Look out for details appearing soon.