Telescope Nights

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Planet · Ringed gas giant

Saturn

Distance: About 1.3 billion km
Best seen: October

Tonight at --:--

Rings of ice 270,000 km across yet in places only metres thick; the dot beside it is Titan, a moon bigger than Mercury.

Your turn.

Next telescope night

Friday 16 October

Saturn and the autumn sky

20:00 to 22:30 · Tom Reyes

Clear · 1% cloud · seeing 4/5

12 of 12 places left

Telescope nightsRA --h --mDEC --°

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Guided observing on our roof deck with a resident astronomer, in groups of twelve at most (fourteen for meteor watches, which need no eyepiece queue). You will look through real telescopes at whatever the sky offers that night, and learn to find things for yourself afterwards.

Upcoming nights

Choose your night

Forecasts update every half hour. Cloud cover is for the session itself, from MET Norway.

Saturn is just past opposition and as bright as it gets this year, its rings still narrow after turning edge-on to us in 2025. We start on the planet, then turn to Andromeda and the Double Cluster once the sky is fully dark.
What we will look at
Saturn, its rings and the moon Titan
The Andromeda Galaxy
The Double Cluster in Perseus
Albireo, the gold and blue double star
Instruments
40 cm Dobsonian reflector
152 mm apochromatic refractor
15x70 binoculars on parallelogram mounts
What to bring
Warm layers, a hat and gloves
Sturdy shoes for the roof deck
A red torch if you have one, or borrow ours
£28 per person · members £18
A half-lit Moon is the best Moon. Along the line between day and night, sunlight skims across crater walls and mountain ranges and throws shadows you can measure.
What we will look at
The lunar terminator: Copernicus, the Apennines and Plato
The Straight Wall, a fault 110 km long
Saturn, low in the south-east
Phone photography through the eyepiece
Instruments
152 mm apochromatic refractor
40 cm Dobsonian reflector
Phone adapters for every eyepiece
What to bring
Warm layers
Your phone, charged
A red torch if you have one
£28 per person · members £18
Each October the Earth passes through dust left behind by Halley's Comet. We lie back on the deck in reclining chairs and count meteors together, with hot drinks and a guide to what you are seeing.
What we will look at
Orionid meteors, debris from Halley's Comet
Orion rising in the east
Saturn in the south
The Pleiades
Instruments
Reclining chairs and blankets
15x70 binoculars
An all-sky camera recording every meteor
What to bring
Very warm layers, the deck gets cold when you lie still
A hat and gloves
A flask if you like, we provide hot chocolate too
£24 per person · members £15
Three nights before new Moon, the sky is as dark as Exmoor gets. We go hunting for galaxies: Andromeda and its companions, the Triangulum spiral and, if the air is steady, the faint arms of M74.
What we will look at
The Andromeda Galaxy and its companions M32 and M110
The Triangulum Galaxy, M33
The Phantom Galaxy, M74
The Owl Cluster in Cassiopeia
Instruments
40 cm Dobsonian reflector
152 mm apochromatic refractor
15x70 binoculars
What to bring
Warm layers, a hat and gloves
Sturdy shoes
A red torch if you have one
£28 per person · members £18
Most stars come in pairs, and some of the prettiest sights in a telescope are two suns of different colours side by side. A gentle night that works even when the sky is a little hazy.
What we will look at
Albireo, gold and blue
Almach, orange and blue
Mizar and Alcor
Eta Cassiopeiae
Instruments
152 mm apochromatic refractor
Vintage 1912 brass refractor
40 cm Dobsonian reflector
What to bring
Warm layers
Sturdy shoes
Curiosity about colour
£28 per person · members £18
Uranus reaches opposition this month and Neptune is still well placed. We find all three outer planets in one evening, and show you how to tell a planet from a star.
What we will look at
Saturn and its rings
Uranus, a small blue-green disc
Neptune and, on a good night, its moon Triton
The Pleiades rising
Instruments
40 cm Dobsonian reflector
152 mm apochromatic refractor
What to bring
Warm layers
Sturdy shoes
A red torch if you have one
£28 per person · members £18
The Leonids are swift and often bright, debris from the comet Tempel-Tuttle. The first-quarter Moon sets around midnight, leaving the best hours dark.
What we will look at
Leonid meteors from the comet Tempel-Tuttle
Leo rising in the east
Jupiter rising late
The winter Milky Way
Instruments
Reclining chairs and blankets
An all-sky camera
15x70 binoculars
What to bring
Very warm layers
A hat and gloves
A flask if you like
£24 per person · members £15
A waxing gibbous Moon riding high in Taurus, with the Pleiades nearby. Craters along the terminator first, then the cluster in binoculars.
What we will look at
Craters along the terminator
The Pleiades
The Hyades and Aldebaran
Saturn
Instruments
152 mm apochromatic refractor
40 cm Dobsonian reflector
15x70 binoculars
What to bring
Warm layers
Your phone for Moon photography
A red torch if you have one
£28 per person · members £18
Orion climbs out of the trees by mid-evening, and with it the finest nebula in the northern sky. A waning Moon rises late, so the early hours are dark.
What we will look at
The Orion Nebula and the Trapezium
The Crab Nebula, M1
The Pleiades
The Double Cluster
Instruments
40 cm Dobsonian reflector with a nebula filter
152 mm apochromatic refractor
15x70 binoculars
What to bring
Very warm layers, December nights on the moor are cold
A hat and gloves
Sturdy shoes
£28 per person · members £18
The richest meteor shower of the year falls just after new Moon this time, so the sky is properly dark. Geminids are slow and often bright, and they start early in the evening.
What we will look at
Geminid meteors from the asteroid Phaethon
Jupiter rising in the east
The Orion Nebula
The Pleiades
Instruments
Reclining chairs and blankets
An all-sky camera
15x70 binoculars
What to bring
Very warm layers
A hat and gloves
A flask if you like
£24 per person · members £15
Jupiter is climbing toward its best, its four large moons shuffling from night to night. We will watch the cloud belts turn and catch the first-quarter Moon before it sets.
What we will look at
Jupiter, its cloud belts and Galilean moons
The first-quarter Moon
Saturn, low in the west
The Orion Nebula
Instruments
40 cm Dobsonian reflector
152 mm apochromatic refractor
What to bring
Very warm layers
Sturdy shoes
A red torch if you have one
£28 per person · members £18
The day after new Moon: the darkest sky of the month. Winter clusters, the Orion Nebula and, for the patient, the faint glow of the Rosette.
What we will look at
The Orion Nebula
The Rosette Nebula
M35, M36, M37 and M38
The Andromeda Galaxy, low in the west
Instruments
40 cm Dobsonian reflector with a nebula filter
152 mm apochromatic refractor
What to bring
Very warm layers
A hat and gloves
Sturdy shoes
£28 per person · members £18
Mars is heading for opposition in February and is brightening week by week. We will look for its polar cap and dark markings, with Jupiter and the first-quarter Moon for company.
What we will look at
Mars and its north polar cap
Jupiter and its moons
The first-quarter Moon
Castor, a six-star system
Instruments
40 cm Dobsonian reflector
152 mm apochromatic refractor
What to bring
Very warm layers
Sturdy shoes
A red torch if you have one
£28 per person · members £18

Brass astronomical instruments in low light

On the deck

The instruments

40 cm Dobsonian reflector: Our largest telescope on the deck. It gathers about three thousand times more light than your eye: galaxies, nebulae and faint clusters.
152 mm apochromatic refractor: Pin-sharp and colour-true. The one for the Moon, the planets and double stars.
1912 brass refractor: A 100 mm Cooke refractor, restored by our volunteers. Seeing Saturn through it feels like looking back a century.
Binoculars on parallelogram mounts: Wide, comfortable views of star clusters and the Milky Way, for anyone who finds an eyepiece awkward.

If the clouds roll in

We watch the forecast all day and decide by four o'clock. If it looks hopeless, we email and text you to move to another night, or refund you in full if you prefer.

If it is only partly cloudy we go ahead: gaps are often enough for the Moon and planets, and we chase the clear patches with the smaller telescopes.

If the sky closes over after we start, we move inside to the dome for a live tour of what you would have seen, and you are welcome back on any night this season.