Christmas Stargazing with the Newbury Astronomical Society (CANCELLED)

UPDATED 05/12/23 This event has been cancelled due to poor weather forecast.

Explore the night sky from the rooftop of the Kennet Centre Car Park with the friendly astronomers from the Newbury Astronomical Society at this FREE stargazing event.

This stargazing session is weather-dependent and may move to the 6th or 7th of December. Please check the Newbury Astronomical Society website each day for updates.

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The cold, crisp winter nights are when skies can seem the darkest and clearest, and there’s plenty to see. The mighty planet Jupiter will be high in the south, outshining anything else, and there will also be a chance to spot the ringed planet Saturn. Meanwhile, as the evening progresses, there should be the chance to see the life cycle of a star, from its birth in the Orion Nebula through early life in a star cluster like the Seven Sisters, then spot the Red Giant Betelgeuse as it nears the end of its life, one day expected to leave a supernova remnant like the Crab Nebula.

Finally, there’s the chance to look across the gulf of intergalactic space to an entire island universe – the mighty Andromeda Galaxy – larger than our own Milky Way and so far away that the light you see has been travelling for 2.5 million years to get here.