
Steaming and Stargazing at Crofton Beam Engines
Saturday 27th September 2025 from 18:30pm to 22:00pm
Crofton Beam Engines
Crofton, Marlborough, Wiltshire, SN8 3DW, South West England
An evening of Astronomy: Crofton is located in a ‘dark skies’ area, so to help us celebrate our evening steaming. Local astronomers will have their telescopes set up for visitors to marvel at the heavens (weather permitting!).
Richard Fleet will give two presentations during the evening entitled “Where are we going”. This will be a look at our motion through the Galaxy and beyond. The first lecture at 7pm and the second at 8pm, so you will have plenty of opportunity to see our engines working and to take in the talk.
Once it is dark there will be plenty of opportunity to view the night sky through the telescopes of members of the society. Please dress warmly and do bring binoculars.
We’ll have refreshments available from Smithy Tea Room, and we have invited the excellent fresh Pizza makers ‘Pizza Lola’ to site once more.
Entry is £10 per adult, under 16 go free, NB Annual Steaming passes will not be valid for this special event.
Event booking
Event darkness
The below chart shows if and when the skies will be at their darkest during this event. Moonlight is shown in light yellow and the Sun's twilight in light blue. Midnight on the date shown is shown as a white line with sunset to the left and sunrise the next morning to the right. A black background with stars shows the best times for stargazing.

Sat 27th Sep
Local light pollution
Crofton Beam Engines is estimated to have light pollution levels similar to a semi-rural location based on the latest data from the VIIRS satellite.
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Urban
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Suburban
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Semi-rural
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Rural
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Dark site
The above demonstrates the estimated effect of light pollution - graphics created using Stellarium.
Forthcoming events
Below is a list of events at Crofton Beam Engines. View these events on our calendar, add them to your calendar or Google Calendar.
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