Who invented the southern constellations?

Our speed over ground aboard Polaris reads 16kts. It’s midnight and the black, star-studded sky jigs around overhead. I’m tethered to the helm, watching our instruments like a hawk as I bear away to t

Star and deep-sky catalogues are crucial resources for making sense of the night sky. There are a lot of them, though – so many, in fact, that you almost need a catalogue of catalogues to keep track o

A few years ago, we bought my father a sundial. It was a decent 18th-century style reproduction in lead – something he had wanted for a very long time – and then, inevitably, he asked me to help him s

Imagine an early human out on the savannah, stepping away from the evening fire, glancing up at the dark sky and being totally captivated by the tiny, twinkling sparks dotted everywhere. Eyes wide, he

Isn’t it amazing that astronomy – humanity’s oldest science – continues to generate such a delightful amount of new knowledge? Seeing as we’ve been studying the motion of the stars for a good long whi

The King’s Observatory, Kew, London The home of Robbie Brothers