University of Hertfordshire Observatory

Today's the day — it's officially T-0!

GET READY: Your full First Look at images from NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory is just hours away! We're about to reveal the preview of the greatest cosmic movie ever made 🎬 #RubinFirstLook #CaptureTheCosmos 🔭🧪

⌚️ 11am US EDT
🔗: ls.st/rubin-first-look-livestream

Ever wondered what the rain sounds like inside one of our steel 🔭 domes?

Here's last night's aurora! 🔭

Point and look is usually enough, on a phone. If it has a night mode or long exposure setting, that will help.

Another image of the Aurora, with stronger purple curtains visible across the sky

It’s very hard to see with the naked eye at the moment, but cameras can pick it up.

An image of the sky with purple aurora

Aurora are visible in UK skies right now! 🔭

And another view!

View from the allsky camera! 🔭

A blue cloud-like spiral in the sky

A dumbbell-shaped bright blue cloud in the sky

One of our students took these spectacular photos earlier this evening, showing what is thought to be fuel from a Falcon 9 rocket! 🔭

Last night, our robotic telescopes 🔭 captured their 110,000th image in autonomous mode. That's 3,475 hours of imaging without human supervision!

Two radio telescopes, with lights around the edges of the dishes

And that’s a wrap for this season’s Open Evenings! Thank you to everyone that came along tonight - we had a great time, and hope you did too!

Open Evenings will return next winter - but there will still be other opportunities to visit us over the summer, so stay tuned!

Tickets are available here: www.herts.ac.uk/bayfordbury/...

There are only a few tickets left for our last Open Evening of the season, for the 17:30 slot on Friday 7th March.
 
The theme for this Open Evening is radio astronomy. The optical telescopes 🔭 will still be open, but we'll also be showing off our unique radio interferometer 📡

An inflatable planetarium underneath the stained glass windows of St Albans cathedral

We've had a great time at @stalbanscathedral.bsky.social this week! We've been there with our mobile planetarium giving shows to local schools, and last night Dr. Emma Curtis-Lake gave a public lecture.

And now we're all back at the observatory for tonight's sold-out Open Evening!

An image of Jupiter, with three of its moons (two to the left, one to the right) visible as pinpricks of light. Jupiter can be seen in detail, with reddish-brown horizontal bands of cloud wrapping around it.

Here's a quick view of Jupiter, taken during a student practical session last night 🔭

From left to right, you can see three of Jupiter's moons: Europa, Ganymede and Io.

You can also see Io's shadow on the face of Jupiter - it is the small dark spot near the upper right edge.

What a great start to #NationalAstronomyWeek at the #DarkSkies event in Hertford. We had a screening of The City Dark film followed by a light switch-off and stargazing with astronomers from Bayfordbury Observatory in Hertford Castle grounds. Frosty and fantastic! #NAW

With severeal telescope domes in the foreground, there is a large circular halo around the Sun. The halo is approximately twice the size of an outstretched hand at arm's length.

Another view of the sun halo, this time with a radio telescope in the foreground.

There is a lovely 22° halo around the Sun this morning. These halos appear when sunlight passes through hexagonal ice crystals in the atmosphere, and can often be seen in the winter months. 🔭

Tickets are available for our penultimate open evening of the season, on Feb 7th with the theme "Aurorae and Our Solar System"

This is a great opportunity to learn about the spectacular aurorae we've witnessed over the past year, and another chance to observe the ongoing planetary parade 🔭

A large inflatable planetarium inside a school hall

Yesterday we ran the first event with our new inflatable planetarium!

From 5th-7th February, we'll be at @stalbanscathedral.bsky.social showcasing the new planetarium as part of their Science Festival Week.

To book us for your school or another event, see here: www.herts.ac.uk/bayfordbury/...

Come and check it out next Friday!

Tickets selling fast:

www.eshop.herts.ac.uk/search?cid=459

#hertfordshire 🔭 #astronomy #herts #BedsBucksHerts

Note that the positions of the planets & moon will change over time, so we’d recommend using a free app or website (e.g. Stellarium) to check where they are on any given night.

Public Open Evenings University of Hertfordshire

If you want to see the parade from a dark sky location, and look at them through a telescope 🔭, then you should consider coming to one of our upcoming open evenings (17th Jan & 7th Feb).

Even if we have bad luck with the weather, there's still plenty to see and do. Tickets are selling fast!

A 360 degree view of the night sky showing Mars, Jupiter, the Moon, Saturn and Venus forming a loose line across the sky.

It's a planetary parade!

Throughout Jan and Feb, you will be able to see four planets lined up in the sky. With a telescope 🔭, you can also see Neptune and Uranus to make it six planets in a row!

This picture was taken with our Allsky camera just before 6pm (GMT) on Tuesday.

A low-angled view of four telescope domes, with frosty grass in the foreground

It's a frosty day here at Bayfordbury 🔭❄️

Public Open Evenings University of Hertfordshire

If you'd like to come to the Open Evening, you can get tickets here:

With our James Webb Space Telescope themed Open Evening coming up on Jan 17th, here's a throwback to when one of our telescopes caught JWST heading to its new home 🔭

Tickets for the next @bayfordburyobs.bsky.social open night selling fast!

We’ve got 4 planets on show in the early evening this month, so don’t miss your chance to see them through our telescopes!

🔭 #hertfordshire #astronomy