The sun the moon and the stars. They all fascinate me. I have been interested in Astronomy since I was about eight or nine years old. My parents bought me a children’s encyclopedia in which was a description of our solar system. I began to realise how the earth along with all the other planets revolved around this star we call the sun and that this star was very much an average, if not below average star, one of thousands of millions which formed the Galaxy we call the Milky Way. It didn’t stop there either. The galaxy, our galaxy is one of countless thousands, millions which form our known Universe.
The place is BIG. We as human beings think ourselves to be something and we are but in the great scheme of things which we can see all around us, we are an insignificant tiny speck. I believe we are special though, special to our Creator but that is another subject.
Go outside on a clear moonless night, look to the skies and marvel at such a creation. It is something to behold.

See for yourself and imagine what it is like out there. Just look at these pictures………

Above is a picture of the full Moon.
Next we have all the planets which circle our sun. Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and finally Pluto…

This (on the right) is an unusual looking object….

Knicknamed ‘The eye of God’, it is a Nebula and it was first seen in 1824 by a German astronomer. A nebula is a cloud but not in the same sense as a terrestrial cloud. Each particle that the nebula is composed of may be miles apart but from a distance appear to be closely linked. This nebula is the remnant of a star which exploded as a supernova many years ago and the ‘gases’ are still expanding. The colours are due to radiation energising the particles, for instance the blue area is that colour because of ultra violet radiation. The blue area is about two light years across (the distance a beam of light would travel in two years at a speed of 186,000 miles per second). That gives an idea of just how large it is. It is approximately 700 light years away from us. It is inside our Galaxy of course so that gives an idea of the vastness of our galaxy, one of countless thousands we know of! Further up this page is a picture of another nebula.

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Check out the links in the Astronomy and Magazine Pages on the right.
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