Hi there and welcome to Astronomy Central, a site packed with up to date and useful astronomy information, astronomy news, a lively community, and more.
I’m an amateur astronomer, and have been interested in astronomy and space for probably all of my life. There’s nothing quite like seeing the Milky Way arching overhead in superb dark skies…part of the Galaxy’s spiral arm laid out right there for you, packed with star clouds and star clusters. I remember a lot of years back when I first looked at Jupiter through some binoculars, at the time I wasn’t even completely sure it was Jupiter, and I thought the four pinpoints of light around it could be stars of some kind in the background. Back then it never actually dawned on me that they were its moons, and would never have thought you could see them with just a normal pair of binoculars. Ok, in my defense they were pre internet days and a walk to the local library soon put me straight, that was Google back then and the search time was really slow!
After that I got a look at Saturn for the very first time through a small refractor. I could not believe I could actually see Saturn’s rings with a small scope…just about yes, but there they where, 800 million miles out there in space. Wanting to see further and with more detail I then built a 10 inch aperture Dobsonian telescope, a light bucket, perfect for teasing out those faint galaxies, millions of light years away floating in the darkness. I now also own an 8 inch Skywatcher Explorer 200p reflecting telescope, as well as various pairs of binoculars.
With this site I aim to educate, inspire, and communicate the sheer weirdness, violence, and beauty of what’s out there in space. Together with this I give useful information about finding interesting objects in the night sky. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a complete beginner who wants to learn the night sky with your naked eyes or binoculars, or you’re a more experienced observer, there’s always something here for you. You’ll find accurate and up to date astronomy resources, including some pages that get updated daily. If you want to know what planets you can see in the sky tonight then go here Planets To See In The Sky Tonight, or to look around the sky with binoculars The Night Sky With Binoculars Tonight. Check out this year’s meteor showers with all the info you’ll need to see them. There’s every object in the Messier Catalogue here too, listed in the sidebar. Looking for what’s happening in space science and astronomy? You’ll find links to my high quality space and astronomy news articles on the Home Page, where I also often post the latest and best videos, see past videos here. Also on the Home Page you’ll find a link to the general articles page. There’s lots more on the site but these are some pointers to get you going. All website content is written by me in a style that fully explains, while also making it enjoyable for you to read.
Click on the buttons at top left to subscribe to the Astronomy Central RSS feed (any reader), and to follow me on Twitter. At the bottom of every page you can easily share content straight to Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon etc
Dying to share your astronomy thoughts or questions, or to check in to see what others are talking about and make friends? No problem, we have a lively, friendly and growing community in the form of our Discussion Forum. If you’re a complete novice be sure to check out the category “Beginner’s Corner”, always a good place to start. You can quickly get instant access to post your comments and chat to other members by signing up. All that’s required is an email, a username, and a password…no hassle, simple, quick and easy!! (Spammers don’t bother)
It doesn’t matter whether you own a telescope or not, the night sky is available to everyone, you just need to look up.
