A stellar Valentine's Day

A sky spangled with stars, love songs well known and cherished, romantic poetry recited with passion and affection, champagne in take-home flutes, a night with the one you love....this is becoming a treasured tradition at Auckland's Stardome Observatory, where Valentine's Day is celebrated and shared with many couples from many walks of life. This year is no exception.

My colleague Mel is running all 4 Valentine's Day shows this year - the pre-candle-lit dinner shows at 7 and 8 pm, and the romance-after-dinner shows at 9 and 10 pm. She has been working with all sorts of exciting ides so it should be a great show. Check it out here or (09) 624 1246.0

I love the 10 pm show - it's pitch dark inside the planetarium as the night sky show is projected onto the domed ceiling along with the Heart on Mars, the Jewel Box and the aptly named Rosette Nebula and it's dark outside with telescope viewing if the weather is clear. Afterwards, you can stroll down to your car in the still summer air (punctuated occasionally by the bleating of sheep further up the hill - but where else can you pretend to be wandering arm-in-arm in a tranquil rural setting when you're in the middle of Auckland?)

And Valentine visitors to the Stardome might even catch a glimpse of zippy little comet Lulin gracing and racing across our evening skies by then but not as big, bold and beautiful as Comet McNaught in 2007 and no doubt still requiring binoculars and telescopes to see it although sharp eyes might spot it. It was discovered as a result of a joint venture between Taiwanese and Chinese astronomers, which just has to be a success story of togetherness fit for a romantic night under the stars....

First past the post

If you live in a city where it rains during most seasons and street lights shine not downwards to assist the inhabitants but upwards to obscure the Magellanic Clouds (and the streets), you might wonder how any fellow citizen could become an astronomer let alone remain one for any length of time.

Well, there are many of us insane enough to take on the challenge of being visual astronomers in suburbia and this blog site is set up in the infectious frenzy of the International Year of Astronomy to share the delights of backyard astronomy even amongst the light pollution, non-tradeable emissions of all descriptions and the ever-threatening clouds. We do have some good nights in the Big Ork, otherwise known as Jafa-vile (no, it doesn't have two "f"s or two "l"s) and the clear crisp rural skies are not too far away if we want to fleetingly flee the big smoke before our cappuccino-culture debts and necessary day-jobs drag us inexorably back.

So welcome to this site and I hope firstly that you enjoy my passion for sharing the Auckland night sky and secondly that you can feel free to contribute your own experience of naked eye viewing...even if you do live in Wellington.