Becoming a proper, bona-fide card-carrying astronomer isn't as difficult as it sounds. Here's how to do it in four easy steps:

Step 1. Wait for a clear, dark night
Step 2. Go outside
Step 3. Move as away from any artificial lights as you can
Step 4. Look up

There. That’s it. Congratulations. You’re now (un-officially!) an astronomer.

Truthfully, that’s all there is. Your first step on a journey towards understanding this wonderful sandbox we call the Universe.

Okay, so what do you see? Assuming you’re not standing right beneath a street light, you should, with luck, see lots and lots of little bright lights, all twinkling against the inky backdrop of space. What are they? Simple. There are stars, planets, moons, satellites and so much more. Even on a quiet night, when there’s apparently nothing major happening in the sky, you can go outside and see something of note. Sometimes it’s an old familiar constellation returning to the sky as summer gives way to autumn, or an unusual atmospheric phenomena or maybe it’s something fleeting, like a shooting star or even a space station.

Simulation of various degrees of light pollution. Inner city regions can see very little because there are so many street lights. Away from light pollution, you can see so much more. Stars, planets, galaxies and space stations. They're all there, waiting to be discovered.

Finding your way : The problem of Light Pollution

Firstly, there are the stars. How many stars you can see depends very much on the amount of light pollution you have to contend with. Out in the countryside and away from as much artificial lighting as possible, you’ll see thousands upon thousands of stars. Observers in the inner city regions have to be content with just a handful of the brighter specimens. Light pollution is a major problem for budding astronomers and, generally speaking, cities are not a good place start observing. However, if that’s what you’re stuck with then… we’ll just have to make the best of it but, if you can, get away from all sources of artificial light. Get in the car (if you have one) and go for a drive. You won’t regret it.

Just a quick look will tell you that not all of the stars are the same. Some are brighter than others, some are a different colour, maybe a rich deep red or a cold, clean blue. These differences are important because they tell us a lot about the particular star, for instance how old it is, where it came from, where it is in its life cycle and, ultimately how it will start its final journey.

How do you make sense of all of these stars?

[They’re just random patterns, right?]


Constellation of Orion, the Hunter	Constellation: Ursa Major, the Great Bear/Big Dipper

For convenience, the stars are grouped into constellations and, in general, we stick with the names the ancients gave us several thousand years ago. You’re probably already familiar with many constellations thanks largely to the daily Horoscopes, which appear with tedious regularity in the majority of magazines and newspapers. Your ‘birth sign’, be it Capricorn, Aries, Gemini or any of the others (I’m a Pisces!), represents a grouping of stars which was actually named by ancient Babylonian astronomers around five thousand years ago.

As a small point of note, horoscopes and astrology are the ugly sisters of modern astronomy. Please do not confuse astrology and astronomy. Astrology is not a science.

Different cultures have different names for the stars and their constellations. In the West, we’re most familiar with those based around Greek and Roman mythology - Taurus the Bull, Orion the Hunter, Aquarius the Water Bearer etc. although a few constellations have more modern names. For instance, Ursa Major, or The Great Bear as it’s popularly known in the UK, is called the Big Dipper in the United States, or occasionally The Plough. Back in when the Stuart Kings were on the thrown in England and Scotland, the same constellation was known as King Charles’ Wain and alludes to its use as a means of telling the time. Back then, very few people had reliable clocks and, if the sky was clear and you could see this constellation then you could estimate the time within an hour or so.

Many of the constellations in the southern hemisphere were not observed by European explorers until well into the 16th and 17th centuries and so they carry more modern names such as Telescopium (The Telescope), Tucana (The Toucan) and Fornax (the Furnace).

Learning the constellations, working out where they fit in the celestial jigsaw puzzle, what time they rise and set etc, is the easiest and most cost effective way of enjoying astronomy, essentially because you can do it all with the unaided eye. You don’t need the aid of an expensive instrument. All you really need is a good pair of eyes, a decent guide book and some patience.