Milky Way Panorama - Malham, Yorkshire
Astronomy in the UK By Stephen Cheatley
Astronomy is a fascinating subject to learn as it opens up a vast range of interesting things that are beyond the earth that we all live on. There are many questions as to how things in the universe are the way they are, and how our own planet and life on it got started.
T
hese are the big questions that got me into astronomy in the first place. Since as long back as I can remember, I was always interested space, possibility of life on other worlds including aliens and UFOs.
In November 2009 I booked an aurora sightseeing flight from 52
Blackpool Airport after seeing an advert in an astronomy magazine. The 90 minute flight was booked full, and we flew up to the far north of Scotland, and circled around the Shetland Islands so that the passengers might get a sighting of the famous Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights. The fact that we were flying at 35,000ft altitude over a dark part of the UK and all the lights in the plane were turned off really helped us to see the amazing night sky outside much easier because our eyes could adapt to the darkness. This is where I learned how important it is to avoid light pollution and how to let my eyes adapt to darkness, so I could see faint things, like the Milky Way easier. We did not get a very strong aurora, unfortunately, but I was blown away by the sight of the Milky
LANCASHIRE & NORTH WEST MAGAZINE
Way and the sheer amount of stars I could see through little window of the plane. I had never seen so many stars in my life, and it was this sighting that really got me interested in taking astronomy much more seriously. www.lancmag.com
