It takes a good telescope to see deep into space, but it takes a Great Telescope to change how we see the entire universe. In 1845 such a telescope was built by the 3rd Earl of Rosse, in the grounds of his castle in the town of Birr, County Offaly. Read more…
Written by Chris Duffy, PhD Candidate AOP William Herschel, who died 200 years ago this year, is famous for a number of things we take for granted in modern astronomy, not least his discovery of Uranus in 1781 the first planet discovered in the modern era of astronomy. Less known Read more…
Now we come to the penultimate planet in our solar system, the lovely Uranus! That’s Not My Name! Uranus was discovered in March 1781 by astronomer William Herschel. He was observing the stars in the night sky using a telescope that he had built himself when he made the new discovery. Uranus was Read more…
Article by: Tom Watts In collaboration with universities in England, Australia and Thailand, the Armagh Observatory and Planetarium is part of a team operating and commissioning the new Gravitational wave Optical Transient Observatory (GOTO) at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on the island of La Palma. GOTO, once operational, Read more…
We live in a galaxy – a star city with several hundred billion residents. Moreover, we know our Milky Way is a spiral galaxy, with prominent arms of bright young stars that spiral outwards from a central bar that is dominated by old stars. These arms are so prominent as Read more…
Happy New Year! Welcome to January 2016, and if you haven’t made a New Year’s resolution yet (or you have made one but want to sneakily change it,) why not challenge yourself to star gaze this year. Star gazing is a brilliant past time and is a wonderful activity that Read more…
Welcome to October! The nights are now longer and the stars come out earlier. Yes it may be getting close to winter, but who doesn’t like autumn? October is full of exciting events, and one event that we are looking forward to here in the Planetarium is World Space Week. Read more…
There are said to be many unexplained occurrences and phenomenon in the Universe but us science-minded folk like to think we have solved most of those mysterious and unusual events here on Earth. Yet we humans are still baffled by many things, from the whys and hows, humans always search Read more…
Looking back at the history of female astronomers, it was sure to be filled with some drama and struggles. Like many other professions over the centuries women have striven to be allowed to even study astronomy and have their findings honoured and accepted just as their male counterparts have had Read more…
With only two planets in our solar system without moons (Mercury and Venus) our curiosity is a little spoilt for choice. Normally when people begin to search about for information on planets with the most interesting moons dominant planets like Jupiter and Saturn tend to win people’s attention while others Read more…
From early civilizations until today man has sought to explore and discover what is beyond our world. From the ancient discovery of the wandering stars to the thousands of potential new planets found this decade, mankind has sought to make many astronomical advances. However some of these ‘breakthroughs’ that occurred Read more…
Sir Frederick William Herschel is one of the most well-known and highly regarded historical astronomers but many may not know or realise there was more to his genius than his passion for astronomy. So it seems a closer look is required to try and map out the life of such Read more…