Shetland Hints and Tips

What can be seen in the Shetland Night sky- well nothing at present as it is too light. Harry Rose recently gave a very interesting talk, in which he indicated that providing you are not near a light polluted area you can actually see a lot in the Shetland night sky.

He showed the benefits of using binoculars either 8x40 which has a wide view or very high powered but tripod mounted version.

With so much to see in the sky, Harry recomended being as comfortable as possible, warm clothing and a good chair, even a deck chair or perhaps laying on the ground in a sleeping bag.

A massive amount of stars can be seen in these dark skies and he provided an insight into where and when to look for key star clusters. Knowing a few star groups such as the Plough, the Pole star Cassiopeia or Orion can be a great help in locating other star clusters and even the Milky Way.

It was interesting to hear about massive distances that would be necessary to travel across certain objects such as the Orion nebula, more miles than we can comprehend. That's not all, what we are looking at is the past as light travels slowly and it might be millions of year before the light from a star arrives on earth.

Harry explained everything in terms that everyone could understand, rekindling interests that have laid dormant in people for years. He was very enthusiastic about what could be seen in Shetland skies, much more than other places in the UK that have more light pollution.

The nights are now getting darker so it wont be long until we can all get out and start photographing the night sky