Stargazer Astronomy Group is about to commence its annual activities, in collaboration with the Institute of Space Science and Astronomy (ISSA), and the Astronomical Society (AS).

This year is the 15th anniversary of the group’s inception, when the Physics Coordinator of that time, Mr Paul Xuereb brought about the idea of starting this group. Changes in technology and new links with ISSA and the AS have brought about a huge leap from the initial activities.

This year’s first activity is planned for the 7th of November at the Junior College, when lecturers from ISSA will make an outreach to our students about the Institute’s research activities in astronomy and cosmology.

On the 15th of November the Group will hold its annual night time stargazing activity at tas-Silg, this year being ideal for planet viewing. During last year’s activity we focused on deep sky astrophotography, whereas this year, weather permitting, we will focus on planetary photography.

Other future activities are in the pipeline, including the annual visit to the ISSA labs at University and the manipulation of raw astronomical photography data with specialised software.

An increasing number of students are taking up Stargazing as part of their Enrichment Programme at JC, and there are students who are taking this topic for their SOK project in conjunction with ISSA.