Amateur Astronomy Resources

General Stargazing, News & Basics

• Sky & Telescope Magazine
• Space Weather (The Sun-Earth environment, Meteors & news)
• Popular Astronomy Forums (Cloudy Nights)
• Astronomy Picture Of the day (APOD)
• The legendary Mel Bartel's site
• BBC's Sky at Night
• The LINEAR Project (pdf)
• Go StarGazing

Solar System & Near Space

• Inconstant Moon (Loads of lunar info)
• Moonstick (A lunar slide rule?)
• Nasa's Visible Earth site (A look at the Earth from Space)
• Cassini-Huygens Mission to Saturn and Titan
• Nasa IMAGE Science Center (Magnetopause-to-Aurora)
• Solar System Live
• CelesTrak WWW (Orbital Data)

Online Planning & Calculators

• Google Sky (Online planetarium)
• Your Sky (Interactive planetarium)
• DSO Browser (Deep Sky Object planning)
• S&T Magazine - Interactive Tools
• Comet Watch (Details of upcoming Comets)
• Field of View Calculator
• Celestial to Horizon Co-ordinates Calculator
• Astrometry.Net (Image solving for astrophotographers)

Catalogs & Telescope Control

• Messier Objects Guide
• Caldwell Catalogue
• Heavens Above (ISS/Satellite predictions)
• PHD2 Guiding (Telescope guiding software)
• ASCOM (Interface standards for astronomical drivers)
• Red Screen (Turns PC screen red for dark adaption)
• Printable Observing Logbook Templates

Image Capture Software

• SharpCap (Free easy-to-use camera capture tool)
• FireCapture (Popular planetary imaging freeware)
• Astro Photography Tool (APT - Swiss army knife for imaging sessions)

General Guides

• Astrophotography by Jerry Lodriguss
• CCD Amateur Astronomy
• Calibration Frames Guide (Darks, Flats, Biases)

Stacking & Image Processing

• Deep Sky Stacker (Stacking deep-sky images)
• AutoStakkert (Extracts sharpest portions of video frames)
• RegiStax (Process video and still files for detail)
• Planetary Imaging PreProcessor (PIPP - Pre-processing utility)
• WinJUPOS (De-rotates planetary images)
• PixInsight Core Tutorials
• Photoshop/GIMP Astrophotography Workflow

Space & Professional Telescopes

• Hubble Space Telescope (HST)
• The Spitzer Space Telescope (Infrared Telescope Facility)
• Subaru Telescope in Hawaii (8.2m optical-infrared)
• The Liverpool Telescope (2.0m fully robotic)
• Faulkes Telescope Project (Research class for Schools)

Observatories & Large Amateur Builds

• The Institute of Astronomy at Cambridge
• Anglo-Australian Observatory
• Jodrell Bank Observatory
• National Astronomical Observatory of Japan
• Dan Bakken's "Hercules" (Large Amateur Build)
• Bruce Sayre's Large Newtonian Binocular Telescope page
• Bradford Robotic Telescope

Observing Weather Forecasts

Includes specific forecasts for the Milton Keynes, UK area.

• Metcheck (Pre-targeted for Milton Keynes)
• Forecast for Milton Keynes from Clear Outside
• Forecast for Milton Keynes from the UK Met Office
• Cloud cover forecast for the UK Met Office
• Global weather charts (Watervapor and Infrared)
• Clear Sky Charts (General Forecasting)

Celestial Events & Solar Activity

• NASA's Eclipse pages (Fred Espenak)
• International Meteor Organisation (IMO)
• Aurora map forecast (Essential alert site - NOAA)
• AuroraWatch UK
• SOHO (Observe the Sun in different modes)
• Big Bear Observatory (Find out how the Sun looks today)
• Atmospheric Optics
• Comet Information and the International Comet Quarterly (ICQ)

Juniors Astronomers & DIY Projects

• Telescopes for Kids Resource Guide
• Icon Wall Stickers (Space wall decals)
• Build your own observatory (How to build a home observatory)

Commercial Links

• Harrison Telescopes Ltd
• UK Telescopes (Konus, Pentaflex, Kson, Celestron and Meade)
• UK Astronomy Buy & Sell (Used Telescopes)
• Green Witch in Arizona
• AstroMediaShop (Cardboard kits and optical components)
• The comprehensive Astronomy Beginner's guide (S&T)

Astrophotography, Posters & Stock Images

• Deep Sky Photo Gallery
• Space Poster Stores Online
• NASA Image Archive (Public Domain)
• ESA/Hubble Images & Videos (Public Domain)

Light Pollution & Dark Sky

• UK Dark Sky Observing Site Finder (Dark Sage)
• Dark Sky Discovery Sites (UK)
• International Dark-Sky Association (IDA)