Forget staying up late-All Abount Space reveals how you can get stuck into observing without waiting until the small hours

Written by Stuart Atkinson

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When most people think of astronomy they picture someone standing outside on a sparkling clear night, gazing up at the wonders of the universe, perhaps using a telescope or pair of binoculars, or just sweeping the night sky with their eyes, taking in the view of stars, planets, the Milky Way and other natural nocturnal wonders. Indeed, a Google image search for ‘astronomy’ will bring up hundreds - even thousands - of pictures of people standing on their own, or in a small group, peering into telescopes beneath a star-dusted sky long after the rest of the world has gone to bed.

As the old joke goes, astronomy is the perfect hobby for three types of people: insomniacs, burglars and vampires. But astronomy doesn’t have to be such an antisocial pastime, and it doesn’t have to be done between sunset and sunrise either.

It’s possible to do astronomy in the daytime; in fact, it’s a good idea for every stargazer and sky-watcher to know what there is to see in the daytime sky because those aforementioned sparkling clear nights are few and far between, and when they eventually arrive our views of celestial phenomena and events are often spoiled because of light pollution. So, what can you see in the daytime sky?

The Sun

TARGET #1

While it’s our nearest star, the Sun can be a challenging target without the right equipment

The most obvious thing to look for and study in the daytime sky is the Sun. One of the very first things that someone ‘getting into’ astronomy learns - and is amazed by - is that the bright white ball they have seen shining brightly in the sky above them all their lives is in fact a star - the closest star to Earth. The night sky is full of distant suns, each tiny, twinkling dot a star like our own. Well, not exactly like it; some stars are bigger than our Sun, while some are smaller. Some are hotter, and some are cooler. However, like all the stars in the night sky, our Sun is an enormous, hot ball of gas that keeps burning through the process of nuclear fusion, providing us here on Earth with the light, heat and energy we need to survive. And because the Sun is a star, when you look at it you are definitely doing astronomy.

The good news for anyone wanting to observe the Sun is that it is much closer than almost every other astronomical object. Just 150 million kilometres (93 million miles) away, it is nearer to Earth than everything except the Moon and a couple of Earth’s sister planets. Its close proximity means we are able to see and study it in great detail from here on Earth - but only if we use the right equipment. The Sun is incredibly bright, and it is so bright because it is so hot: on its surface the temperature is a stunning 6,000 degrees Celsius (10,832 degrees Fahrenheit), and its core is even hotter. That means anyone wanting to observe the Sun has to take care and use special equipment and techniques, or else they risk serious eye injury or even permanent blindness. With the right gear, and a healthy amount of caution and common sense, our closest star can be a fascinating object to study before the more distant stars come out.