Every Friday evening during the observing season (September to April), from 9p.m. onwards is set aside for public observing at the Planetarium and Observatory site. Please do not turn up if it is very cloudy and overcast because, contrary to the belief of some visitors, our telescope cannot see through cloud and rain. For details of our next scheduled (provided the sky is clear) public observing session see our public events calendar (for solar observing visit our heliophysical microsite).

On clear nights members of the public are encouraged to come to the park to look through our range of telescopes or occassionally to sit in the warmth of the Planetarium and see images through some of the the telescopes displayed on the front section of the planetarium dome using CCD cameras attached the equipment outside. There are always members of the Cleveland & Darlington and the Durham Astronomical Societies on hand to answer any questions on what you can see in the sky or enter into discussions about the cosmos and its contents. Indeed many members also bring along their own portable telescopes, and set them up in the carpark, to provide yet more instruments for people to view the heavens through. You can't beat actually looking through a telescope on a cold winters evening, it's not quite the same as looking at a camera image in the warmth.

Some members have computer controlled telescopes that can track and find any object in the sky (that you can see from our latitude), keeping it in view whilst the earth rotates under our feet - well worth seeing. They often try to show you objects on view in the night sky that are listed in our observing guides and charts for a particular season. These guides are there to help visitors find these wonders of the night sky for themselves, so if you would like to see something in one of the guides please feel free to ask a volunteer to show you. We also often use green lasers to show visitors around the sky. Please be aware that lasers can be dangerous if not used correctly and that all volunteers using these devices are registered laser users, consequently visitors are not permitted to bring their own lasers to the park.

Volunteers

All of our volunteers are checked by the Criminal Records Bureau for working with children and adults. As the Stockton Borough Council site associated with astronomy any volunteer manning telescopes has had to go through the CRB process. Members of the public are not encouraged to bring their own telescopes along (apart from Telescope Club evenings), for public observing events we can only allow telescopes and other optical equipment to be used by registered volunteers.

Observing can often go on until the small hours of the morning if the visibility is good and there are plenty of interested people about. Please remember, however, that all of this is organised and manned by volunteers who give their time freely and they do have homes to go to!