Christopher Wren designed the Greenwich Royal Observatory in 1675. Two centuries later the Prime Meridian of the world, 0° of longitude, was established there. Besides its historical interest, the site is a leader in bringing astronomy to the public, in part through the Peter Harrison Planetarium.

Total solar eclipse: the Sun a black circle framed by an ethereal corona. Dark enough to see stars, and for birds to go to sleep – yet an eerie darkness unlike night. The Sun can also be eclipsed on other Solar System planets as long as they have moons. But what would we see from our own Moon?

Earth's moon is “the Moon” because it was the only one humans had ever seen until 1610. That's when Galileo discovered moons orbiting Jupiter. By 1876 astronomers had found moons around all of the outer planets. So why did it take until 1877 for someone to find the moons of our neighbor Mars?

Can sound travel in space? The short answer is no, but it's not so simple. The Sun produces sound waves we can't hear. And then there's a black hole that astronomers have detected endlessly singing a B-flat over tens of thousands of light years.

There are three constellations named for dogs, but what about cats in the sky? There is astrocat Felicette who went into space and returned safely to Earth, but also constellations of big cats and a pawprint 50 light years across.

We take the Moon for granted, because it's so close to us and easy to see. But it's a beautiful and interesting object as it goes through its monthly changes. If you use a pair of binoculars, you can learn to recognize many of its main features. Some of them are visible without binoculars too.