91Èȱ¬

After last year's successful event, Stargazing Live returns to 91Èȱ¬ Two, 16-18 January 2012.

Last year, up to 40,000 people took part in Stargazing astronomy activities in the UK and in 2012 91Èȱ¬ Learning and the Stargazing Live team are inviting more of you to get involved, with hundreds of events and star parties being organised with partners around the country.

With clear skies being forecast over the next few days we should be in for quite a treat.

Dr Huw Bolton from the National Museum Wales returns with another Stargazing blog explaining what you can expect to see in the night sky at this time of year and what events are taking place in Wales.

Dr Huw Bolton, Conservator - Geology at the National Museum Wales.

Again this year, the National Museum Cardiff will be running a wide range of astronomical events, activities and talks to tie in with the 91Èȱ¬ Two programmes.

Winter is a great time to explore the night sky. The long nights mean that you don't have to stay up too late to do a bit of stargazing.

The constellations visible at this time of year are some of the brightest in the sky, and in early 2012 two bright planets are well placed for viewing.

Jupiter and Venus are in the evening skies this winter and spring, and give an excellent opportunity to tread in the footsteps of Galileo in the winter of 1609-10.

He was the first to see Jupiter's four bright moons orbiting around the planet, and the first to see the phases of Venus - observations that changed humanity's view of the Universe.

Soon after the Sun sets, Venus can be seen shining brilliantly white in the south western sky. It will become ever better placed for observation over the coming months as it moves closer to Earth and develops its spectacular crescent phase.

Jupiter shines pale yellow in the south after sunset, making an interesting naked-eye colour contrast with Venus, reflecting (literally) the different compositions of their cloudy atmospheres.

Jupiter's moons and the crescent of Venus can nowadays be seen using simple binoculars. Our activities at the Museum will include a working model of .

You will be able to see for yourself just how difficult it was to make these remarkable observations 402 years ago, and see how far telescope technology has advanced since then.

By 8pm on these winter nights, the bright winter constellations start to dominate the eastern sky: Orion, Taurus, Gemini and others. The best known pattern is that of with its distinctive hourglass shape. There are many myths surrounding Orion.

This star pattern was seen as a great hunter in Greek mythology, and was placed in the sky far away from his venomous nemesis - the constellation .

Many of the stars in Orion lie at a similar distance, and are of a similar age, as they formed close together in the 'Orion arm' of our spiral Galaxy.

The main stars of Orion itself are white in colour and are therefore extremely hot - with the exception of the spectacular red giant Betelgeuse, which is much cooler, but over a thousand times the diameter of the Sun.

The contrast between the colour of Betelgeuse and the rest of Orion's bright stars can be seen with the naked eye.

Below the three stars of Orion's Belt lies the great Orion Nebula. This is a 'stellar nursery', where stars are being born out of vast clouds of hydrogen gas.

This nebula can be easily seen through binoculars as a glowing greenish patch of light, one of several bright deep-sky objects visible in binoculars at this time of year.

While seeking out this nebula, look also for the spectacular Pleiades star cluster in neighbouring Taurus. The three stars of Orion's Belt point upwards and to the right, straight towards the Pleiades.

Also known as the Seven Sisters of folklore, the Pleiades are one of the great sights of the winter sky.

Moving closer to home, Earth impacts have been in the news recently with the likely crash of the Russian Phobos-Grunt space probe after it failed to leave Earth's orbit.

Broken space probes are not the only hazard to threaten Earth from space - as part of our activities, the museum will be running an impact simulator, so you can see the disastrous effects that a comet or asteroid would have if it hit the Earth.

Smaller meteorites are much more common (and less dangerous) and have certainly landed in Wales in the past, as I have mentioned in my previous blog entry.

If you have found what you think might be a meteorite, bring it along to the museum on the day and we will identify it for you.

So if you want to know more about space and stargazing, come along and speak to us. Take a look through our telescopes, hear talks by professional astronomers, see how the ancients saw the constellations, view our meteorite collections and much more.

Events in Wales:

The National Museum Cardiff will be hosting Star Attractions at the Museum all day Saturday 21st January 2012.

The National Waterfront Museum, Swansea, will be hosting a Star Party on the evening of Friday 20th January. All entry and events are free.

You can also join in with the live programme via Twitter .

Check out the How to Guides for star and Moon guides, planetary activity and audio guides, videos and more.