| The county of Lincolnshire in Eastern England has some of the best skies for viewing the night sky that I have come across in my travels around the UK. Being a very rural county there is not the overpowering preponderance of street lighting that has sprawled over many parts of our fair country. Although Lincolnshire has several modest sized towns you can still find dark skies in the 'Wolds' chalk landscape of the northern half of the county and to a lesser extent a few sites near the coast in southern Lincolnshire (although to be honest the recent floodlighting of Boston's St Botolphs Church has caused a general lightening of the skies in this part of the county). A visit to me by a good friend from Liverpool some years ago confirmed what I had observed of my dark skies by commenting that it was almost as good as his observing site in the North Welsh mountains! |
| Perhaps because of it's rural & generally good night time landscape Lincolnshire now has 6 Astronomical societies that between them cater for most of the county. Lincoln A.S. is the oldest followed by Cleethorpes and District A.S. whilst Boston and SoLAGS formed within a year of each other. A fifth society has been set up near Grantham calling themselves Newton's Astronomical Society and a sixth group has been formed in North Lincolnshire and it is hoped that they are both successful. All are either well established or becoming so and always welcome new members and occasionally get together for special joint meetings such as the recently formed LASA (Lincolnshire Astronomy and Space Association). All of them have at one time or another got together to observe special sky events such as Grazing Occultation's of stars by the moon etc and have undertaken joint trips to places of astronomical interest. If you are local to any of them why not go to their next meetings and join in exploring the Universe around us, all groups need members to be able to put on guest talks & other special events so do suport them as much as you can. So if you are in Lincolnshire as a resident or just passing through then take a look at the following links to find out more about each of the groups. |
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