We had great fun at yesterday's photo-shoot in Ballycroy! The professional photos taken by photographer Michael Quinn will be used to officially launch the festival in the press. But of course everyone there was taking lots of candid shots throughout the day. Our junior astronauts and explorers Lucah, Darragh and Lucia were just fantastic, and we'd like to thank Minister Michael Ring, RTE's Joe Little and Professor Brian Espey from Trinity College Dublin for giving up their

Why not have a listen to the intrepid Manchán Magan on RTE Radio 1 as he visits Letterkeen Woods in Wild Nephin and meets Bríd Colhoun of Ballycroy National Park and Georgia MacMillan of Friends of Mayo Dark Skies? The podcast is available to play or download on the NEWS page. Both Bríd and Georgia are members of the team bringing you this year's Mayo Dark Sky Festival. #news #podcasts

Enjoy this lovely article and sketch by one of our festival speakers Deirdre Kelleghan, writing about the Perseid Meteor Shower which peaks tonight Saturday 12th August ... Get comfy the 2017 Perseids are coming !! About 30 years ago we had a holiday in a remote location in the West of Ireland. The house was high on a grassy ridge on Bolus Head looking over St Finian’s Bay in Co Kerry. From this vantage point the 350 million year old Skellig Rocks rose like stegosaurus plate

We were so pleased to hear from Stephen Kershaw of Ktec Telescopes who will have a display stand in Hotel Newport during the festival, and have generously offered us a TELESCOPE as one of the raffle prizes during our Dark Sky Festival 27-29 October. Stephen and Ktec telescopes are wonderful supporters of all astronomy events in Ireland, do check out their website http://www.ktectelescopes.ie/

Dr. Antonio Martin-Carrillo of UCD Physics Department has been telling us about his talk for Saturday 28th October... "Astronomers constantly use astonishing images of different celestial objects to capture peoples' imaginations and bring astronomy closer to the general public. However, it is quite common that those images are presented showing just the name of the source and with no additional information regarding their nature. Why do scientists care about these images? Is