The Sky at Night S2023E08 - The Sky at Night Meets The Infinite Monkey Cage

In this special episode to mark the end of another season of The Sky at Night, we team up with Radio 4's The Infinite Monkey Cage to talk all things amateur astronomy. Join Maggie, Chris and Pete, alongside Professor Brian Cox and comedians Robin Ince and Dara Ó Briain, in front of a live audience at the BBC's Radio Theatre. Together they discuss their love of stargazing and share their top tips and favourite kit for looking up at the night sky.

Outside the Radio Theatre, Pete hosts a Star Party. He joins fellow amateur astronomers hoping to get views of the Moon, as well as the giant planets Saturn and Jupiter, using binoculars, telescopes – and the naked eye. But will the clouds part for long enough?

We look back at 66 years of stargazing - and cloudy skies - with The Sky at Night, including some very familiar, but much younger, faces. And of course, Sir Patrick Moore.

Pete invites Professor Leigh Fletcher from the University of Leicester to the Star Party. Leigh explains how images from amateur astronomers on Earth have been used to direct the camera onboard Nasa's Juno mission to Jupiter. And amateurs are playing a critical role in processing the data and images sent back from this gas giant.

And Dr George Dransfield meets Dr Martin Archer from Imperial College London to discover how we can get involved with space science - even when it's cloudy. Martin is involved in a Nasa project called Harp, which is asking citizen scientists to listen to outer space. Martin took inspiration from his previous career as a radio DJ to convert plasma waves that travel through space into sound waves. By analysing these sound waves, we can help scientists work out the impact these plasma waves might have on us here on Earth.