Since the name of Nicolaus Copernicus is still well known nearly five hundred years after his death, why was his grave unmarked until 2010? Find out about the life of the quiet revolutionary that turned our view of the universe inside out.

In the 16th century everyone knew that Earth was the center of the cosmos. But this made it impossible to predict the motions of heavenly bodies, even if they moved in elaborate circles within circles. Copernicus turned the idea on its head and put the Sun at the center. A revolution had begun!

The day job of one reluctant revolutionary was canon of a cathedral. And the last resting place of the man who turned astronomy on its head, Nicolaus Copernicus, was unmarked. How did his student astronomy books help to identify his remains four and a half centuries later?

Constellations, asterisms, galaxies and star clusters are all groups of stars. So how are they different? Why isn’t the Big Dipper a constellation? Where are the globular clusters? And if Saturn is in Virgo, has it left the Solar System?

Ill omens, objects of fascination, bringers of life, key to the ancient history of the Solar System. Comets are all of these things. Find out more about these small Solar System bodies.

How many, and what kinds of birds are there around? How do we classify a million galaxies in sky survey images? How dark is the sky? Citizen scientists help to find out all of these things - and more. You could be a citizen scientist too.

Christmas is a special day with a magic of its own. A Christmas eclipse is a great treat and centuries ago a long-awaited comet finally showed up on Christmas day. On the other hand, imagine spending the holidays a quarter of a million miles from home as the crew of Apollo 8 did.

You've learned about the night sky with binoculars and you want to see more. What kind of telescope is good for a beginner? Here are some hints for choosing and using your first telescope. They've come a long way since Galileo first looked up through a telescope.

Whale or monster? Benign plankton-eating creature or terrifying colossus, a hybrid with gaping jaws and the powerful scaly coils of a sea serpent? This is the constellation Cetus. The monster fell to the hero Perseus, but the stars and deep sky objects are impressive.

Bode's Law predicted a planet between Mars and Jupiter. The Sky Police were looking for it, but Giuseppe Piazzi found it on New Year's Day 1801. Then someone found another one. And another one. We know of hundreds of thousands of asteroids now. Discover Ceres - planet, asteroid and dwarf planet.