‘Mind-blowing’: dark-sky fans gather on Exmoor to see what light pollution hides

The UK is 14th most light-polluted country, but in south-west England the veil is lifted at the dark skies festival “It’s just mind-blowing,” says the astronomer and teacher Jo Richardson. She is standing in Exmoor national park talking about Saturn, the first planet she ever saw through a telescope. But it is not the cosmic colour of the planet that Richardson is drawn to, nor its mysteries – it is the vastness. “Saturn, on average, is 800m miles away,” she says, the equivalent to travelling the circumference of the Earth 32,000 times. “You can see it through a telescope here. That’s just nuts.” Continue reading...