1. The International Space Station Visible Over Ireland

The biggest and most expensive spacecraft ever put in orbit, the International Space Station (ISS), is currently visible in our night skies, and will continue to be visible until April 22nd. Tonight (Wednesday, April 10th) it will pass over Ireland at 9:49pm.

Each afternoon Astronomy Ireland will publish the times the ISS will be visible at www.astronomy.ie/iss and you can also receive daily reminders of this time by texting the word SPACE to 57003 (subscription service; one message will be sent each day the ISS is visible and it costs €1 per message received).

If you see the ISS, be sure to email us at observe@astronomy.ie so we can include your observation report in an upcoming issue of Astronomy Ireland.

2. Public Lecture: The GLORIA Project

GLORIA will be the first free and open-access network of telescopes around the world, that can be used anybody with an interest in astronomy, not just professional astronomers! As the network of robotic telescopes will collect vast amounts of data, astronomers will not have time to go through it all. However, the community of people using the telescopes will allow for thousands of people to analyse data and help solve problems in astronomy.

Professor Lorraine Hanlon from the UCD Department of Physics will deliver Astronomy Ireland's Public Lecture on April 29th. She will tell guests at the lecture all about how the GLORIA network of robotic telescopes will work and how people can get involved in using the high-tech equipment.

The lecture will take place in Trinity College Dublin on Monday, April 29th, at 8pm.

For tickets and DVDs of the lecture, please click HERE or call (01) 890 11 11.