Thank you for your interest in registering with the National Schools' Observatory (NSO).

Registration is free, simple and takes less than 5 minutes to complete. Once you are registered you can immediately access all that the NSO has to offer. The main reason we ask you to create an account is to enable you to use the telescope and so the telescope has somewhere to send the observations once completed. We will of course NEVER pass on your data to anyone else without your permission.

• You are a teacher, trainee teacher or home educator working in the UK or Ireland: Register as a Teacher
  
  
• You are a school or FE student in the UK or Ireland:
  • If your teacher is registered, they can create a student account for you
  • Otherwise: you can Register as an NSO User
    
    
• Anyone else (including teachers and educators outside of the UK and Ireland): you can Register as an NSO User

The NSO also provides educational resources to help with the challenging task of teaching science, technology and mathematics in the classroom environment. It has long been known that astronomy creates a sense of excitement and wonder in pupils of all ages. The NSO taps into that interest to further the pupil's knowledge of science and mathematics, while at the same time improve computer literacy and communications skills, strengthen critical thinking and provide experience the real-world application of science and technology.

Using astronomical telescopes is the most important feature of this website and schools registered with the Schools' Observatory have the opportunity to make their observations using the Liverpool Telescope, the world's largest fully robotic telescope. Over the past 12 months, we have had 11694 observing requests from schools.

Once an observing request has been completed, you are able to log in to your NSO account and download the telescope data, then use special image processing software (provided for free via this website) to analyse the resulting images.

You can register in one of two ways:

The following table contains details about the different FREE registration options, we also have a dedicated page to get you started.

Access Level	User	Student	Teacher
Limited access to the Liverpool Telescope
Access to all activities, quizzes and information in our "Things To Do" area
Access to all teacher resources and lesson packs
Comprehensive astronomical online 'textbook' in our "Learn" section
Newsletter signup - advanced notice of important NSO news and events
Enhanced access to the Liverpool Telescope - ability to request a wider range of astronomical objects
Support and revision material for GCSE Astronomy and BTEC applied science
Ability to create and manage student accounts
Dedicated teacher and UK curriculum linked support material
CPD opportunities