The Schools' Observatory News

Special Edition

Spot an Interstellar Visitor!

We hope you're enjoying a well-deserved summer break and finding time to relax under the stars. 

At the beginning of July 2025, astronomers in Chile made an exciting discovery — a mysterious object passing through our Solar System for the very first time. This interstellar comet, now named Comet 3I/ATLAS, was spotted by the ATLAS project and is only visiting for a short time... never to return.

To celebrate this cosmic event, we've created a special observing programme open to all The Schools' Observatory users. To take part, simply head to 'Go Observing' and select 'Special: Interstellar Comet' to request a set of three real images of the comet, taken one after the other with a 1-metre robotic telescope. Because the comet is moving, it will shift slightly in each image compared to the background stars, so if you look carefully, you can sport which one it is.

When your observation has been taken, you can either load them into AstroLab, or download suitable JPEG images from Go Observing (similar to these examples) and "blink" them to find any object that does not move (as the telescope will be tracking the comet). 

As new images are taken, they’ll be added to our public archive here:  Interstellar Comet Observations Archive

And if you're curious about the comet’s journey, we've added it to our Electric Orrery — an interactive tool to explore orbits in the Solar System and beyond.

Don't miss this rare opportunity to explore data from a true interstellar visitor!