Community-led Stargazing Session
Farr School Woods Carpark
Friday 23 January 2026 @ 19.00-20.30
Join us – Strathnairn Stargazing Group – for our first event of 2026.
On Burns, plus the link to Astronomy & Dark Skies
A brief history (extracted from the Scottish Poetry Library)
‘With the discovery of Uranus in 1781, six planets were known when Burns was alive. Neptune was later identified in 1846, and the dwarf planet Pluto in 1930. John Campbell Brown, Astronomer Royal for Scotland, and poet Rab Wilson reflected that Robert Burns and his friend Alexander Naysmith must surely have talked of numerous hot topics at that time related to cosmic objects.
These included events like:
- The return of Halley’s Comet in 1759 – the year of Burns’ birth
- Lomonosov’s 1761 discovery of the atmosphere of Venus
- Messier’s 1771 catalogue of diffuse astronomical objects
- William Herschel’s discovery of the new planet Uranus, “expanding the known boundaries of the Solar System for the first time in history.” (source: Oor Big Braw Cosmos, Brown & Wilson, Luath Press, 2019).
In a letter to his paramour Clarinda (Agnes Maclehose) on 20 January 1788, Robert Burns wrote of his dream of their escaping to a love nest on a remote planet by taking a cosmic trip beyond the near planets:
“Don’t you see us hand in hand, or rather my arm around your lovely waist, making our remarks on Sirius, the nearest of the fixed stars; or surveying a comet flaming inoxious by us, as we just now would remark the passing pomp of a travelling Monarch?: or, in a shady bower of Mercury or Venus, dedicating the hour to love; in mutual converse, relying honor and revelling endearment – whilst the most exalted strains of Poesy and Harmony would be the ready, spontaneous language of our souls!”
New Burns Night Poems which celebrate the Bard and the connection to the Night Skies
Last year, in 2025, Scotland’s National Poetry Library commissioned and collated a series of poems to celebrate the Night Skies on Burns Night, to take in a rare celestial alignment. From this stemmed new works of poetry in Scots’ tongue and a work by the Scots Makar, Peter MacKay, in Gaelic.
Burns Night Skies poems
Oan sic a nicht as this 25-1-25 By Liz Niven
Oan sic a nicht as this, planets aw alignt, like deuks in a row, it micht be a lucky sign. Lucky fir life, lucky fir love, lucky fir libertie. An thir a sair want fir sic like things oan oor bonnie broukit bairn. Nae crammassy, nae gowden feathers, no a steadie skeelie planet nor a bricht skinklin stern. Bit jyned still tae the hail clanjamfrie Watch a nieve-fu o thon broon irth rin throu yer fingers, like Time itsel. Aftimes slaw, aftimes gleg, bit aye rinnin oot. Sae we’ll keep luikin up, nae kennin if oniebodie’s luikin doon wir wee shaddas aw alane gin the moment comes. Irth ablow, lift abuin, oan sic a nicht as this.