Want to get the family and kids into a few space activities? This week seems to be a great week for it!

There's lots on that you can do from the comfort of your own home, including several community science activities.

A short thread of ideas ...

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First up, step outside on a clear evening and look up!

The Autumn sky is full of beautiful features. Can you spot these bright stars?

Venus is really bright just after Sunset too!

@ianfmusgrave has more here: https://astroblogger.blogspot.com/2020/04/sky-this-week-thursday-april-23-to.html

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Credit: Tragoolchitr Jittasaiyapan

You can use your phone camera to take long exposure photos of the night sky catching faint stars, passing satellites, and even the space station!

Here's a few apps to get you started:

Space photography - https://apps.apple.com/us/app/nightcap-camera/id754105884

ISS Spotter - https://apps.apple.com/us/app/iss-spotter/id523486350

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If you have clear skies and a good view to the NE horizon, keep a look out for the Lyrids meteor shower - which are the result of debris from a comet that returns every 415 years!

https://www.timeanddate.com/astronomy/meteor-shower/lyrids.html

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Credit: Daily Express

Join citizen scientists from around the world in measuring the impact of light pollution from your location by participating in the @GLOBEatNight project.

https://www.globeatnight.org/webapp/ 

Credit: Con Stoitsis/SkyGlowProject.com

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If you have a telescope/camera set up that can take photos, join in the historical first citizen science experiment to measure the parallax of nearby stars, in conjunction with the New Horizons spacecraft past Pluto!

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Learn/Get-Involved.php#Parallax-Program

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Credit: NASA New Horizons

If you have clear skies over the next few days, enjoy the night sky and these activities from your own backyard!

Send us any photos you take and we'll share them around too!

Shout out thanks to @astroduff for the inspo for this thread!

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