TELESCOPE HIRE & PRIVATE STARGAZING EXPERIENCE NIGHTS ACROSS ENGLAND & WALES
CHRISTMAS HOLIDAY NOTICE - THIS YEAR WE ARE CLOSED FOR THE FESTIVE PERIOD FROM 22 DECEMBER 2023 UNTIL 1 JANUARY 2024 INCLUSIVE
Dark Sky Telescope Hire rent out high-performance astronomical telescopes for back garden stargazing in England and Wales. We offer dobsonian reflector telescopes from 150mm aperture upwards. Telescopes can be collected from our hire base in Toddington Bedfordshire by appointment only. We also offer a telescope home delivery & collection service across mainland England and Wales.
Telescopes are manual in operation. The telescope tube fits on to a dobsonian base that rotates through 360-degrees. Tubes are balanced and (depending on the design) secured to the base using a couple of tension bars. The user simply pushes the telescope tube around manually to position the telescope. To find an object / area of sky a 6x30mm or 9x50mm finderscope is attached to the top of the tube for sighting.
A couple of interchangeable lenses are supplied to give you a choice of magnification to play with. You’ll also have a folder of stargazing information that shows you where to aim the telescope to get the best views of celestial objects for the time of year from your back garden.
PRIVATE STARGAZING EXPERIENCE NIGHTS
Experience the wonders of our universe with an astronomer from Dark Sky Telescope Hire as your guide. We bring a telescope and our astronomy knowledge to your back garden or to a nearby stargazing location for a 1-hour or 2-hour private stargazing experience. Your stargazing experience includes a laser-guided tour of the stars and constellations we can see on your chosen night and views through a large telescope of star systems, star clusters, nebulae and distant galaxies far beyond our own. If the moon or planets are visible at the time then we will visit them too with the telescope. For more details on our private stargazing nights please click here.
NEW FOR 2024!
Easily find planets in the night sky from the UK with our Planets 2024 astronomy gift box. Contained inside a luxury A4 sized gift box are detailed notes and charts to help you track down each of the 7 classical planets in 2024.Provided are month-by-month guides showing you exactly when and where to look to find Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune in the night sky from the UK, and notes on how to identify each of the planets. Planetary conjunctions, alignments and other notable planet viewing dates in 2024 are included in text and / or graphical format. For more details please see the astronomy gift boxes website.
Dear Seb Thank you so much for a fantastic star gazing on Thursday night, we really enjoyed it. You are brilliant at communicating the whole story and sharing the wonder. I spent half an hour outside last night but saw a couple of Perseids, but could be that they were lower as we’re in trees. - Sue
Well, what can I say....my daughter and son kindly bought me a stargazing night with Seb as a present for my 50th birthday. I have always had an interest in the stars, planets etc., but my mind was totally blown by what I learnt on Saturday night. Seb's passion and knowledge made learning so much fun. His knowledge of facts and figures is outstanding and his delivery of the whole evening far surpassed my expectations. I shall never view the night sky in the same way again. Thank you Seb for opening my eyes - Helen Willis
Thank you to Seb and Dark Sky Telescope Hire for your wonderful service and the fantastic support. I even received a pack of information on star-gazing events plus planets/stars/nebula that would be visible during my hire period. I loved the Skywatcher 8" reflector I hired (in fact I liked it so much my partner bought me the exact same telescope), the images from the telescope along with the seriously dark skies I hunted down made it a truly fantastic experience. - David Walton - Surrey
Hi Seb - Marion and I just wanted to say how much we enjoyed our evening guided tour of the night sky last week. We'd been looking forward to it for months, and it was more than worth the wait. Our collective mind was completely blown by some of the facts and figures you shared, not to mention the beauty of what we saw through the telescope. Many thanks, Ian. - Ian