Chris Lintott joined the show on its opening night as a special guest to answer audience questions. Credit: Richie Jarvis
On 4 October the Tour of the Universe kicked off in Dorking.
Over 300 guests saw author and astronomer Jane Green interviewed by Neil Phillipson in his astronomy chat show.
Opening night proved to be a huge success.
The experts wowed the audience not only with their immense shared knowledge of space, but also with their passion and wit.
To begin with Phillipson took the audience through a tour of the Solar System, showing the immense scale of our local neighbourhood with the help of a stunning planetarium style presentation.
Later the journey took the audience outside our Galaxy and beyond to the very limits of the Universe.
“The show deliberately starts ‘gently’,” says Phillipson, “but builds over the course of the evening to a wonderful crescendo – but I can’t tell you anything about the ending, can I!”
Cosmic Chat
In the second half, The Sky at Night presenter Chris Lintott came on stage as a special guest to answer questions from the audience, submitted via Twitter.
“Chris was absolutely fantastic – he instantly connected with the audience who were hanging on his every word!” says Phillipson.
“His anecdotes from the world of space science had everybody laughing.”
During the interval, astronomers from the Guildford Astronomical Society were outside the venue, ready to introduce to the audience some of the wonders of the cosmos they had just learned about.
After the show Chris and Jane were on hand to sign books and chat with attendees.
The tour will be in Nottingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Southport, Portsmouth, Cardiff andPeterborough from 20-31 October 2014, so make sure to head down to your local showing.
A different special guest will feature alongside Neil and Jane at each venue, so no two shows will be the same.