Whilst on holiday, you can experience a totally free light show, as the next three months are the best times to see the utterly amazing sight of the billions of stars in our galaxy, the Milky Way, without the aid of optical equipment.

First, on a clear moonless night, find a totally dark location, devoid of artificial light such as street lights and buildings. Let your eyes become accustomed to the dark (usually takes around 15 minutes), then you should be stunned by the full beauty of our home galaxy and the realisation of just how insignificant our little planet is!

The Milky Way is estimated to contain 100–400 billion stars and at least that number of planets, with our galaxy being just one of an infinite number of other galaxies in the known universe. It is a fact that there are more stars in the universe than the sum of all the grains of sand on all the beaches on Earth combined, and most of those stars have planets orbiting them like our star, the Sun. With all this knowledge, it is strange that some still believe we are the only “intelligent life” in the universe!