Take
a night.
Slots are capped by how many people can stand in a dome without shaking it. Eight at the 610, twelve on the lawn, and the warden will close the night if the sky does not hold — in which case your slot moves, it does not vanish. We do not sell a sky we cannot show you.
Four slots.
Public night
Fri + Sat, 20:30
90 min
2 instruments
£14
Deep-sky session
New-moon week, 22:00
4 hrs
The 610, plus the lawn
£38
Imaging bench
By arrangement
To dawn
Pier + power + guiding
£55
School / group
Weekday evenings
2 hrs
Whole site, 30 max
From £210
There is no booking robot. Ring the hut and the warden on duty will tell you what the forecast is actually doing, which is a different question from whether there are places left. If it is going to be cloud all week, they will say so and you will not book.
| Line | Answered |
|---|---|
| Hut, booking | 16:00 — 19:00, Mon to Fri |
| Night line, warden | 20:00 — close |
| Groups and schools | By email, 5 working days |
| Cloud call | By 17:00 on the day |
Four things.
- A coat you think is too warm
- Standing still at 611 m in October is colder than walking at sea level in January.
- Flat shoes
- The lawn is grass, the pier apron is gravel, and both are dark.
- Nothing that lights up
- Phones on red or in a pocket. We hand out red torches at the hut, free, yours to keep.
- Your own eyes, dark-adapted
- Twenty minutes without white light and you will see roughly twice as much. It is the cheapest upgrade on site.
Getting
up here.
By road
Reservoir Road, last 1.4 km unlit single track. Park on the hard standing below the gate — not on the apron, the 610 feels car doors.
By rail
Nearest station 11 km. We run a minibus for booked deep-sky sessions when four or more ask for it.
On foot
The scarp path from the village is 40 minutes uphill and unlit. Come up before dusk or do not come up.
Access
Hut, lawn and the 355 pier are step-free. The 610 dome has four steps and a 900 mm door; ring ahead and the dome operator will bring the eyepiece height down to seated.
Post
The Old Reservoir RoadHarnsett ScarpTHRALE FIELD TF14 8QN
Cloud policy · unchanged since 1998
We do not sell a sky we cannot show you.
The warden calls the night by 17:00. If it is called off, your slot moves to the next date you can make, for as long as it takes — there is no expiry on it and no fee for moving it. If the sky closes after you have arrived, the hut stays open, the 127 comes indoors, and you get the talk and a refund of the difference. In eleven years that has happened 41 times out of 388 public nights.