Or maybe you are the world's greatest expert on unicorns. All right, well then you know what would make a really great unicorn story because you love unicorns. So take what you know, and use that to come up with ideas for your story. They're a billion miles from home. They're stranded on a crippled star ship. They can't wake the crew… This was my first sci-fi middle grade and it was fantastic. I had so much fun reading it. Chisholm can for sure write atmosphere, you never know if it will end well or not. Close to mag. 1.9 Alnitak (Zeta (ζ) Orionis) is mag. 4.0 Sigma (σ) Orionis, which appears as a stunning multiple star system through small to medium telescopes. There are four splittable stars, the brightest of which is another double – though this one is too tight to resolve in amateur instruments. This barred face-on spiral galaxy has a stated magnitude range of mag. 14.2 to mag. 16.4 and is a challenging object. See if you can detect it with a 14-inch Newtonian at 200x magnification as a faint roundish smudge of light. It lies 140 million lightyears away.

I think this book would have worked better as a multi-pov, because the other characters don't seem that prominent in the story, despite being in every scene. I can tell you one is the son of the Captain, ones French, one's Scandinavian but we don't really get much more than surface level of these characters. Hi, I’m Tim Peake. I’m an astronaut based here at the European Space Agency, in Germany. And from December 2015 to June 2016, I spent six months orbiting Earth on the International Space Station. Looking down on the Earth from the ISS gives you a completely new perspective on the planet. Something you get a sense of in this clip from professor Brian Cox, which takes in not just our own planet, but also looks at where it sits alongside the other planets in our solar system. Let me tell you, we were hooked. All of us. I binged read the book in three days fitting in chapters whilst stirring spaghetti and waiting for dance classes to finish. Most of the children finished within the 4 weeks and I was really impressed with their reading. They wanted to get it finished because they were enjoying it so much. Was Ship an enemy? Where was Captain Kier? Would Beth make a good Captain? So many questions, so many twists! What we didJamieson, Victoria (author, illustrator) Mohamed, Omar (author) Geddy, Iman (colourist). When Stars Are Scattered Beth, 13, who scored the highest marks in her space commander exams, is made temporary captain by Ship, an AI hologram that watches over and tries to guide what happens next on the Orion. Beth has to overcome her own nerves and self-doubt to lead her mismatched team to save the situation. But she is far from being a natural leader. When shooting, keep the lens aperture wide open (lowest f-stop), though some lenses will perform better when reduced a few stops. Experiment with the ISO and exposure length until you’re happy with the look. The author note at the beginning mentioned that the aliens are known as Videshi, as India become the ruling power. This idea would be really interesting, but this is never elaborated on, we never find out how they rose and ruled. It came across more than the author came across a cool word and wanted to use it, which feels a little rude at best. Most interesting is the focus Chisholm has put on the importance of command structure. While there are plenty of colourful story-points, the focus on the skill of being a leader, making the right choices, owning your mistakes and trusting in your team is refreshing and sets it apart from similar themed space adventures.

Night Mayor Franklefink has vanished from the Transylvanian Express - and it's up to you to solve the case! Part of the Solve Your Own Mystery seri... Ship, ah the fun AI, is he good or is he not good. I loved how he was written. It made the story creepier because you had no clue if the AI was on your side… or on his own side. Below we reveal some of Orion’s most striking features and the equipment needed to see them. Orion's Belt Orions Belt by John Harding, Sheffield, S. Yorkshire, UK. Equipment: Pentax KR DLSR The winners of The Farshore Reading for Pleasure Teacher Awards 2023, highlighting the work schools are doing to encourage a love of reading, have...We all immediately liked the idea of being on a space ship. The girls took to main character Beth straight away, the boys didn’t mind in the slightest reading about a girl due to the setting. Gripping

The other characters, Mikkel, Lucille, Arnold. I really liked them as well. I loved their personalities and seeing what they were good at doing. I wouldn’t mind reading more of the story through Lucille’s POV for instance.Just for interest, if you’ve ever seen any of the wonderful images of a gas cloud in space known as the Horsehead Nebula, then it sits in this part of the sky, just below the Belt star Alnitak – although you would need a big telescope to see it. Mintaka Credit: Pete Lawrence Now for something different. NGC 1662 is a lovely mag. 6.4 open cluster forming a right-angle triangle with mag. 4.6 Pi 1 (π 1) Orionis and mag. 4.4 Pi 2 (π 2) Orionis, the two stars at the top of Orion’s Shield. Pi 1 Orionis sits in the right angle. This is another overlooked target, said to resemble a Klingon Bird of Prey from Star Trek. Orion is home to dozens of galaxies. One of the easier ones to find is NGC 1924, which lies to the west of M42, shines at mag. 13.3 and may be as far as 100 million lightyears away. When viewed through a 14-inch Newtonian at 200x magnification it appears as a pale, oval smudge of light. Well, there are lots of different approaches to this and I don't think there's really a wrong or a right one. But the one that I tend to use is something I call 'scrapbooks and plans'. You can find more astro imaging advice in our guide on how to photograph a constellation. Equipment

Also, I was pleased that it's as big as it is - there's a lot of story here, in a way that's perhaps unusual for middle grade books, but it's all there for a reason. I thought that the ending could perhaps have done with a little more and that's again an unusual thing for this age-group. Stories sometimes strain against circumstance and genre, but this is a story that fits so very well into its situation and could even give more under the circumstances. I really do want to say something about the engines being able to take it but I'm not sure I can write that in an appropriate 'Scottish engineer on the Enterprise' tone of voice so just consider it as implied, thank you. Thinking about the emotions you want to convey or elicit with your shot can help you to plan a powerful picture, and it’ll inform every stage of the photographic process. This is covered in great detail by Mara Johnson-Groh in her guide to creating artistic astrophotos. This is a stunning but neglected planetary nebula shining at mag. 11.8. In smaller telescopes it looks like a green star at low magnification, so larger telescopes really do it justice and bring out its true nature. Through a 14-inch Newtonian it appears as a small green disc. Can you spot vdB 49, a reflection nebula in Orion generated by giant star Omega Orionis? Credit: Dan Crowson, Missouri, USA. Equipment: SBIG ST-8300M, Astro-Tech AT90DT For now let’s sidestep the Orion Nebula, as the sword also contains the wonderful open cluster NGC 1981 at the top. A group of stars including mag. 4.6 42 Orionis and mag. 5.2 45 Orionis sits north of the Orion Nebula (M42) and the adjacent De Mairan’s Nebula (M43), which itself is above mag. 2.8 Hatsya (Iota (ι) Orionis). Mintaka (Delta (δ) Orionis) is easy to find. Shining at mag. 2.3, it marks the northwest end of Orion’s Belt, the star’s name deriving from the Arabic for ‘belt’.

This is another nebula that could have more attention if it were not for the Orion Nebula. NGC 1999 shines at mag. 9.5 and in small telescopes looks like a small misty star, but a 14-inch scope reveals the mag. 10.3 star V380 Orionis surrounded by faint nebulosity. So I went into this book with very high expectations, and am happy to say that they were essentially entirely met! Allow 30-40 minutes for your eyes to adapt to the dark before you start observing Orion by Richard Abels, Rutland, United Kingdom. Equipment: Canon 600D, 18mm lens. Beth chooses to help the small Videshi ship but the Orion Jumps before she can find out the larger Videshi ships intentions. Do you think the ‘mother’ ship would have harmed the Orion? Do you think it was trying to say thank you? I did think that towards the end this started to get very 'deep' and heavy handed with it's messages about the environment and kindness in the world - however, I can forgive this a little given that I am not the target audience - although I do think it could have at least tried to have been a little more subtle in it's delivery.