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Salford event explores the sky at night

A Manchester Science Festival workshop will explore how the stars and planets were imagined in paintings and poetry during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and how the scientific equipment used to visualise the universe has changed.

Science and the arts will collide during the free event at the Salford Museum and Art Gallery o­n Saturday, 24 October. It is aimed at children aged between 9 and 12 years and their parents can also attend.

Visitors will be able to enjoy the museum's orrery which charts the positions and motions of the solar system, paintings of the night sky, images from a modern telescope, representations of the universe through the ages, celestial globes, poetry, and they will have the chance to create a human orrery.

Parents and children attending the workshop will also be asked to imagine the night sky and to create their own picture-in-words of the stars and the planets.

Professor Sharon Ruston said: "The people who come to this event will learn about the solar system and how representations of the night sky have changed over time. We hope this will help fire their imaginations and creativity when they write their own depictions of the universe at night."