Gary Fildes was one of the many who struggled to get a job in the Eighties in Sunderland. Married young, he ended up with four children and no real prospects and after a few dead-end jobs, he ended up learning a trade in the building industry. But he had a secret, from an early age he had borrowed his brother’s telescope and discovered this wonder of the night sky. After talking about it to one group of lads and getting a pummelling, decided it wasn’t cool, and kept it this passion hidden from most of his friends and colleagues. After he lost his father, and middle age was approaching faster than he would have liked, he realised that there was no point keeping his hobby a secret anymore.

The stars have captivated mankind for as long as they have been looking up. Civilisations have sought meaning from the stars as well as using them to predict (fairly unsuccessfully) the future. Nowadays most of us cannot see the delights of the Milky Way as it is lost in the light pollution. However, grabbing a pair of binoculars and taking a little time to head away from the town light and you will be rewarded with all the delights of the night sky. Since that moment, Fildes has gone on to found the Kielder Observatory and is the lead astronomer there. This stunning building is located in the Keilder forest which is one of the top sites for dark skies and there you can find some of the best views of the universe from the UK. Astronomy is one of those sciences that literary anyone can participate in. Amateurs have found as many exciting new phenomena as the professionals and the people that run the observatory are looking to inspire the next generation of stargazers.

This part memoir also has a useful star guide. It is a good introduction for those wanting to find out more about the sky at night, Not bad, for a former brickie. ( )

What a gem of a book, instructive, inspiring and a very personal story of becoming fascinated by star gazing. Lots of detail but not overly Scientific. Anyone without a science background could read this and be captivated. I am going out to buy an astronomy magazine and book at place at Kielder to see these marvellous dark skies. ( )

Gary Fildes had a conventional working-class upbringing in Sunderland in North-East England that eventually led him to a family and a job as a bricklayer. He was also an enthusiastic amateur astronomer. That enthusiasm turned into a passion, leading Fildes to become the driving force behind and the director of the Kielder Observatory, located in the Kielder Forest in Northumberland and among the darkest skies in the world, shielded from light pollution by its remoteness and geography.

This book is partly a memoir (it is too impressionistic and lacking in detail to be classed as autobiography), with an emphasis on the inception and delivery of the Kielder Observatory, and partly a stargazer's guide for the uninitiated to get them interested in astronomy.

Fildes is clearly smitten with astronomy and communicates the awkward juxtaposition of his working-class milieu and his scientific bent very well. He falls in with the local astronomy crowd and clearly finds this a community he can relax in. I would have liked to learn more about the history and structure of amateur astronomy in the area and about the characters of his fellow stargazers.

The stargazing guide is aimed firmly at people who want to get a taste for amateur astronomy and is of interest only to those people standing outside on a dark night looking up at the sky and really trying to see things for the first time. ( )

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Price 16.99 GBP