Moon Maps, Broken Cloud and a Late Pass Until 10.30

So I read about Marlborough College’s GCSE astronomy course with the conscience of a forger. Here it is in numbers.

Weeks. How long Lara Prendergast, who took the GCSE there, remembers her Moon map taking. In The Spectator in 2025 she called it “a large, hand-drawn study of the moon’s topography”, and the most time-consuming part of the course. It is drawn from the Moon, not from a calendar.

One. The framed map on the observatory wall, drawn by a girl who later read maths at Oxford. According to Jonathan Genton, who taught the course, Sir Patrick Moore was once shown it and said: “That’s better than mine.” Moore’s own maps had been used by Nasa to prepare for the Apollo landings.

10pm. Pupils may use the observatory in the evening as long as they are back in their houses by then. An exceptional event can earn special dispensation. Our Moon homework had a curfew too: the start of Bake Off.

110. Messier objects, which in good weather the observatory may attempt to spot in a single night, in what is called a Messier Marathon.

24 February 2026. The Blackett Observatory’s own log records four GCSE pupils working on their observing projects through broken cloud. One telescope dewed up almost at once. Through the gaps they sketched the Orion Nebula, M42, and picked the Cigar Galaxy, M82, for their next drawing. Their housemasters had given them until 10.30pm.

One more. The log’s verdict: another session would be needed.

Nobody, I notice, suggested finishing M82 from a calendar.