ON ANY CLEAR night of the year you’ll find Raheny Observatory‘s roof retracted while a homemade telescope photographs and catalogues the night sky.

The man behind the specially-built observatory is Dave Greenan, an amateur astronomer living in Raheny in North Dublin who’s made five independent discoveries from his back garden.  

“Astronomy is a science where amateurs play a key role in the actual development of the science,” Grennan explains. “Ranging from very small things like counting meteors in the sky, right up to doing high-end observations and participating in academic research papers.” 

Grennan works in IT by day and credits his computer skills as an advantage when it comes to his astronomy work. But for any budding amateurs wondering where to start, he says a local astronomy club can be the best launchpad into the wonders of the night sky. 

Producer Adamy Daly, video journalist Bethany Langham.

This work is co-funded by Journal Media and a grant programme from the European Parliament. Any opinions or conclusions expressed in this work is the author’s own. The European Parliament has no involvement in nor responsibility for the editorial content published by the project. For more information, see here.