Exmouth & District u3a Astronomy Group

Relevant resources for the topic of each meeting are listed below, in date order with the most recent meeting being at the top. 

Meeting on Tuesday 6 January 2026

Telescopes

• The BBC programme “The Sky at Night – a Beginner’s Guide” is an excellent introduction. It is just 29 minutes long, and the last 9 minutes are about telescopes. Sadly it's no longer on BBC iPlayer, but there is a rather poor-quality copy on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbPO2mJ86HA 

• The BBC has published a short six-page guide to telescopes. You can read and/or download it from here - https://downloads.bbc.co.uk/tv/stargazinglive/sgl_guide_to_telescopes.pdf 

Mars

Videos

• Sky at Night: Secrets of the Red Planet (2025) - BBC iPlayer - https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002c5dz/the-sky-at-night-secrets-of-the-red-planet 

• Voyage to Mars: The Longest Goodbye (2023)  - BBC iPlayer - https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0g5bpg2/voyage-to-mars-the-longest-goodbye 

• Brian Cox: Seven Days on Mars (2022) - BBC iPlayer - https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0018cd1/brian-cox-seven-days-on-mars 

• The Planets, episode 2 : The Two Sisters: Earth and Mars (2019) - BBC iPlayer- https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p06qj2qg/the-planets-series-1-2-the-two-sisters-earth-and-mars?seriesId=unsliced 

• Patrick Moore on the Sky At Night: Mariner to Mars (1969) - BBC iPlayer - https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p02vkcb0/the-sky-at-night-the-sky-at-night-special-mariner-to-mars 

• Netflix: The Mars Generation (2017)

Audio 

In Our Time - Mars (2007) - BBC Sounds - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00772rr

From the BBC Mars series in 2017 (all still available on BBC Sounds):

• Hunting the Martians (2017 - BBC Sounds - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p04vz9h4 

• We Are the Martians: Seeing is Believing (2017) - BBC Sounds - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p04w3y4s 

• We Are the Martians : A New Red World (2017) - BBC Sounds - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p04w40g5 

• We Are the Martians: Start-up Planet (2017) - BBCSounds - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p04w60rx 

• Moving to the Red Planet - Mars (2017) - BBC Sounds - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p04w09l4 

• A Trip Around Mars with Kevin Fong (2017) - BBC Sounds - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p04wfyyk 

More resources are at Week 8 (Mars) of the online astronomy section - https://sites.google.com/view/connectandlearn/astronomy/astronomy-online-group#h.5n5m6hdk0fbv 

Meeting on 2 December 2025 - Black Holes

Videos

• BBC iPlayer: Universe, episode 4, Black Holes - Heart of Darkness - Professor Brian Cox continues his epic exploration of the universe with a journey into darkness - https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p09ybycz/universe-series-1-4-black-holes-heart-of-darkness 

• Brian Cox on how black holes could unlock the mysteries of our universe - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGsbEd6w7PI 

• Brian Cox: Why black holes could hold the secret to time and space - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZX_c6zfJ2w (this is a much longer and more detailed version) 

• BBC Bitesize: link here https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/class-clips-video/physics-ks3--gcse-what-are-black-holes/z4pyrj6 and here  https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/znvhjhv/revision/3 

• BBC Horizon programme (from 2010): ‘Whose Afraid of a Big Black Hole?’: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x621wmg

• Night Sky News November 2024: The Crisis in Cosmology solved with black holes as dark energy?! - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IE4jD1WhG4 (from 15.52 minutes in)

• Black Holes - The Edge of What We Know - Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/81343342

Audio

• BBC In our Time: ‘Black Holes’: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00547f4

• BBC Infinite Monkey Cage: ‘Black Holes’: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08fq7t3  and https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m00199dg 

• The Guardian: ‘Journey into a Black Hole’: Part 1 at https://www.theguardian.com/science/audio/2020/oct/27/journey-into-a-black-hole-part-1-podcast and Part 2 at https://www.theguardian.com/science/audio/2020/oct/29/journey-into-a-black-hole-part-2-podcast

More resources are at Week 12 (Black Holes) of the online astronomy section - https://sites.google.com/view/connectandlearn/astronomy/astronomy-online-group#h.ubnfsgci60n3