Guided tours and family fun at RAS Open House next month

Pictures from RAS Open House 2024 in the background, with a lock and key graphic and details of the date and times of RAS Open House 2025 in the foreground.
The Royal Astronomical Society will be open from 10am-5pm on Saturday 20 September for the Open House Festival 2025.
Credit
Royal Astronomical Society

The Royal Astronomical Society will once again be throwing open its doors as part of this year's Open House Festival in September.

Guided tours of the Society's Burlington House HQ will take place alongside a number of fun-filled science activities for children aged 7 to 16.

The RAS will be open from 10am-5pm on Saturday 20 September for the event.

Tours will run on a first come first served basis and start at 10am. They will take place every half hour until 12.30pm, and will resume at 2pm. The last tour will start at 4.30pm.

Children learn about comets, stars and constellations with RAS education and outreach officer Lucinda Offer.
RAS education and outreach officer Lucinda Offer puts on activities for children to learn about comets, stars and constellations at Open House 2024.
Royal Astronomical Society
Members of the public were treated to guided tours of the Society’s London HQ in Piccadilly.
Members of the public being treated to guided tours of the Royal Astronomical Society’s London HQ in Piccadilly for the Open House Festival in 2024.
Royal Astronomical Society
An actress playing Caroline Herschel.
An actress playing Caroline Herschel at Open House 2024.
Royal Astronomical Society

Spaces are limited for the children's activities in the RAS Lecture Theatre so these must be pre-booked. Sessions to learn about comets, stars and constellations will be running at 11.15am for ages 7 to 11, and at 2.15pm for ages 12 to 16. There may also be encounters with astronomers Caroline Herschel and her nephew John.

There is space for 20 children per session and children must be accompanied by an adult (up to two adults per child). Bookings can be made via the Open House Festival website.

You can also find out more about what is happening here.

Other learned societies based at Burlington House are also participating in Open House London 2025 on Saturday 20 September. For more information, visit:

Geological Society of London

Linnean Society of London

ENDS


Media contacts

Sam Tonkin

Royal Astronomical Society

Mob: +44 (0)7802 877 700

press@ras.ac.uk

 

Sian Prosser

Librarian & Archivist

Royal Astronomical Society

sprosser@ras.ac.uk


Notes for editors

About the Royal Astronomical Society

The Royal Astronomical Society (RAS), founded in 1820, encourages and promotes the study of astronomy, solar-system science, geophysics and closely related branches of science.

The RAS organises scientific meetings, publishes international research and review journals, recognises outstanding achievements by the award of medals and prizes, maintains an extensive library, supports education through grants and outreach activities and represents UK astronomy nationally and internationally. Its more than 4,000 members (Fellows), a third based overseas, include scientific researchers in universities, observatories and laboratories as well as historians of astronomy and others.

The RAS accepts papers for its journals based on the principle of peer review, in which fellow experts on the editorial boards accept the paper as worth considering. The Society issues press releases based on a similar principle, but the organisations and scientists concerned have overall responsibility for their content.

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Submitted by Sam Tonkin on