Cool Astronomy Gifts for Christmas

Are you looking for a cool gift this year for the astronomy enthusiast in your life? Check out our suggestions.

Published by Tony Darnell on 22nd Nov, 2017

We’ve often said here at Deep Astronomy World HQ that we live in the Golden Age of Astronomy, but it’s also true that we live in the Golden Age of Amateur Astronomy.

At no other time in human history has the mysteries and wonders of the universe whirling and spinning over our heads been more accessible. Today, people with very little experience behind the eyepiece can find and enjoy some of what has been traditionally difficult to objects to find, easily and quickly.

Technology has reached a point where it is now relatively easy to find dim objects like the planetary nebula M57, the Ring Nebula; or the supernova remnant from a the death of a star in the year 1054, M1, the Crab Nebula; it is even possible to find distant galaxies millions of light years away, all with simple equipment from the comfort and familiarity of a reasonably dark back yard.

But this article isn’t directed at helping you select and buy a telescope (we have many articles and videos for that). Here, we wanted to give you some ideas for what to buy that person in your life who has an innate curiosity about the wonder and mysteries of the universe and it’s OK if that person is you!).

John Suffill, Adam Smith and Alexander Reinders are all amateur astronomers from the UK and Germany who have given some excellent suggestions based on their years of experience. We also have amazing ideas from Galaxia, a long-time astronomy enthusiast and awesome contributor to the Deep Astronomy Hangouts.

While we won’t have time to go over every link we’ve provided, we do discuss many of them here in this Telescope Talk Hangout:

Some of Our Astronomy Gifts Suggestions

Galaxia, a good friend of Deep Astronomy, has put together some great resources full of astronomy gifts, please check these out for a really comprehensive list of ideas!

Some puzzles are something for cloudy nights, maybe with a cup of tea and your relatives, children or grand children

Some Technical Gifts that every amateur astronomer can use

Cornucopia of ideas:

I hope this helps narrow things down a bit and perhaps give you some great ideas. One gift that never fails: spending time with your loved one under the stars. It's free and priceless.

Published by Tony Darnell

Tony Darnell Profile Picture

Tony Darnell is the creator of Deep Astronomy, LLC, a company dedicated to sharing the wonders of the universe and providing perspective of our place in the cosmos. For most of his life, Tony has been interested in science communication and education and has dedicated the best part of his life towards that interest. While embarked on that mission, for 30 years Tony has also worked as a software engineer and worked on writing code for telescopes, astronomy data pipelines, image processing and data analysis. His last gig was the goal of a lifetime: working on data from the Hubble Space Telescope.