A bumper issue for Christmas and the New Year, with centenaries and observing highlights for 2025, the story of Alan Heath’s observatory, and predictions for eclipses elsewhere in the solar system.

Dr John Rogers explains how our knowledge of Io is being transformed. Plus, an investigation of mysterious lunar phenomena, reliving the 2024 USA total solar eclipse, and much more.

Articles on making a cloud chamber for under £50, the Amateur Telescope Makers of London, and detecting the sodium cloud of Jupiter’s moon Io provide plenty of ideas for exciting projects to try in August and September.

A collection of member images of the extraordinary auroral storm of May 10/11. Plus, a guide to the brightest stars, a thermal imaging project, new research on the size of the sunspot group responsible for the Carrington Event in 1859, and much more!

Our cover celebrates the arrival of galaxy-hunting season, to which Nick Hewitt is your expert guide. Also in this issue: a guide to the smart telescopes that are revolutionising amateur astronomy, and a paper on lunar domes near the crater Cleomedes.

The first issue of the Journal’s newly extended format, with even more articles and four pages of Sky Notes. Plus: flaring of an enigmatic blazar, a photo collection recording amateur astronomy around the world, and answers to the Christmas Quiz.

A landmark paper on amateur observations of asteroid (1269) Rollandia. Plus: the Christmas Quiz, female pioneers of the Association’s early history, and the return of strong aurora displays over the British Isles.

Beautiful drawings of the gas giants by Paul Abel introduce this issue, while David Arditti gives us a guide to imaging Jupiter, and Giancarlo Favero proposes revised dates for lunar drawings by Galileo.

World-class imager Mazin Younis tells the story of the remote observatory in Morocco that he controls from his home in Manchester. Also: two intriguing variable stars in the Northern Crown, AI denoising techniques, and a curious timepiece.

An interview with Dr Jenny Shipway, a visit to the new visitor centre at Jodrell Bank, advice on observing the stars that we can see move over time, and an assessment of the magnitude parameters of comets observed by the BAA.