Shop

We believe we offer something for everyone in our well stocked Gift Shop.

There is a wide range of pocket money science related toys, as well as gifts, souvenirs, science books and astronomy related items. 

Thre are many items suitable for party gift bags etc.

The shop is located within the entrance reception and is accessible without paying admission to The Centre.  This offers a great opportunity to browse without having to struggle through crowded shops - and parking is free!

We are a not for profit organisation and every purchase helps to support and develop this unique site.

At present The Centre does not offer an on-line shopping facility, however we will endeavour to assist if there are items you would like posted to you.

2017 EDITION NOW AVAILABLE.

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the inauguration of the Isaac Newton Telescope (INT), we have produced a limited edition of just 200 gold-foiled copies.

These are available with the exclusive INT pin badge designed for us by Brighton based artist Mark Charlton.

Just £23 (including p&p)

148 pages, paperback, 104 colour and black/white illustrations.
By Anthony Wilson.
Science Projects Publishing 2017. ISBN 978 0 9512394 2 1

Exclusively available from The Observatory Science Centre shop or via mail order.
Cost £23 (including p & p)
Please call us to make card payments.

Cheques payable to 'Science Projects Ltd' and send to:
The Observatory Science Centre
Herstmonceux
East Sussex
BN27 1RN

At the end of he second World War professional astronomy in Britain was in the doldrums. A remedy was proposed in the form of a big new telescope, to be named after the country's greatest scientist. But years of indecision and frustration followed, and not until 1968 was the Isaac Newton Telescope -fifth largest in the world- fully open for business at its Sussex site. Just eleven years later it closed down, defeated by the British climate. The telescope was updated and improved, and reinstalled at a much better location in the Canary Islands, where it has operated successfully for a quarter of a century.

This book is a history of the Isaac Newton Telescope, from the casting in 1936 of what would eventually become its main mirror in Sussex, to its continuing exploration of Canarian skies in the twenty-first century. It is a book about large telescopes and how they work, about the political realities of a 'big science' project, and about the remarkable progress of astronomy over forty years, in which the Isaac Newton telescope has played, and is still playing, a part. This book is a history of the Isaac Newton Telescope, from the casting in 1936 of what would eventually become its main mirror in Sussex, to its continuing exploration of Canarian skies in the twenty-first century. It is a book about large telescopes and how they work, about the political realities of a 'big science' project, and about the remarkable progress of astronomy over forty years, in which the Isaac Newton telescope has played, and is still playing, a part.

2017 REPRINT NOW AVAILABLE

For forty years, Herstmonceux in Sussex was the home of one of the world's great scientific instiutions, the Royal Greenwich Observatory.  More than 200 people worked there and lived in the local community.

'In their own words' this book recaptures the flavour of life at The Observatory, recorded in the personal recollections of people who spent much of their working lives there.  It tells of freezing nights at the telescopes of the Equatorial Group, of days spent compiling essential tables for the Nautical Almanac before computers were available, and many other aspects of the astronomers' everyday life and work
It is a lively and engaging record of a unique - and now vanished- way of life and abounds in anecdotes:
Why did one astonomer's trousers catch fire?
Whose observations were interrupted by blood-chilling screams?

68 pages, paperback.  Editor Anthony Wilson.
Science Projects Publishing.  ISBN 978 0 9512394 1 4

Exclusively available from The Observatory Science Centre shop or via mail order.
Cost £8.50 (including p & p)
Please make cheques payable to 'Science Projects Ltd' and send to

The Observatory Science Centre
Herstmonceux
East Sussex
BN27 1RN