Since June 2008, the Highlands Astronomical Society has been the proud owner of a state-of-the-art observatory located near the NTS Visitor Centre at Culloden Battlefield. It took four years to build, plus £80,000, plus an immense amount of members’ time to plan the project and raise the money – but today they have a facility that enables them to watch galaxies and nebulae, planets and asteroids, star clusters and supernovae.

Under ideal conditions, the telescope can see objects as far away as 2.4 billion light-years. You could see Pluto with it – or the light of a candle at 280 kilometres away.

The Jim Savage-Lowden Observatory is the second observatory that the Society has sited at Culloden, building on its experience with a smaller-scale earlier one. Two of the Committee, chairman Arthur Milnes and events secretary Pat Escott, provide a tour of the features of the JSL Observatory and tell how it developed.

Internet access is required to view video. In the aftermath of a November gale, there is some wind noise on the outdoor part of the interview.

The video, including the opening image from a still, was created by Selena Kuzman.