PRESTON'S Moor Park observatory has mounted up an astronomical 70 years of star-gazing.

And celebrations will be out of this world when the public is invited to view the spectacular sights of the sky at a special open day, with a chance to see flames flaring from the sun thanks to a rare Californian filter.

The centre opened in 1927 to prepare for a total eclipse of the sun. It replaced a dilapidated hut in Deepdale which had been used since 1881.

The observatory is named after Jeremiah Horrocks, an English scientist born in 1619 whose discoveries were praised by Isaac Newton.

Curator George Gibbs persuaded Preston council to cough up £200 for a huge new telescope which is still at Moor Park, weighs one-and-a-half tons and is now worth £100,000.

In 1948, Italian scientist Vinicio Barocas took over and ran the observatory for 30 years. Since the professor's retirement, curator Keith Robinson has been taking daily weather readings and holding workshops for school children. Keith said: "We're fortunate to still have an observatory as many were left to rot during the war. Ours was maintained to monitor German radio broadcasts."

Thousands flocked to the observatory in March this year when the Hale-Bopp comet passed by. Keith said: "People can view astronomy as an eccentric pursuit but when something extraordinary occurs, they suddenly have millions of questions they want answering." Find out more at the open day on June 29 from 10.30am.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.