Stargazing at RAL: Summer Eclipse Special - Lottery Entry - August 2026

0%

1. Summer Stargazing and Solar Eclipse Event Info
Page 1 of 2

This is an exciting opportunity to join us to watch the solar eclipse (partial in the UK) on 12 August 2026 from 17:30.

Places are limited and we expect demand to be high, so we will be allocating the tickets by lottery. Please complete the following form if you would like to be entered into this lottery draw for a chance to win tickets for this event: this form will close at 23:59 on Sunday 26 July.

There will be a short talk about studying the sun by Professor Richard Harrison, followed by a live link up to the RRS Sir David Attenborough, the floating laboratory ship which will be in the waters around Greenland in the path of totality at the time of this event. We will then head outside to safely watch the eclipse ourselves either through a solar telescope, or by using solar viewing glasses (provided). We will follow this up with plenty of hands on sun and space activities for all the family to enjoy in our Visitor Centre.

After you have completed this form you will receive an email confirming your entry into the lottery.  Everyone will be notified by midday on Monday 27 July as to whether or not they have been successful in obtaining tickets.  If you are successfully allocated tickets, you will be asked to claim these tickets on Eventbrite by midday (12:00) on Tuesday 28 July. If you do not claim your tickets within the allocated time frame then they will be released to the next person. Please be aware of this, and make sure that you add visitral@stfc.ac.uk to your 'safe senders' list and make sure you check your junk folder. If the claim deadline is missed we will unfortunately not be able to reinstate tickets, as these will be reallocated to people on the waiting list.

Richard's talk, and the live link to the RRS Sir David Attenborough, will be streamed live via Zoom, and we do hope everyone will be able to join us for that!  (You can reserve online tickets here: https://ONLINE-summer_stargazing.eventbrite.co.uk)  There will also be some short online talks in the run-up to the eclipse itself, to share some details about how we - and you! - can study the sun safely.  You can sign up for these online:

 

Please read the following carefully and when happy please tick the box at the bottom.

At STFC (being a Council under, and part of, United Kingdom Research and Innovation), we intend to make sure that we maintain the UK as a world-leader in science and technology research, development and engagement - integral to this is our commitment to protecting and safeguarding your data privacy.

It is part of STFC’s public purpose to inspire and involve the public and schools with scientific development and innovation – sharing the curiosity, excitement and ambition that drives us to discover and understand new things and develop technologies that improve our lives. In order to engage effectively with these groups on these matters we need to collect and hold contact and relevant associated information about people like you. We will use the data you provide on this form in order to evaluate the Public Engagement programme at RAL.

We will not use the data provided for any purpose not related to our Public Engagement programme.

We use SmartSurvey, a carefully selected UK-based third party service, to manage and hold this data on our behalf. Their privacy policy can be found at https://www.smartsurvey.co.uk/privacy-policy. Some of the data may be anonymised and then used to report to the UK Government and within STFC and UKRI. Our privacy policy can be found at https://www.ukri.org/privacy-notice/

All data will be downloaded to STFC’s servers and then deleted by us from SmartSurvey within two years.

UKRI and Data Protection
UKRI and STFC comply with the requirements of the GDPR with regard to the collection, storage, processing and disclosure of personal information and is committed to upholding the GDPR's core data protection principles. A full notice of UKRI’s position with regards to Freedom of Information and the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) (EU) (2016/679) can be found at https://www.ukri.org/freedom-of-information

1. Please tick all boxes to show that you agree with the statements below. If you do not agree with any of these statements then please do not complete this online form.
*