Welcome to the Festival! We’re delighted to be back, and with a fresh new format. We’ve events indoors, and outdoors and online as well.

To set the scene, we’ll shine a light this evening on some of this year’s events and people. We’ll have images from exhibitions, and scenes from locations for walks and outings.

We’ll also go live to other locations, including Stromness Museum and the Orkney Fossil & Heritage Centre in Burray to look at some of the fossil fish that once swam in Lake Orcadie. Fossil experts Elsa Panciroli in Oxford and Emma Bernard in London will identify them. We’ll go to Kansas too to join Jake’s Midnight Science Club, with Dr Steven ‘Jake’ Jacobs, former chief scientist of the Discovery Channel, and some family science activities. “Young scientists and future wizards of all ages are welcome,” he says. “Be prepared to be challenged, laugh, be amazed, jump and duck for cover!”

Dr Vassilios Spathopoulos joins us to introduce the story of the Antikythera mechanism, the remarkable device recovered from a 2,000-year-old Greek shipwreck. Its dozens of gears have been shown to predict the position of the Sun and Moon (and probably several planets as well), and eclipses also. He’s giving a talk this evening in Sanday, and on Saturday he’ll be taking part in the Family Day in Kirkwall Grammar School.

Dr Vassilios Spathopoulos’s visit has been funded by The Royal Astronomical Society Education & Outreach Small Grants Scheme.