The BBC new website as a report today about bringing UK clocks into line with the rest of Europe. This would result in darker mornings and longer, lighter evenings. Bad news for Astronomers.

During the summer months in the UK we are very limited on the amount of astronomy we can do - for two reasons. First of all, there isn't much darkness around. During the mid-summer break it doesn't get dark at all.

Secondly, once the clocks change in late March you often can't start doing astronomy until late in the evening - this doesn't sit well with getting up for a day job.

Bringing the clocks forward by another hour will make life even more difficult for astronomers. We will loose an hour of astronomy every evening unless we stay up later.