Cities in big Solar System model

Inverness and Aberdeen will help celebrate Saturn

Cities and towns in Scotland will be used to help represent planets and asteroids in a large-scale model of the Solar System.

The project, which will see the Glasgow Science Centre represent the Sun, was run in the spring to promote International Year of Astronomy 2009.

It will be staged again during Autumn Moonwatch Week, from 24 October.

Inverness, representing Saturn, will hold an event a week earlier to avoid clashing with other activities.

Highlands Astronomical Society will beam a 15m true-to-scale image of Saturn onto the Eastgate Shopping Centre.

Moonwatch week will see the University of Glasgow observatory represent Mercury, Coats Observatory in Paisley Venus and Calderglen Country Park in East Kilbride the Earth.

Airdrie and Helensburgh will help mark Mars, Edinburgh the asteroid Hilda, Dumfries, Dundee and Wigtown will celebrate Jupiter, Aberdeen Saturn, Elgin the planetoid Chiron, Thurso Uranus and Shetland Neptune.

In 2004, a project called Spaced Out invited schools to get involved with astronomers and scientists to create a giant scale model of the Solar System using locations across the UK.

Homecoming Scotland events, including a conference, are taking place in Inverness on the same weekend Moonwatch week starts.