It’s not often you’ll find me outdoors past 10pm. Usually I’m in bed with a green tea and a book. But when Dafydd Wyn Morgan, stargazer and owner of astro-tourism business Serydda invited me to experience the new stargazing attraction in Presteigne, I couldn’t pass on the opportunity.

The stargazing attraction can be found at The Retreat at Rockbridge Country Holiday Park, situated just outside the town of Presteigne, which in 2024 became the first community in Wales to be designated an International Dark Sky Community by DarkSky International. The Retreat is a new dome on the site, where people can look up at the stars. It’s available to those who book a stay on site, rather than open to general members of the public.

“That star will not move at all throughout the night,” Dafydd says, pointing to the North Star. It’s something he uses as a guiding point throughout the evening. He points out the Dog Star Sirius, as well as Jupiter, using a laser pen. “Don’t want to be using these to point at planes.”

We do see planes at various points, the sound of the engines coming as if delayed. Each time I see them I wonder if they might instead be UFOs, but no such luck.

“I’m hoping to do a panorama shot of the Milky Way tonight, and I’m hoping to film the movement of it, too. I’ve already set up a Timelapse.” It’s what Dafydd does. Captures the movements, the colours of space.

There’s a general excitement from Dafydd, who spends a lot of hours out in the night observing the movements of the night sky. When I ask him how he learned each placement, he dismisses his knowledge by simply saying “it’s an app.”

But he never brings out a phone when pointing out each constellation, including one which he calls the sauce pan.

So instead, I wonder how his passion for the night skies started. “I remember going walking in 2014 with a group of people in the middle of the night, and seeing the stars for the first time. We were fascinated, constantly stopping. Getting a camera was one of the main reasons I became interested in the night sky.” As he’s talking, a shooting star goes by, which I completely miss. “That’s the thing. There’s always someone looking in the wrong direction.”

The road alongside Rockbridge is quiet by day, but even more so by night. There are lights here, but they are dark sky friendly, and don’t interfere with what we can see above. “This so special here,” Dafydd says. “A huge USP for Rockbridge. Until you come here and see it for yourself you can’t appreciate how special a moment you can have under the stars.”

Before leaving for the trip, I thought about asking Dafydd about astrology. I’m always checking my horoscope, writing my own, and my TikTok feed is full of astrology content creators. As an Aquarius, I’m hoping to see the constellation. I’d even like to see Saturn, but I know that is impossible tonight, though perhaps we’ll have a miracle. Before we start recording, I ask where Aquarius might be, and Dafydd says there’s no point trying to find it. I don’t know why, but I’m going to say it’s because it’s underneath us. But later in the evening, when he brings up astrology again, I’m poised with my questions.

“We can see Gemini. There’s the feet of the two twins, and Mars slowly following the twins.” I ask him what he thinks of astrology. “I know I’m a Libra and that’s about it. Years ago you would look in the newspaper and see what it says about your star sign and I would look at Libra and it could be a load of codswallop for all I’m concerned.” I tell him he should look at his rising sign instead, and he laughs. “To me astrology was Russell Grant.” I tell him we have Russell’s astrology forecasts on this very website, something that left me miffed when I first saw it because I’d been thinking about writing my own for the B&R. He doesn’t show much enthusiasm, so I deduce astrology talk should move on to something else, much to my chagrin.

Conversation turns to Elon Musk and his satellites, with musings on ownership of the skies, space, the universe. “We could set up a space centre here, maybe,” he jokes, before I say we might see Katy Perry. It gets a bit of a laugh, but I’m proud of my joke.

Dafydd doesn’t stop. He’s got much planned for stargazing observations, on a personal level as well as professional. “We’re visiting five locations in the Elan Valley, called the Alyn Wallace big five. Alyn Wallace, a world famous night photographer, visited these areas many years ago. It’s how he established himself as the worlds best night photographer. Sadly he passed away last year. We’ll also be finishing at an art installation that we’ve put up as a tribute to Alyn himself.”

He was friends with Alyn for eight years. “We meet by accident as the sun set in Cwm Elan. He was going to photograph the night and I was going to photograph the day.” As he talks of him, a shooting star goes over his head. “Maybe that was him.”

I ask him what is most memorable sighting was. “The first time I ever saw the Northern Lights.” Last year, many people became sky gazers themselves, when the aurora borealis was visible. Dafydd now jokes that they’ve become too common. “Boring, move on please, give me something else.”

He leaves his cameras as he gets a few hours sleep, where he will eventually come back and see what his cameras have captured.

On the way home, I’m grateful to have been given a tour of the skies through Dafydd’s expert knowledge, but my quest to see the Aquarian constellation still remains.