A packed crowd of space enthusiasts were given a talk about the cutting edge of physics by one of the super-stars of astronomy.

Dr Andy Newsam, a physicist from Liverpool John Moores University, presented “Things That Go Bang in the Night”, a talk on recent astronomical discoveries, at Rickmansworth School.

He showed images from The Liverpool Telescope, which is situated on top of an extinct volcano on the Canary Island of La Palma, and is the world's largest robotic telescope.

The unmanned device is helping us understand the universe by observing things like recently exploded supernovae and the fascinatingly mysterious gamma-ray bursts.

He also spoke about a strong geomagnetic-storm which has been forecast to hit the Earth's magnetic field today, potentially affecting telecommunications and GPS satellites.

Dr Newsam's career has focussed on analysing the vast amounts of data produced by telescopes around the world, and he was the owner of one of the first one hundred websites published on the internet.

He is also director of the National Schools Observatory, a project which gives schools the chance to experiment with observerations from the world's best telescopes.

This week is Star Count Week, where amateur astronomers are asked to count how many stars they can see around the constellation Orion.

The Campaign to Protect Rural England and the British Astronomical Association’s Campaign for Dark Skies hope the resulting star map will show the effect of light pollution on the night sky.