ANOTHER clear sky above Torbay's peaceful Thursday night streets. Not one single whisp of cloud spoils the perfect blanket of depthless black void above me.

As the darkness deepens all the stars and planets appear, adding their infinite pinpricks of light to this great canvas, framed by the spindly branches of winter trees and gentle orange glow of a myriad homes.

It's, like, really pretty and stuff.

But it is also unwelcome by just about everyone who can see it. With ice already making potential A&E customers of us all, another freezing night is not exactly what the doctor ordered.

In fact the only sort of people I can think of who might be in any way remotely happy with the lack of clouds are the very sort of people I am waiting for outside Torquay Boys' Grammar School on this frosty evening.

Although even astronomers have limits. David, the chairman of Torbay Astronomical Society, is not anticipating much of a turnout, given the state of the local paths and roads, but remains optimistic. And as his 10-year-old daughter Tia bounds out of his 4x4, a small pair of binoculars hanging round her neck, and starts gazing up at her favourite constellations there seems little reason for anything else.

"Dad, can I have these, they're the perfect size for me. Look up there, it's Orion's belt, and there is the sword. Is that Mars?"

David is just as enthusiastic about tonight's conditions, even if he expresses it less rapidly.

"It's a perfect night for it, there's very little in the way of interference," he says, as we all stand on the kerbside in front of the main school entrance, necks craned, eyes skyward.

"Yes, there's the belt, and those stars down there are his sword. You can see it quite well tonight."

There are plenty of stars to choose from and, while I do recognise Orion's various hunting accessories, David has a useful weapon of his own to guide me round the other constellations: a laser pointer.

"I use this thing," he says, sending an unerring beam of green light into the blackness. "It's really good for pointing at the stars and explaining what I'm going on about.

"Whereas in the past I used to have to say, 'See that star there, well it's two to the right and then follow the line to over there...' now I just point at it.

"So, there's Orion's belt. And down there, that's the sword, his shoulders... The police don't like them but for astronomers they are perfect."

Soon another David arrives, this one the society's vice-chairman. At least the board are presenting a united front against the cold.

We decide to see if anyone is waiting for us inside and slowly slip and slide our way up the path to the entrance.

Just inside the doors stands the school caretaker, alongside long-time society member Bob. Neither rates our chances of using the observatory, which nestles in a small hollow in the grounds, next to the tennis courts, because of a treacherous route leading to it.

Tonight we shall be using naked eyes and binoculars, and agree to wait and see who turns up.

Bob fixes signs with arrows to our destination at various points along our path as we wind our way down a corridor, up a staircase and into a science room. I know this because there are small white gas taps on each of the rows of tall wooden desks, and the two water taps on the long table at the front have rubber tubes hanging from each spout.

On the white board at the front of the room is an explanation of the proper procedure for heating stearic acid and all around are posters making science interesting via the medium of cartoon.

It's quite nostalgic, actually, being in a science lab again. I feel an almost uncontrollable urge to light a Bunsen burner and persuade a test tube of hydrogen to emit some sort of squeaky pop. Perhaps I should resist. The last time I gave in to it earned me a week of detention during a heady summer term of running about on the grass and talking to girls in the furthest corners of the playing field.

And, as I relive some school memories I'm probably making up, Bob sets up the apparatus for the proper consumption of coffee and biscuits, and David sets up his computer to display on the projector, more members arrive.

Bob, boiling water in hand (thankfully not literally), seems surprised when quite so many as 10 show up.

"I don't go out on my own, it's too bloomin' cold," he says. "I don't have my own telescope either, just use the club's one and I've been coming since 1997.

"It's a shame it is so cold. If it wasn't for the weather this place would be packed and we'd all be going out there."

He points to a side door, in what I understand to be the direction of the currently off-limits observatory.

We will be going outside soon enough. First there is time for David to give a brief talk about iridium flares. "Has anybody ever seen an iridium flare?" he asks. A few tentative hands go up.

"You can really impress your friends with this one. If you go to this website and key in your location it tells you when and where the next iridium flare will be."

There isn't space to explain, but he is right, you can impress your friends with this. Take a look at www.heavens-above.com and don't worry, it's not weird.

Then it's coats on, hats on, gloves on, bins out.

On our way out of the room, we walk past another of those posters. This one asks 'Is there life out there?' Well, strangely apposite wall hanging, I'll see what I can find out.

What there definitely is out there is a whole skyful of stars and the odd planet. (Five second warning: educational item approaching.)

Pointing at one of the big ones with his green lightsabre, David explains how one might tell the difference.

"Mars has risen nicely. It's just over there," he says, pointing at a tiny orangey-white orb roughly in the direction of Torquay harbour. "And for instance, over there, see that star, it's twinkling, whereas Mars is relatively steady. That's a good way to tell between a planet and a star."

"And up there," he continues, swivelling on his heels as we all do likewise, "that fuzzy object is Andromeda. It's a galaxy."

"I think I can see a fuzzy patch," says Andrew, a Year 8 pupil here. "Yes, I can see it," adds Tia, binoculars glued to her eyes.

"It's the furthest spot you can see with the naked eye," explains David. "Interestingly, it's actually moving towards us. In a few billion years it will be interacting with our galaxy."

I do not want to be around when it does.

We all spend a few freezing minutes simply taking it all in. How small and insignificant I feel standing here, surveying the mind-blowing vastness of space. I bet it looks fantastic through the society's 19inch telescope.

I might never know, but at least I get to see what the thing itself looks like when Bob braves some slippery steps and unlocks the door to the observatory. Everyone follows.

"The first thing astronomers always do is let all the warm air out of the observatory," says David as we all file in. "It affects the lens."

The antechamber is home to an assortment of computer peripherals and two medium-sized telescopes.

"The original BBC master computer I installed 20 years ago was still going strong until very recently," says David with due pride. "I only just recently replaced the floppy disc which had been running for 20 years as well."

We continue into what Patrick Moore called 'the best observatory in the South West'. "Mind you that was in 1989," adds a wag at the back.

"If you have 20 or so on a good evening you have to all take it in turns at the eye piece," says vice-chairman David as we extricate ourselves and move back outside.

"Through the telescope you can actually see the markings on Mars. And there, M42 and M43 looks like a giant gas cloud. Right now, up there, stars are being formed as we speak.

"The tragedy for the astronomer in modern life is the level of light pollution. You really have to go out into the middle of nowhere to see it all. We should be able to see the Milky Way from here."

Perhaps because of the cold, I resist an obvious joke about being able to make out a Kit-Kat.

Back inside, over that cup of coffee, I can't see very much at all as my glasses instantly steam up. Enjoying the warmth, Andrew's dad, Steve, claims to only be the driver, but I suspect he is just as interested in all of this as his son.

"He used to be able to name all the moons of Jupiter," says Steve.

"Saturn," says Andrew without missing a beat.

"I can't do it any more though. They get provisionally numbered and then they get a name. I used to know all of them.

"There's always something to learn from looking at space. I just like seeing these things with my own eyes."

"It's just the sheer scale of it," adds James, who skated up from the centre of Torquay on what he calls 'soos' — shoes with socks pulled over them.

"You get to appreciate how small we are. We're really tiny."

It's this sense of insignificance which you would think might make astronomy a slightly depressing hobby. But it has quite the opposite effect, actually it's quite liberating.

"I just love the sheer joy of looking at what a fantastic universe we live in," says vice-chairman David as we drift back to our frost-covered cars.

"Most lay people still think somehow that the Earth is at the centre of it all, but once you start looking you get to appreciate just how little we are.

"There are thousands of millions of stars in our galaxy. And there are thousands of millions of galaxies out there. It would be amazing if we were the only life forms in the universe."

Aha! An answer for that poster, albeit with a disappointing caveat.

"They'll be so far away there's no way we'll be able to reach them."

And he's only talking about our galaxy. Right now the Kepler mission, launched by NASA, is searching our skies for planets of similar size to Earth. In three years we will be told, probably by a robot of some kind, just which ones might support life.

"When I started we used to get excited if someone spotted a spot on Venus," says chairman David as we stand back on that kerb, looking up at the stars. "Now we know of at least 400 extra planets in our galaxy."

With that, we stand there in reverential silence for a moment.

"It's a big subject, astronomy."

It certainly is.