From gobbling up information to seeding galaxies with the ingredients for life, black holes do some weird things. In this month’s Focus Keith Cooper takes a look at the mind-bending world of black holes and tries to answer some of mysteries surrounding the black hole at the centre of our own Milky Way and the intermediate black whole recently discovered in Omega Centauri.

Kulvinder Singh Chadha goes to the edge of the Solar System to find out what the IBEX probe will be looking at, Neil English sheds new light on the mysterious ‘ashen light’ of Venus, and Emily Baldwin chats with Dr Jill Tarter of the SETI institute about the search for intelligent life outside of our Solar System. We also have features on the Apollo 8 mission, laser pointer, and the perfect observatory, as well as reviews of the latest planetarium software available for your mobile phone.

Plus of course our regular features, this month including the laws of the Universe in Starting from Scratch, advice on alt-azimuth tracking mounts in Tech Talk, and solar observing and imaging in Gearheads. Plus the biggest and best night sky guide for the festive period, including two sky tours of winter’s open clusters and the constellation Eridanus.

It’s a truly bumper-packed Christmas edition!