Night Sky Guide
This programme is designed to train individuals to lead stargazing sessions, equipping hospitality professionals, outdoor professionals, and those experienced in guiding groups in outdoor settings to lead a guided tour of the night sky.
Unique to Kerry College Minor Award New for 2026
Course Overview
Participants will develop the expertise to lead stargazing experiences, sharing the wonders of the night sky in an engaging, educational, and safe manner across various outdoor environments.
The programme prepares learners to explore and interpret the night sky, enabling them to share its wonders in an accurate and inspiring way. While the focus is on observing celestial objects and phenomena, participants will also learn to enhance the experience using tools such as binoculars, sky maps, telescopes, and astronomy software.
This course will run in Killorglin Campus, Monday and Wednesday evenings, 5.30pm – 9.30pm for 15 weeks. Some flexibility needed to take advantage of the dark sky.
Places will be offered to those who meet entry requirements and are successful at interview.
What will I study?
1. Share understanding of astronomy concepts to captivate and inspire a group to explore the night sky.
2. Identify celestial objects in the night sky with a group on a stargazing activity, using appropriate resources and methods.
3. Complete a stargazing tour including planning, delivery and reflection for a broad audience.
Target learner group
This programme is aimed at:
• Hospitality professionals with appropriate experience in guiding
• Those who work with groups in an outdoor environment or
• Qualified and experienced Tour Guides or
• Qualified and experienced Outdoor Professionals
What is the certification?
Night Sky Guide (KY NSG) QQI-FE (5N22946)
What are the entry requirements?
- Applicants must be 18+ years of age on entry to the course.
- Competent written and spoken English (CEFR B2 or Higher).
- Non-EU/EEA applicants must have permission to work in Ireland.
- Applicants should have a standard of knowledge, skill and competence equivalent to NFQ Level 4 when accessing a Level 5 programme, plus experience of working with groups in the outdoor environment.
What is the cost?
Fees apply to all part-time programmes.
A fee waiver is in place for applicants in receipt of a qualifying social welfare payment. You can check your fee waiver eligibility with Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection (DEASP), INTREO or your Local Employment Service (LES) office.
Learners in employment may also be granted a fee waiver under the Skills to Advance Initiative. For more details on this please contact Claire at [email protected]
Still have questions?
Contact our Kerry College Admissions Offices – Tralee on 066 714 9696, Killarney on 064 662 2593 or [email protected]
Part-time Courses - FAQs
FET is short for Further Education & Training. Kerry College is an integrated college of FET. This means we do both progression-focused further education programmes and a range of employment-focused skills training programmes.
We enroll twice each year - January and September.
Part-time programmes run on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday evenings, Friday afternoons, Saturday mornings, and increasingly online.
This depends on the course you choose.
Some courses have long waiting lists, others - not so much. Places are filled on a first-come, first-served basis so the best advice we can offer is to apply in plenty of time.
We enroll over 1000 applicants to our part-time courses each year - so it's always busy.
As places are offered based on the date of application, our team could be working their way down through the list.
That said, always check.
You can call Mary on our Part-time courses team at 066-7149696.
Although all of our part-time courses are fee-paying, we do have a DEASP Fee Waiver in place for those in receipt of a qualifying social welfare payment.
This is subject to a waiting list and demand for course places.
Most part-time courses run at Kerry College are Minor awards.
A Minor award is commonly referred to as a module - but also as a component certificate or a certificate of unit credit.
These single 'modules' may be completed and certificated individually. All minor awards are linked to a major award that allows learners to collect and build their minor awards and work towards gaining a major award.
Applications for all part-time programmes should be made online - via the Kerry College website or www.fetchcourses.ie
FETCH COURSES is the national application system for all FET course applications.
All new applicants must set up a free account on www.fetchcourses.ie. You must use this to apply for all further education and training progarmmes anywhere in Ireland.
For existing Fetch Courses account holders, login and apply as before.
You can reset your password using your email or mobile phone. When you do, make sure you keep it for future reference.
Bear in mind, FETCH uses your PPS number to identify you - so although you might be able to set up a second account - it won't work properly.
If you're still stuck, contact our Admissions team on 066-714 96 96
No, aside from the DEASP Fee Waiver, all part-time courses are fee-paying.