Picture gallery: Photographs from the 2014 Illuminating York Festival>>

YORK is set to be lit up by spectacular light and sound as the Illuminating York Festival returns tonight.

The festival, which runs from 6pm – 10pm each evening until the weekend, features colourful events at a series of locations across the city.

The life of 18th century York astronomer, John Goodricke, is celebrated at The Treasurers House, where the house and garden will be open each evening, using light, sound and effects to tell the story of one of York’s leading historic characters in the 250th year since his birth.

The university will also be bringing its inflatable planetarium From the Treasurers House and using York Minster as a fixed reference point, Goodricke was able to calculate and prove that stars were millions of miles away, not just thousands as first believed.

At St Helen's Church, artist Haydn Robinson has created Time and Space, a mapped piece which will be projected onto the church and is set to blast audiences into space on a satellite, taking pictures of planets and galaxies far away and highlighting some of York’s famous astronomers.

For more information on festival events, go to www.illuminatingyork.org.

York Press:

York Press: