Maidenwell Observatory

Last Wednesday night at 7.30pm we headed off to the Maidenwell observatory for the "moon and stars" show. http://www.starsabove.com.au/

It is about 30 minutes from the Bunya mountains to Maidenwell, but it took us more like 45minutes.

All of the brochures for the show had pictures of everyone rugged up wearing beanies, scarves etc, so we made sure we were fully protected.

I wore long johns under a pair of fleecy trackpants, thick socks and joggers. I put KT in thick woolly tights under a pair of fleecy trackpants too. On the top half I wore a long sleeved thermal undershirt with two more light long sleeve layers on top and a big heavy jacket. Kt wore the same configuration. We also took gloves and beanies.

We arrived early and there was only one other car load of people ... we thought that would be it, but by starting time there were something like 25 people!

First we headed outside to view the stars that Astronomer James pointed out with his green laser pointer. Maidenwell apparently has had all its streetlights changed to allow maximum view of the stars with little interference from other lights.

Then we headed "inside" the shed where he keeps his telescopes.

There were three big telescopes set up in a row and there was bench seating all around the perimeter of the shed. We had to divide ourselves up into three groups to share the telescopes.

Jim turned off the lights, started up the theme from "Space Odyssey" and before we knew it he was rolling back the roof of the shed to reveal the night sky. I think I would have like to see this from the outside too!!!

He had a ladder set up beside each telescope so that kids could climb up and easily look through the eyepiece, the ladder was also there for the adults to use to steady themselves so they didn't go crashing into the telescope.

If I had a better memory I would be able to relate all the things we looked at, but what I do remember was that each picture was different and interesting.

I think the first think we viewed was one of the the stars that makes up the pointers ... to the naked eye it looks like it is only one star but through the telescope you could see that it was actually two stars side by side.

Kt had a look and could not see it and we worried that the night would end up being a total loss for her. I looked next and could see two very bright lights ... like two torch lights.

We both tried to help Kt be positive about the whole experience and we told her she would have to take her time and look into the eyepiece and adjust her head position and move her eye around until she saw something. I told her to imagine she was a detective looking through her magnifying glass.... looking for stars.

We held our breath as she looked at the next site which was a star system/galaxy ..... she looked in for a minute and then she said "I saw it" and with great delight she continued to fully take in all the rest of the stars. This second one was really spectacular, it looked like a burst of yellow fireworks. There were so many stars and they were in a spiral shape ... it was like an explosion of little lights. This one was my favourite!!

The next one we saw was an open cluster of stars and this looked like a smattering of very bright stars a bit like diamonds scattered on a dark velvet cloth.

We also got several close ups of the moon. It was incredible to look at its whole surface and then focus in on all the craters. It was really bright to look at too, Jim ended up putting an orange and a yellow filter on it to cut out some of the glare.

Uni was really impressed with the close ups of the craters while I particular liked being able to see the whole of the moon ... we were about 2 nights off a full moon so most of the moon was visible.

Jupiter was right next to the moon and very very bright ... at the moment it is directly overhead in the night sky.

We closed in on her and 3 of her moons. They were all the same size and in a perfectly straight row .... quite fabulous! Jupiter was kind of stripy and apparently egg shaped although it wasn't obvious to me!!! LOL!!!

Overall the show went for 2 hours and by the end Kt was getting tired. She did look at everything though and got up onto the ladder by herself ... often looking for longer than either I or Uni.

I was keen to find the nearest toilet .... and uni was keen to buy merchandise!!!

We came home with this years and next years calendars with information on where the stars will be in the night sky etc. He also bought a couple of solar system DVD's which should be of interest.

I think it was a really amazing and magical night and I have caught myself looking up at the stars much more regularly!!!

By the time we got back to Pepperbury and got Kt to bed it was 11pm. Neither uni or I were quite ready for bed straight away although I was tired.

We watched a comedy DVD and ended up falling asleep at about 1am.

I fully expected that we would all sleep in the next day ... so I wasn't worried about the lateness of the night.

Little did I know Kt would only sleep in for 1 hour ... waking up at about 8.30am!!!