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Published: January 16th 2009
Nathan and Amanda
This is Nathan & Amanda at the Jolly Cauli, this is the only internet cafe in Coonabarabran. They are a great couple, moved here from Brisbane a few months ago. They have a lovely dog called JazzDay 70
We have been away 70 days today, and it’s gone in the blink of an eye, 10 weeks so far that’s just amazing.
Coonabarabran is the Australian capital of Astronomy and we wanted to find out why, from my simplistic views we knew the night sky here was big and clear so today we were going to get amongst it. I had already booked us in for star gazing tonight, about 9 kilometres from town at the Warrumbungle Observatory, which is privately owned, we are both looking forward to it.
As we were leaving this morning Caroline found a huge spider, just hiding, inside the folds of the trailer cover, obviously wanting to get out of the sun. This bloke was big, and ugly but I don’t think it was the venomous type.
First stop today was to get some internet access, we are getting behind with the blog, as Caroline has not been able to load all the pictures we wanted to due to limited online access.
We had found a small café in town called the “Jolly Cauli” that opened at 8.00 and I had arranged to Skype my sister at 8.00am
Sliding Springs
We are on our way.... Australia time, 9.00pm UK time. Bang on 8.00am we were outside, we were cutting it fine but hey ho, doing our best and all that.
The café opened and we charged in, “2 toasted bacon sandwiches and 2 cups of coffee, please” then making haste we got online.
My mum is well, and happy at her new place and my sister and her family are all well, I was happy now settled in my soul. Caroline was hoping to Skype her Mum and Dad, but they were not online, she thinks they may not have got the text message.
I had prepared most of the blog for the 15th, so hopefully, Caroline only had to edit it, and add the pictures I had marked for uploading.
We engaged in conversation with the owners of the café, Nathan and Amanda, they were from Brisbane originally and have owned the Jolly Cauli for only 3 months, like Caroline and myself, they both had good jobs but felt they had not time in life and wanted to get off the roundabout and do something different, so going from city folk, to owners of a great café, in this lovely
little town called Coonabarabran.
All in all we were in the café, online for 2 ½ hours, and we got most of it done, we took a photo of them and said we would be back in the morning to do the same again.
Leaving the café heading out of town towards Siding Spring Observatory about 30k’s away sited on the side/top of a mountain, Siding Springs are Australia’s largest optical telescopes, so we had to have a nose around they were on the edge of Warrumbungle National Park.
It was a great drive up there, steeper and steeper it went, the day was again 40 degree’s.
The reason Coonabarabran is Australia’s Astronomy capital is for several reasons, the position of latitude at 31 degrees, its clear nights, warm atmosphere, its lack of light pollution and its height above sea level.
The Siding Springs Observatory was magnificent, or (Sliding Doors telescope) as Caroline kept referring to it, (Watching too much TV), completed in 1971; this piece of kit was sited in a 50 meter high protective capsule, that only opened as required. I believe it was run as a joint venture, between Australia, Britain and
Made in England
Sadly this company went out of business in 1985 some other countries, but sadly Britain has pulled out, due to lack of cash I suppose.
The visitors centre was just great fun and very well put together, we walked around for a couple of hours and thought it was just great.
The Telescope was built by a British company, Grubb Parsons from Newcastle upon Tyne, I did an internet search, and sadly they went out of business in 1985.
We had a bit of lunch there and I asked the lady selling the food, were there many people based on site, she said quite a few, and I said nobody was around, she explained that the reason some of the installation was out of bounds to the public, is that the scientists and engineers all sleep in the day as they have a nocturnal existence, which seemed sensible when you thought about it.
The tea lady asked if we were going in to the national park and said we ought to as it was quite beautiful, she also said that we must do the White Gum walk to the lookout, it was well worth it.
We couldn’t miss an opportunity so we drove away
from the observatory and a couple of K’s in to the Warrumbungle National Park.
It was only just over a 2K walk but is was nice, still at around 40 degree’s we had our boot, and hats on and plenty of water with us, so we were prepared.
Again on route this morning to the observatory we saw some more of the planets dotted around that we mentioned on yesterdays blog. We have also started a photo file on letter boxes, which we will compile then, post all the pictures up for you to enjoy. The letter box thing has made us laugh out loud on some occasions, houses which are set way back from the road have very unusual post boxes to identify to the postman where they are to be left. We will keep you “Posted”.
Whilst still in the national park we drive around for a while and identify a place that might be nice to camp at, so possibly leave where we are and stay somewhere different for a couple of days before we head to Dubbo.
The Kangaroo thing is happening again we see loads again this afternoon, “Just Like Buses”
I would hate to be the milkman
Lift up each of these cartons to find out how much a litre of milk would weigh on each planet. they are enjoying the grazing in the National Parks.
We get back to the trailer around 4.00pm and need a bit of a relax as we are out again at 8.30 for our stargazing.
The time just disappears we just about have time for a quick sandwich before going back out.
We are heading out of town to a private observatory, Warrumbungle Observatory, at a homestead called Tenby, the guy who runs it is Peter Starr (yes that is his real name!), and is a former manager of the Siding Springs Observatory.
We get there at dusk, park the car and put boots on as per his request. There is a smallish concrete hard standing with a projector set up, projecting Astronomy films on to his Mini Observatory and has 3 large telescopes all set up out side.
Let me say the Meade telescope we owned that was very expensive though weenie in comparison with the ones he had set up outside. It was so very well set up, he would adjust each telescope on the different objects in the night sky, whilst talking about celestial events and the Galaxy.
This year he told
Jupiter
This planet can be found on the Solar Drive. us was the year of Astronomy 400 years since Galileo did something that I have forgotten, but will look up.
His very large Meade LX200 telescope in his Observatory was pretty cool, he let Caroline adapt her Canon D400 on to the telescope to shoot some star clusters as per the photo’s attached, she is so pleased with them, and I am delighted for her. We had been trying to do some astral photography with our telescope at home but very often we lacked time and knowledge so the results were not as good. Working with Peter to get these images was great experience.
There is another small observatory outside and Peter explains that it belongs to a guy who lives in Scotland, when he wakes up some mornings he accesses the observatory through his computer and controls his viewing of the stars in the Southern Hemisphere whilst living in the Northern Hemisphere, getting the benefits of the clear skies and no light pollution as mentioned earlier in the blog.
If you have a drive round the area you will see many private observatories in peoples gardens, this is why it is the Astronomy Capital of Australia.
Earth
This is planet Earth tiny in comparison with Jupiter. Wintertime is in fact the better time to observe because of the cold atmosphere and less cloud.
Last night there was no moon, however Peter explained that it would be up in the morning and with a beautiful blue clear sky we would see a great image of the moon. Also there are certain stars/planets you can see in the daytime if you know where to look. Peters knowledge was astounding he was able to recite what was where, what was just about to come up over the horizon, and the position of what was going to go where next. He also had a great laser pointer that he used to point into the sky so that we all knew exactly where he was looking.
You can also view the sun through his telescopes to see flares, sunspots etc,
but be warned you need special filters in order to do this! Peter Starr is a really nice guy and we had such great fun, $15.00 dollars for such a brilliant evening, I wish you would all come over and we could all go together, I know you would just love it.
We got back at just
Venus
On the Solar Drive the scaled models are 38 million times smaller than the real thing! after midnight, reviewed Caroline’s digital images, and went to bed as I knew I would have to be up early tomorrow, to prepare the blog for upload, at around 6.00am as Caroline wanted to Skype the girls at just after 8.30am.
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Amanda Young
non-member comment
the stars
Caroline the pictures of the stars came out beautifully. I know you said you were happy with them, but they look amazing! I need to get us off our behinds and go to the telescopes at night i think.