Thanks Ice, I forgot about the dialup user warning! You are right, Autostitch was giving the PC it was done on a real hard time. Even with 1GB of RAM it brought the machine to its knees. Trying to crop it in GIMP with an uncompressed JPG (20MB worth) took a while.
Ive thought long and hard about taking a scope up there (not the dob obviously!). It would be a real pain to get it up high enough to get above the tree line, but it would be well worth it if you did. The closest town from the reserve is Tarana which is about 10(?)kms away and is tiny (maybe 200 people?), and then the next closest after that is probably Bathurst at around 40km away. Ive never been up here at night, might be worth trying it one day (getting down again would be interesting though).
Speaking of clear skies, I was in Dubbo on Friday night last week and managed to drag some moderately drunk people out of town with me and my new 11x56 binoculars (at around 12am). Even being only 15kms or so out of Dubbo, and being slightly elevated above it meant some beautifally clear skies. The LMC and SMC looked like real clouds they were that bright and clear. I managed to check out 47tuc and the Orion neb (which was just rising), which were spectacular, before being dragged back into town. It has motivated me to get out of the Bathurst skyglow more often, even if its only with the binoculars!