On Sunday night my wife Margaret and myself took our little granddaughter/ niece up the road to the GinGin observatory, were they have a number of 12" cassigrains and an Obsession available for public viewing.
This particular night though we had the pleasure of local Noongar elder, Noel Nannup, who showed us the sky as the aboriginal people see it. A naked eye feast, we saw the emu, spread along the lenghth of the milky way, the kangaroo, from crux (the head) down through Centarus into Lupis, and the echidna in the west. Also explained was the children dancing (the Aurora) and others.
After this wonderful show and talk we made use of the hour break in the clouds to have a look through the scopes at Saturn, Omega centauri, the Jewal Box and Alpha centauri before the clouds came in.
My own highlight was a personal guided tour for the three of us of the new Zadco telescope built by UWA for reserch into gama ray bursts. Right place at the right time!! This scope has a 1 metre mirror and cost one million dollars, mostly by a private donation.
A great evening and I think that we have a budding astronomer in little Elena.
