Every now and then, life sends you curve balls, bad luck or plain'ol tough times and like all of us, I have had a few of these too
...but then, although seemingly not as equally
, sometimes, just occasionally, life finds a way of dealing you a good hand and even your wildest dreams can come true...
Some of you will be aware that my wife an I have been searching for a suitable dark sky rural location to "live the dream" as it were..for FOUR YEARS!!! now...well?..after 1000's kms of travel, to some 150 or so open homes around the region, even as far as Bega, Young and Cowra, some near misses, out bids and pull-outs due to dodgy developers and (F'ING!!) real estate agents (all rather self interested, untrustworthy BS artists!)...seems we have fiiiiiinally hit the friggin Jackpot
I won't bore you with words here on IIS...if you are interested or intrigued, you can check out the royal flush dealt to us here:
100acre Eagleview Australia's Highest Observatory (coming soon) just scroll down for pictures and info and make sure you check out the 360 panorama, at almost 5000ft, right at the bottom!
and, if you are still interested, some more pictures and info are in the album here:
Album with more photos
HERE
We took possession on 25 May and I for one still haven't come down...still floating in serious disbelief...
My fourth observatory build and perched up at around 1450m ASL, with views out to 82km, it will be the highest in Australia...very cool....
Preliminary naked eye observations have already clearly revealed dark, rock steady skies, with very little to no discernible twinkling of stars, right down to the horizon. A quick peruse of the Crux area, with my son, while strolling around the 100acres at night, with single malt whisky in hand, revealed mag 6.6 stars naked eye, easy!..I am sure more careful site testing will go lower...
Every weekend is an adventure now....
Flabbergasted, stunned, over the Moon, happy as Larry, pig in mud, kid in a toy shop Mike