Observing at Kinchega National Park

[Quark (Trevor)]

Hi All,
Last night 17/04/2009 I was involved with the National Parks & Wildlife Starry Starry Night astronomy presentation at Kinchega National Park near Menindee.
The presentation was given on a bitumen helipad on top of a sand hill overlooking Emu Lake, a dry lake. One of the local aboriginal elders gave a talk on the stories her people told about various star formations to the 30 odd locals and visitors, assembled on this sand hill in the remote far west of NSW. She spoke of the meaning to her people of the Seven Sisters and the belt of Orion, the legends that explain how those stars came to be, it was most interesting to listen to this quite different perspective on the night sky.
Following on I gave a general talk on astronomy while waiting for the sky to darken and then conducted a tour with my laser to entertain the group while they waited for their turn to observe through my 12” Lightbridge.
There was a good mix of age groups from children to retired tourists that were taking the time to see the outback. We looked at all of the showpiece objects of the southern sky, our local ABC radio rural reporter hovered around the scope recording the various exclamations as each person came to the eyepiece to see a great star cluster or nebulae or colourful carbon star or a far away Galaxy. It really was a magical night and I saved the best to last, Saturn.
It looked absolutely stunning, everyone that looked went straight back to the end of the line to have another look, most could not believe that a point of light in the night sky could be transformed into this stunningly detailed vision rapidly floating through the field of view.
Even as I packed up there were still some standing around firing questions, obviously quite taken with what they had experienced. This was a first for our local National Parks and due to the success of this night they are planning more of the same for the future.
Regards
Trevor

[Kevnool (Kev)]

Sorry i missed it Trev but with days off i couldnt be there as i was in vic, back home now and what a great write up and read wished i was there,
Maybe it may happen again, Did the family tag along with you?

How many people do you reckon turned up for the night,Sounded like a very sucsessfull night.

Cheers Kev.

[Quark (Trevor)]

Originally Posted by Kevnool

Sorry i missed it Trev but with days off i couldnt be there as i was in vic, back home now and what a great write up and read wished i was there,
Maybe it may happen again, Did the family tag along with you?

How many people do you reckon turned up for the night,Sounded like a very sucsessfull night.

Cheers Kev.

Hi Kev,
Christopher came along and helped out, Cheryl stayed home to baby sit our geriatric beagle.

The site where we setup was up a National Parks access road that was closed to the public. We were set up in the daylight and the arrangement was for general public wanting to attend to meet at the Rangers office at the Kinchega Wool shed.

We didn't know how many would turn up but the Ranger was to lead them to the helipad at 6:30 pm. Christopher and I were relaxing in our fold up chairs when we saw the lights of the convoy coming through the trees. There must have been a dozen vehicles and about 30 people. Non of them had ever had the opportunity to observe through a decent scope before.

When we looked at M42 many of them initially thought they were seeing the whole region of Orion, they couldn't believe that it was just a tiny point of light that they were looking at.

National Parks want me to do something along similar lines during each of the school holidays this year.

Regards
Trevor

[nightsky]

G'Day Trevor,
This sort of story is just great to hear,it's good to know that people like yourself and others are prepared to take the time and show others around the night sky.Good on yeah and hope you have many more nights like this
one.
Cheers
Arthur

[Chippy (Nick)]

A great writeup for what was obviously a great night. Well done and thanks for sharing!