1 week
4 days
18 people
100,000,000 stars – maybe more
Together with 18 people, I celebrated the last night of International Dark Sky Week under the milky way at Siding Spring. Oh my – what a perfect night! One by one the stars came out in a perfectly still evening. No breeze, just the sound of a few crickets braving the evening environment. Or perhaps they were as happy as we were to be out in it, they didn’t want to go to bed.
Siding Spring mountain is the home of Australia’s National Optical Telescope, and along with Dr Paul Payne and 17 of his students from Sydney Observatory, toured the Anglo Australian Telescopes, Schmidt Telescope and Google Telescope to expand their astronomical horizons. Later in the day we visited Sandstone Caves in the Pilliga scrub and embarked on the short walk around this significant site, (pictured) before coffee at Pilliga Pottery. (neither should be missed)
This is all part of our plan to increase tourism at Siding Spring Mountain and support the scientific endeavours of the ANU. You can join us next time for a 3 night adventure – and I really look forward to sharing it with you too!
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