A night at the observatory

Mount Stromlo observatory had its first public night of 2015 on Friday, the 24th of April. Initially it appeared that the clouds would ruin the opportunity to gaze at the stars, but the sky cleared just in time for the start of the event.

Six telescopes focused upon different points in the sky; Jupiter, the moon, nebulae and various stars.

Astronomers working at the observatory presented a number of talks to the astronomy buffs and those trying to escape the cold. Topics ranged from meteorites to the Hubble space telescope, which has been in orbit since 1990.

Brad Tucker, the organiser of the event and an astronomer at the Observatory, explained that the talks were added as an extra activity on public nights in 2013.

The talks were added because attendees were interested in learning more about what they were seeing through the telescopes. It also served as an incentive to get people to attend the event during bad weather, when not much is visible through the telescopes.

In 2014 300 people still showed up after it had snowed because they were interested in the talks.

A lot of planning goes into deciding the date of the event. The organisers keep their audience in mind when they are deciding what nights to open the observatory to the public.

Public nights are scheduled in the winter when sunset is earlier and are on a Friday night to allow families to bring their children without worrying about getting home before bedtime.

The exact dates of the event are determined by the position of the moon. The moon should be visible but not so bright that it washes away the fainter objects.

On a clear night, there are twenty telescopes positioned towards the Moon, Saturn, Jupiter, Venus, various globular of clusters and nebulae.

The event is free, a conscious decision made by the organisers of the events.

“The point of research is to learn things and then tell people about it. Ultimately, I feel like you can’t get paid to do research and then paid to tell people about it,” said Brad Tucker.

He said that they were planning on starting private nights for special events and parties, and will charge for those. But all other public events at the observatory will be free.

“There is also a benefit to all this. If it’s free, people are less likely to be picky,” he said.

Mount Stromlo will hold five more public nights on 22 May, 19 June, 24 July, 21 August, and 25 September.