The Sydney Observatory. A great place for a family visit.

On Saturday we took a trip to the Sydney Observatory which is now a museum of astronomy and a division of the Powerhouse Museum .  Edward's cousins went there for a tour last week and told him about looking at the Sun through the big telescope.  He was keen.  It would also give me the opportunity to take some photos for my Sydney then and now ... photographic project.

We knew that the first tour would start at 11am, so Saturday at 10.20am was a good time to look for a parking spot in Upper Fort Street, and we got the closest public parking space to the Observatory.

I took a couple of important photographs for my project and then we went inside and read out some of the informational plaques to Edward along the way.

This one explains the time ball.

 

We went inside to the reception desk and booked ourselves into the 11am tour.  Usually the fee is $7 for adults and $5 for children (from 4 to 15 years) but because we are members of a museum with reciprocal visiting rights at the Powerhouse Museum, for us it was FREE!  

Then we entered and walked through the other parts of the Observatory viewing the range of exhibits.  These included historic astronomical  instruments including telescopes and orreries and explanations of some of the principles of optics.Here's the transit circle:

 

  Ed got a lot out of pressing the buttons on the interactive exhibits.  We also walked through the gardens and admired the outstanding views afforded by the position of Observatory Hill.

 

Then it was time for the 3-D movie show and the telescope viewing.

The movies on show were Bigger than Big and After Stars   both produced by Swinburne's Space Works.

The old-school 3-D glasses were obligatory, and wearing them added to the fascination for Ed.

Movies over and our knowledge of some facets of astronomy enriched, it was off to some telescope viewing led by our guide, Lisa.  We ascended the narrow stairs to the southern dome and saw the auspiciously named Meade LX200 EMC telescope.  I think this one is a 16-inch model, which is actually the same as used in the Meade company's own observatory.

 

 

Lisa mounted a small ladder and started to manually turn the wheel to open the dome.  You'll see here too a view of the cover on the end of the telescope.  Whilst I'm sure it is of the highest quality, it does look as though it was made by Playschool presenters out of cardboard and sticky tape.

 

 

We did not actually use the 16- inch telescope, we used a parrallel smaller telescope fitted with a filter. The filter on the telescope permitted direct viewing of the Sun, which would otherwise cause blinding to the viewer.  I can't show the view through the eyepiece, but I can give you a good view of the bridge framed by the dome aperture.

A tour of the  grounds of the Observatory Hill reserve even revealed a war memorial of which I had been unaware.  This one for the New South Wales contingent to the South African (Boer) War.

It includes this small artillery piece which was manufactured by Fried. Krupp in 1896 at Essen.

 

 

 

The visit to the Observatory sparked plenty of questions from Edward about black holes, pulsars and stars so today we borrowed some books on astronomy from the library.  Edward got straight down to reading them when we got home.

 

 

 

 

Here's the heritage listing for the Sydney Observatory which gives some good detail about the history of the buildings.
 

Comments

[nico]

thanks for sharing some decent pictures of the building I passed by nearly every day on my pushbike but never meda a visit to.
in referrence to the manufaturer of friedrich krupp [married to berta von bohlen and halbach] I can only tell you that their residence in essen kettwig is also quite nice.

[Bob Meade]

Nice, you know it's a funny thing. I was very familiar with the name Krupp, as the venerable German armament manufacturer, but I was trying to work out what "Fried." meant.

Of course the answer turned out to be that it is a simple abbreviation of his first name. I did not think of that. I'll put up a photograph of the gun's breach block showing the manufacturer's markings in a short while.

[nico]

hmm, krupp is mostly known for their weapons. interestingly the "dicke bertha" [in english "giant bertha"] as seen in chaplin's "the great dictator" was nicknamend after the wife of friedrich krupp. memorable quote by on of my ancestors who happend to deliver a handcrafted carriage to their residence in essen: she was an honorable lady, but indeed very huge.

never the less, krupp is also famous for installing the first inhouse kindergarten for his workers and allowed the building of labor unions.