One of Edward's favourite places at the moment is the Sydney Observatory, part of the Powerhouse Museum.
He enjoyed his daytime visit to the Sydney Observatory in January this year and has been asking us if he could return for a night viewing through the telesopes. Since it is school holiday time last week we all went to check out Saturn Night Fever, the current observatory night viewing programme.
"See Saturn without its famous rings as they turn side on to the Earth roughly every 15 years, Alpha Centauri our nearest stellar neighbour, the constellations Scorpius and Crux and many other celestial features through telescopes and experience space as never before in the 3D space theatre."
Our guide, who happened to have a Ph.D. in astrophysics, took our group to the rear courtyard and while there was a break in the cloud cover used a laser pointer to identify major constellations and stars. Edward was pleased to see Scorpius and the Southern Cross.
(This pic is from Jan 2009 - but you get the ide of the 3-D glasses)
Then we had a session in the 3-D movie theatre to see the shorts Extreme Places and Bigger than Big. In between the movies there was a question and answer session, and Edward impressed me, and surprised the astronomer by asking a question about goldilocks planets. I had never even heard of goldilocks planets, but Ed read about them in one of his astronomy books.
Then up to the South Dome for some viewing. We could not see Saturn due to atmospheric conditions, but focussed the telescope on Alpha Centuri.
The telescope there is the oldest working telescope in Australia. Custom built by Hugo Schroder in 1874, it has an 11.4 inch aperture. Brief history by Geoff Barker here. Details of recent restoration and updated photographs here.
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