Mt. Stromlo Public Astronomy Night

Mount Stromlo Observatory in conjunction with the Canberra Astronomical Society invite the Canberra community to attend our public observing nights of 2018. Come and see the rings of Saturn, the craters of the moon, and beautiful star clusters and nebulae. On the night attendees will be taken on a ‘tour of the universe’ with talks by astronomers from Mt. Stromlo Observatory and observations on several telescopes.

Prof. Paul Francis's popular lecture series has over 1 million views on YouTube! He is an award-winning astronomy educator and has worked on comets and quasars. Come along and bring questions about your favourite objects, no matter how big or small!

Prof. Lisa Kewley is a world leader in galaxy formation and evolution. She has worked on galaxy collisions, supermassive black holes, star formation and the amount of oxygen in galaxies across cosmic time. As Director of the Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence of All-Sky Astrophysics in 3D, she leads a network of around 150 scientists and students around the world. She is a Professor of Astrophysics at the Australian National University and an ARC Laureate Fellow.

On the night you will also have the opportunity to see original hand-painted glass and clockwork slides from the nineteenth century projected by authentic magic lanterns which are over one hundred years old. In the nineteenth century lecturers on astronomy used a variety of ingenious magic lantern slides to demonstrate phenomena such as the rotation of the planets around the sun or the phases of the moon. Join Associate Professor Martyn Jolly and Dr Elisa deCourcy, from the research project Heritage in the Limelight: The Magic Lantern in Australia and the World, to re-experience the wonder of the heavens as imagined last century. They will project these rare slides accompanied by music and and a recitation from an original astronomical lecture of 1849. 

Bookings are essential and entry is by gold coin donation. Warm clothing is recommended. The café will also be open to serve food and drink.

In the event of cloudy/bad weather, stargazing will be cancelled (the talks will occur regardless of the weather). You can check out the weather at Mt Stromlo using our all sky camera. We will also post updates on our Facebook page.

2018 Dates: 20 April, 18 May, 15 June, 13 July, 17 August, and 14 September.