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 2019. 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.

Bookings are essential and entry is by gold coin donation. Warm clothing is recommended. 

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.

2019 Dates: 12 April, 10 May, 7 June, 12 July, 16 August, 27 September.

Prof. Brian Schmidt is a Laureate Fellow at the Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics and is one of the recipients of the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics. This was awarded for the discovery that the Universe is currently undergoing a period of accelerated expansion; a discovery done using exploding stars called supernovae. In 2016, he was appointed the 12th Vice-Chancellor of ANU.

Tony Travouillon is an instrument scientist at the Advanced Instrumentation and Technology Centre of ANU. He is currently working on Adaptive Optics applications including large optical telescopes and debris tracking. He has spent 14 years working on the Thirty Meter Telescope project and has built instruments to study the atmospheric conditions on many mountains spanning 4 continents including Antarctica.

Stephen Slater has had an interest in documentary film-making since an early age growing up in Derbyshire, England. Since 2011 he has produced and directed "Destination Titan", and has worked as an Archive Producer on "The Last Man On The Moon", "George Best: All By Himself", and the BAFTA Award winning "Hillsborough". He is a specialist in the NASA film archive, and his latest project as an archive producer, the critically acclaimed documentary "APOLLO 11", premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. It won the Special Jury Award for Editing and was released in U.S cinemas and IMAX in March 2019. It is the highest grossing documentary of this year so far, taking in over $8 million at the box office at time of writing.

Special performance: Moon Stories [The Day the World Changed!] is a performance project about Space, Time, Memory and communication across distance, cultures and generations. It has involved the collaboration of ACT Heritage, ACT Parks, members of the Apollo 11 50th Anniversary Committee, Tyronne Bell from Thunderstone Aboriginal Cultural and Land Management Services, and Canberra Dance Theatre [GOLDs mature-age dancers], along with media students from the Faculty of Arts and Design at University of Canberra, and staff and students from Namadgi High School in the south of Canberra.

The July 12 performance in the Yale-Columbia Dome will last 15 minutes. Pick up a special commemorative set of 4 x Augmented Reality-linked postcards at Mt Stromlo, Namadgi and Tidbinbilla Visitors’ Centres, or go to http://www.bodyecology.com.au/moon-stories-2019/ to download from the web. 

Produced by Zsuzsi Soboslay, BodyEcology, © BodyEcology 2019.