4th Aug Charleville

 Kms today  209          Kms to date 9800

I had my breakfast at Fanny Mae's in Tambo and very nice it was too.  I had planned to have breakfast there on our original itinerary with Alan .  I had time to have a wander around Tambo.  It claims to be the oldest town in Queensland's Central West.  It is very pretty with a wide main street with Boab Trees in the median strip.  The buildings are interesting and I would come back here for a closer look.

 

Carrangarra Hotel in Tambo

Tambo Butchery

I was in no hurry to get to Charleville as my first booking at the Cosmos Centre was at 2:15.  The countryside was wooded savannah and easy on the eye, though I had been warned that the road was rough.  It was cold when I left and I had the heated grips on 50%. I am well prepared for cold mornings that I can expect from here to Melbourne, or so I thought!

I checked in early at the Warrego Motel, which was small, but immaculate and good value.  I unpacked and headed off to the Cosmos Centre for the sun viewing.

I was early so I saw the show in the Planetarium about how the earth was formed.  It was pretty good and I learned a lot: like a huge planet about 1/2 earth's size smashed into it, forming the moon and setting up conditions on earth for the beginning of life, and Jupiter was almost big enough to be a star and hoovered up a lot of material in the inner solar system before drifting back out to its  current orbit.  This helped create conditions for earth to develop into a living planet without bombardment by asteroids.  It wasn't a real planetarium as there was no projection of stars onto the dome.  It was just a giant projection screen.

Cosmos Centre Planerarium

Then we had the sun viewing. They had a special 9" reflector telescope that had the main tube filled with a special gas to absorb the harmful rays so we could see the sun.  Our guide was a bit confused about nuclear physics but still a mine of information.  I saw the full disc of the sun and could make out the swirling surface.  I managed to get a photo of that.  Then, with a more powerful eyepiece, I saw a solar flare on the edge of the sun.

The sun telescope

The disc of the sun - a bit fuzzy

 

Jupiter - I could also see four moons and the big spot through the telescope

Later after dinner I went back for a star show.  This was held in a special outdoor area with three large telescopes so everyone could have a look.  There was no moon so I was expecting a view of the Milky Way like the Warrumbungle Observatory.  It was not as good because of the light pollution from Charleville and the trucks on the Warrego Hwy next door.  I don't know why they didn't locate it further out of town in a more isolated spot to avoid the light pollution.  Any way we got a look at a nebula, large star cluster, twin star, Saturn and finally Jupiter. The guide was trained to entertain but wasn't an expert so wasn't convincing with all her explanations.  I managed to get a photo of Jupiter with 3 moons and Saturn, but not very sharp. I saw the 4 moons around Jupiter in their telescope and briefly the red band around Jupiter.  Saturn's rings were quite clear too.