The Night Sky and Tom Cruz...

One of the highlights of the trip for me was the tour we went on one evening to the Ayers Rock Observatory.

We had been told about an organised evening meal with astronomy for pud even before we had left Blighties shores but this turned out to be a full course, a la carte, open air affair and wouldn't have fulfilled potential with two restless and at times food fussy children. So instead we opt for the feed my mind not my stomach astronomy tour.

The night sky away from cities and town's light pollution has the ability to take your breath away and even before the tour really gets going I find myself ogling the theatre above. We witness not only the milky way but also see a jet black area devoid of stars right in the middle of its spiral arm which turns out to be The Coal Sac Nebula not the cold suck nebula my initial interpretation, although I think my name has some merit. We also see the Magellanic clouds, two galaxies visible to the naked eye under the right conditions ie Southern Hemisphere with no moon. We are then led thro an array of constellations and planets and spot a shooting star! Finally we are allowed to look thru the observatories telescopes where my gasps of delights at seeing Orion's nebula and Saturn complete with rings embarrasses Caitlin greatly; at last it begins.

It is amazing to note there is always a certain geek attraction to these things and this tour was no different. Our geek on the bus back impersonates a Brit from Essex, can't possibly be a real Brit . Then I realise there is something a little Tom Cruz about him and not in the appearance way as I hear,

"Did You know there are tribes in Senegal," he needed a couple of go's at getting the right country, well it's difficult when so many begin with S," whose astronomers hold ancient star charts."

" OOhh , AAAhhh"from gathered less knowledgables. He continues in more subdued but still discernable Essex accent,

" Modern Astronomers who visited were shocked to see they had correctly identified Alpha Centauri as a binary star and all without telescopes. When asked how they knew, these tribes people replied the ' visitors told us!'

You could see where I was going with my Tom Cruz thing and I was dying to ask why these visitors didn't release more useful information than Alpha Centauri is a binary star but guess their decision making was somewhat questionable as they did go on to make Ron . L Hubbard their spokesman.