At Last! Some Clear Nights

 We finally had a clear night on Monday so the telescope was out.  This time it was the Firebird Nebula. This is a star forming nebula, and is sculpted by the massive, young stars that have recently formed there – some are only a few million years old. This spark of formation was probably caused when the last batch of stars went supernova.  Again I am amazed that I can get this image from the backyard in Melbourne.

It was clear again on Tuesday so the target was the Prawn Nebula, another star forming region of the Milky Way about 6000 light years away.

Lachlan Heads For The Top

 Lachlan's Central Australian Trip is covering territory he saw as a 2 year old but retains little memory of it. Following Uluru, he saw King's Canyon and took a helicopter flight over the area before going north to the Devil's Marbles, Katherine Gorge and Mataranka.

Lachlan kept the tour amused by recreating photos taken when he was a toddler with his Dad.

They visited Kakadu seeing plenty of wildlife (and crocodiles) before heading for Darwin, arriving on Northern Territory Day before flying home.

Nostalgia on Steroids

 We attended a concert at "The Round" last night.  The music was all British music of the 60s and 70s that was written before any of the performers were born but was the soundtrack of our youth.

Centaurus A Reprocessed

 With the recent dreadful weather I have been unable to use my telescope so I have turned attention to processing data I had previously collected.  I was pleased to be able to get a more detailed image of Centaurus A and the dust lanes across the galaxy with improved techniques.

Centaurus A is the 5th brightest spot in the sky.  It is 11–13 million light-years away and the closest radio galaxy to earth. It was discovered in 1826 by Scottish astronomer James Dunlop from his home in Parramatta, in New South Wales..  Powerful radio emissions suggest it was formed from the collision of a large elliptical and a smaller spiral galaxy with the resulting burst of intensive star formation.

Lachlan Tours Central Australia

 Lachlan and about 35 of his closest friends braved the rain and freezing temperatures at silly o'clock on a Saturday morning to board a coach bound for Central Australia.

They made it to Coober Pedy and seem to have escaped the rain.

They have now spent time around Uluru.

James in the News

 James has been less than impressed with some of the changes announced in the last federal budget.  So much so that he was photographed and extensively quoted in an article in "The Australian".

Pam's New Unit

 We called in on Pam to see her new unit.  Of course the important consideration was housing her collection of pot plants and she has managed that well.  She is also very close to the main shopping area and the smaller Unit makes things very comfortable for her.

Kervin Cousin Catchup

 There are only four Kervin Cousins remaining so they decided that catchups over lunch were better than meet-ups at funerals.  So we all met at Hotel in Rochester.

We enjoyed a great meal and the staff could not have been more accommodating.

Of course, the support staff had to get in on the act too.

Around Kerang

 While living in Cohuna we had spent very little time in Kerang so it was interesting to look around.  The town seems to be surviving well with plenty of local activity and a relatively prosperous shopping precinct.  There were well maintained gardens and sporting facilities.

We visited Murrabit, a town that hosts the Murrabit Market, it's only claim to fame then on to Wakool (we liked the name).  It was a very neat little town with a corrugated iron Sculpture Park.

For lunch we headed for the Barham Club that I had joined as a life member in 1969.  I was Life Member No 105 and, surprisingly, I was still in the records so I was issued with a new membership card.

North to Kerang

 Heading north we visited Boort, a town that seemed to be about as remote as you can get in Victoria.  It is also a town that has seen more prosperous times but is still an attractive location on the shores of Lake Boort.

On the way through to Kerang we called into Lake Meran.  In the late 1960s and early 70s we had spent many happy hours at the Lake on picnics and water skiing with our boat "Beefa".  During the drought, the lake was dry and grain was harvested on the damper soil that was the bottom of the lake.  We were pleased to see it back as we remembered it although the water level was still low.