Last night, we had a family celebration to mark the birthdays of both Brett and Mark. Finding opportunities for family events becomes more problematic as the family expands so this was a special event. Claire spent time preparing and we all enjoyed the fruits of her labour!
Lachlan has been making good use of his time since the Central Australian Trip. He is doing a week of work experience and today he got his Learner’s Licence.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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".
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.
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.
