A Late Birthday Present Was the Best! The Universe All To Themselves

Justin’s Birthday Gift Was Just What Allison Wanted – A Journey To The Stars And Beyond

It was a long drive from north central Victoria to Honeysuckles Astronomy Tours beachside observing paradise, but the journey rewarded them well on so many fronts… Justin and Allison’s telescope observing experience had  been limited to a small aperture telescope, as is the story with most of us throughout our lives.

The night sky has a host of amazing objects in it and nearly all of them are totally unexpected when they are seen for the first time. The shapes, structures and colours are a new visual adventure. An personal astronomy tour with a powerful telescope truly is an “adventure experience”.

In autumn, one of the observing delights we enjoy showing our guests is a rare thing most would not have heard of – a “planetary nebula”. A planetary nebula is when looking at a dying star in its final stage of life, the star expels/ejects its gas away into space (which eventually disappears into the great empty void) from around the tiny remnant white dwarf star that remains behind. The “dying” process takes around 2,000 years with the colourful expanding gas cloud remaining visible for up to 20,000 years. There are many of these objects visible in space. At this time of year the “Ghost Of Jupiter” is our favourite PN to wow our guests. It is a beautiful colour and with visible structural detail within the cloud. Quite a stunner. You can also spot the white dwarf at its centre. Being high in the sky during our viewing season and thus an optimal view of it, we look forward to revisiting it every year. 🙂

Justin and Allison enjoyed a smorgasbord of astronomical delights during their tour. It was a crisp, still and clear late autumn night. The sky was on show and we saw a number of galaxies who’s light had taken many tens of millions of years to reach us. Our tour Memento which we give our guests following their tour, will remind them of the objects they saw. There will be reminiscing no doubt of the sights and which was their favourite – always a tough decision we discover when we enquire!

 

“The star tour was amazing”   Justin 

“I learnt so much during the tour” … “The omelet was the best omelet I’ve ever eaten!”    Allison