Celestial sensation

by Bernt Rostad
Celestial sensation
Article by Salt Magazine - Writer Leigh Robshaw

Celestial sensation - Travel












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The students at Mapleton State School have stars in their eyes. Fortunate enough to have their own observatory, these kids don't just study space from books; they look through a $ 13,000, 14-inch Celestron telescope and marvel at the moon's craters and Saturn's rings with their own eyes.Mapleton Observatory is one of only a few school-based observatories in Australia, but it's not just the students who get to have all the fun. Open nights, amateur astronomy courses and astrophotography courses are held throughout the year for anyone who's interested.An assortment of people have visited the observatory since it opened in August 2003, from curious locals and tourists, who plan their Sunshine Coast holiday around the observatory's course schedule, to Scout groups who sleep over and honeymooners who value it for the romantic, memorable experience it is.I visit the observatory on a starry, half-moon night, invited by Lainie and Adrian Adams, who have been running the observatory as volunteers from day one and are the backbone of the place. I am in no way prepared for my first, totally mesmerising view of the moon through a 12-inch Dobsonian telescope. Its pure luminosity is like poetry in light and the craters look so detailed and close I feel I can almost touch them. I have never been so intimate with the moon before and I can hardly take my eyes off it.Lainie points to various celestial bodies with a laser pointer so our group can find them easily as we swing the big barrel of the Dobsonian around. We are able to see the two Magellanic Clouds; a globular cluster called 47 Tucanae, which is about 16,700 light years away and 120 light years across; and the Eagle Nebula, which emits a tower of gas that is approximately 97 trillion kilometres high. According to Lainie, the best nights to visit the observatory are when there is a smallish moon - full moon nights are too bright."We also gather on dark nights when you can see the nebulae, when there's no moon at all," says Lainie. "Each phase has its strengths. Winter is the best time for viewing for the crisp clean air."It took community volunteers a year of Saturdays to build the dome-topped observatory. After the school received a $ 30,000 grant, former principal John Henley suggested an observatory be built, and a fundraising campaign was undertaken to raise a further $ 25,000.Inside the dome, the Celestron is set on its automated mount to track whatever celestial body is being viewed on the night. The night I visit, we take turns viewing Jupiter on the Celestron, while Adrian shows the group some spectacular astrophotography on the computer. As he reels off measurements too large to imagine, I feel a deep sense of the incomprehensible magnitude of

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