BusTed in Maidenwell

Its Hi from Maidenwell,

When we were back in Dalby we picked up a pamphlet on the Maidenwell Observatory. Well my eyes lit up , I could hardly contain myself, "lets go look at the stars" I said excitedly.

We drove up hill and down dale till we reached this little town in the middle of nowhere. To our delight you could park behind the pub for free, and the observatory was just a short walk across the oval. There was also the most magnificent tree to draw... 

 

 

 

 The first night it was too cloudy !!! not good for star gazing.

 

The next morning we crossed the road and went for a coffee at the general store, we were surrounded by 60's memorabilia and sipped delicious coffee to the sounds of Elvis and the like.

The clouds cleared and.............that meant we stargaze...woohoo.

 

 

We were showed into a large room which boasted three huge telescopes....I could hardly contain my excitement...The bloke in charge was a little quirky to say the least, he kept saying he was expecting a crowd.

 

Well, it wasn't a huge room, about the size of a garage, and there were 21 of us seated comfortably around , he asked that we sit into the numbered bays in groups of seven around each telescope. He left the room and returned a little frazzled...."Okay" he said, "scrunch up we have another 38 people coming.." we all looked around in horror...Where was he expecting to fit all these people???

Well, with a few extra seats he managed...then it was finally time.

All eyes were on the funny little man in charge, he turned all the lights down and piped through speakers came the haunting music of a space odyssey...nice....but wait..... then the roof rolled back exposing a sky blanketed with a million stars.

 

He had a bright green laser and pointed out Nebulas and Sagittarius, then Saturn. He set all the telescopes onto Saturn at 100x magnification...we all waited to have a look...when it finally got to our turn I was near busting, I looked through and there it was Saturn....a pissy little thing looking no bigger than the end of my pinky.

Then with great excitement the funny little man said now we will magnify it to 300x my expectations were high again....and dashed again, about ring finger size this time.

All these sci-fi movies had left me with great expectations...what we saw was magnificent...but not nearly as much as I had been anticipating.

So if asked would we recommend this little excursion at $30 bucks ahead an average of five dollars a look through the scope....I think our answer would be "no".

 

Oh, and if you are looking for a meal at the Maidenwell pub... that's bloody hard to find too, in spite of all the signage and promise of Pizzas.

 

till next time

xxxx

from

Ellen and Michelle