Uluru Astro Tour

On Thursday night me and Dad went to an Uluru Astro Tour. At 7:40 we hopped onto a bus and drove into Uluru national park and to the sunrise viewing point. When we got out of the bus we walked over to a big telescope to see Jupiter next to the moon before they both went down under the horizon. I could not see it at all. Me and Dad think it could have had something to do with me not standing at the right angle or just because it was my first time using a telescope. Next we walked over to talk about star constellations and directions in the night. They said if you look up and find the Crux (Southern Cross) and you find the pointer stars you can tell which way is south. You draw an imaginary line between the two pointer stars down to the horizon and you draw a line from the two widest stars in the Crux (Southern Cross) down to the horizon. Where the two lines meet is exactly where south is. Next the man who was directing the group showed us all the star constellations that were visible at the time. We saw a tea pot, Archer, Scorpio, Aquarius, Virgo and a woman holding olives that only had one arm. Soon we got to see through the telescope again. This time I could see through it! I could see Saturn and a Jewlery box cluster. The Astronomer who discovered the cluster thought that it looked like his wife’s Jewellery box, he imagined the brightest star of the cluster to looked like a ruby. Next a professional photographer took a photo of me and Dad under the Milky Way.

Soon we got on the bus to go back to the campsite. When the bus stopped we walked to the campsite and towards the camp trailer.