The Mount Stromlo Observatory, on the fringes of Canberra, has been at the heart of much cosmological research. The latest in a significant list of research topics is the search for Dark Matter. Whilst it continues that important work to this day, what is most striking to the visitor on the ground is its function as a memorial to the 2003 bushfires, which destroyed much of the facility. It is a very moving place.
The ruins of the Yale-Columbia telescope building.
Destroyed in the firestorm of 2003 the Yale telescope at Mount Stromlo was well travelled. It was built in 1924 for a facility in Johannesburg in South Africa before being relocated to Stromlo in 1955.
The Oddie telescope. You'd think there was nothing much wrong with it...
The Oddie Telescope was the earliest constructed on the site, in 1911, and last used for searching for supernova remnants in the Milky Way in the 1990s before becoming part of the Observatory's outreach programme, giving access to the general public to experience astronomy.
View from the café (which is also a working astronomical building).
A view inside the burnt out Oddie telescope.
Another view into the Oddie telescope.
This view has only been possible since the fire.
Part of an abandoned telescope mechanism.
1 comment:
Such a disaster!
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