23 September 2019

A tour of Pilbara transport followed by the stars

On the road to Karijini, we came across at least three oversize loads - that took up the entire road in fact. This guy pulled to the left so we could pass. The other two were coming head on. The escort forced us off the road. Richard and Penny were really mad that it happened by the time they arrived at Auski/Munjina.
There was a malfunctioning rail crossing that meant everyone waited for about a full 20 minutes. It made for some good photos though...

Finally the train appeared!
Then it kept rolling, rolling, rolling, rolling, rolling, rolling, rolling, for about 240 carriages, like aout 2 to 2.5kms long. They do take a while...
The road trains could finally cross.
We finally got to Munjina (aka Auski Roadhouse)
On arrival in Karijin, luckily Marie overheard the hosts talking about a great star tour. We had a fantastic star viewing session - saw the Alpha Centauri twin system, the Jewel Box, just above the Southern Cross, all different colours, hot new stars 14 million years old, two Globular clusters, the Moon, Jupiter and Saturn. The Omega Centura globular cluster has 10 million stars at 16000 light years. The jewel box is 6440 light years away. ETA Carina will go supernova soon. There are now 2 trillion galaxies in the known universe. It is expanding faster than the speed of light, so space is expanding as well as the stars flying fast. There are like 2 billion stars in the Milky way galaxy along. We each got a Milky Way chocolate bar at the end and a little summary card. We need to get a 10 inch Dobsonian telescope. Phill Witt.
Phill got this magic shot via the telescope and onto Marie's phone - pretty amazing. 
Lou was super excited, particularly when we could see Saturn's rings so clearly, you could see the gap. It finished so late that when we got home, he slept on his bed before getting into the sleeping bag etc.

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