Western Queensland Road Trip #6 Charleville
Have you ever stared into the night sky and wondered what’s out there, or imagined what life would be like as an astronaut? You’ll find the answers to these questions and more at the Charleville Cosmos Centre and Observatory.
Charleville is more than 750 km from the coast and, with a population of less than 3,500 and very little light pollution, it’s the perfect site for a space observatory. Appropriately located on Milky Way Road, the Cosmos Centre comprises an indoor exhibition and café and an outdoor observatory, where telescopes operate during the day and at night.
Enter the Cosmos shuttle and you are instantly transported to the world of an astronaut, where eating, drinking and even using the bathroom are challenges in a weightless environment. Videos show footage of astronauts working in space, from the first moon landing to recent residents of the International Space Station.
During an astronomy talk, a Cosmos guide passes round pieces of a billion year old meteorite and explains how space junk falls back to Earth after passing through its atmosphere.
Quirky facts make the idea of living in outer space seem very attractive.
At the outdoor observatory a daytime visit starts with a talk about the sun, detailing fascinating facts about its small stature compared with more distant stars, its composition and life span.
The sliding roof of the observatory is pushed back just enough to give the solar telescope a clear view of the sun. It appears in the telescope’s eyepiece as a huge red ball, and what look like fine red hairs sticking out from the edge are massive solar flares. A tiny black dot in the middle is a sunspot ten times larger than Earth.
For more amazing celestial views, return to the Cosmos Centre after dark for an evening presentation. Guides with a passion for astronomy lead you on a journey through the Milky Way and beyond, using large Meade telescopes to see distant diamond star clusters and planets. Any constellations visible above the horizon are identified and described.
While the thought of stars being many light years distant is hard to comprehend, our nearest neighbour the Moon seems relatively close. Viewed through one of the powerful telescopes, the detail on the Moon’s surface is so clear you can almost imagine yourself as one of those astronauts you’ve learned about earlier in the day.
After spending a few hours at the Cosmos Centre, a visit to the International Space Station might well be added to your bucket list.
I would love to go into outer space. I think it is fascinating. Would you go?
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I’m not sure I would want to go quite that far, but I’m happy to watch others do it.
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Oh yes, I’d love to visit this place!
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In total, we spent several hours there Pauline, and the best thing was we didn’t have to do everything all in one go. We were able to do the night time viewing when the skies were clear.
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Humbling experience to think about the size of the universe and that shot of the sun is truly out of this world. Wow!
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The vastness of the galaxy is so hard to comprehend, even when it is visible through those special telescopes. I loved learning more about what’s out there.
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So mind boggling to realise just how gigantic the sun is compared to our tiny planet. Great photos, Carol.
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It was incredible to see the sun through that telescope. The solar flares were amazing.
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Brilliant – definitely an experience worth travelling for. So many to choose from though.
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Luckily we stayed long enough in Charleville to see everything there. It’s a great little town to visit.
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I absolutely loved places like that and loved this post. So interesting to visit a space centre and learn more about our universe and the stars. Fascinating stuff.
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We really enjoyed that there was a big section about space related events in Australia, like meteors and space junk which have landed here. I also enjoyed the quirky space facts.
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I’d love to visit it at night time, away from the light pollution of the cities
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There were so many stars in the night sky, Denzil. It was quite beautiful.
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That must be a fascinating place to visit. Your photo of the sun is amazing!
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It was so interesting.
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I love the sound of this Carol. Anything to do with outer space I find intriguing. Wow, that sun …
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It was so interesting Miriam. The sun was quite spectacular through the telescope.
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It sounds like the perfect place to learn more about the cosmos. 🙂
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It was so interesting and I really enjoyed the photos of the space shuttle.
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