Australia - Part 1

Lovely Palm Cove

Before our recent trip to Australia I had never been south of the equator. When an astronomy themed Australian tour became available it was a good opportunity to visit a new continent. I was hoping to see lots of new things, including celestial objects in the southern skies not visible from home.

It was a long journey across the globe, even longer than our previous grueling trips to South Korea. It took four different flights and three layovers to reach our destination.

We crossed several time zones, the equator, and the International Dateline.

The last flight finally took us from Brisbane to Cairns, arriving more than 35 hours after leaving home. (Cairns is pronounced, Ken's by Australians.) Our plane for the long Pacific Ocean flight was a Boeing 787-9 seen below in the Brisbane airport.

It was a relief to arrive at the Cairns airport and anticipate immediate escape from airplane/airport madness. While waiting for our luggage we saw this exhibit of an amazing decorated triathlon bike.

At last we stepped outside into warm, sunny, Australian weather where we met our tour director and some fellow tourists.

Soon we were driving to our hotel in Palm Cove. I was delighted to see this sign along the way.

We passed several fields of sugar cane near Cairns as we drove along. The harvested sugar cane was transported on dedicated, very narrow gauge rail lines running along the field edges. The tiny width between rails reminded me of miniature toy railroads I rode as a kid.

It wasn't long before we arrived at our hotel, The Reef House, in Palm Cove. The front entrance is seen below.

What a lovely place this was! The tour was off to a great start as we left luggage in our nice room.

Here are views from our back patio looking out at a central courtyard with a walkway in back.

A swimming pool was centered in the inner courtyard.

The Reef House had a beautiful lounge area with games, books, videos, and paintings.

The hotel had an open front and dining area where mild, fresh breezes gently blew.

Huge old paperbark gum trees lined the hotel entrance. They were said to have been there since the time of Captain Cook in 1770!

The interesting bark could be peeled off and used in the past as bedding, or, soaked in water to become a food wrap for cooking.

This beautiful beach was directly in front of the hotel.

A gorgeous palm-lined sidewalk was wonderful for slowly strolling along the shoreline.

Along with beauty came possible hazards: dangerous stinging jellyfish and some reptiles.

Dangers were easily avoided. We were intoxicated by tropical beauty greeting us each morning. Elusive colorful birds flashed by making unfamiliar calls.

We passed by this scene each morning as we left the hotel.

On the evening of our arrival we traveled to the Thala resort for dinner and possible stargazing. A non-ideal viewing site and partly cloudy skies made stargazing disappointing. Instead of being located on high ground with clear views of the surrounding horizon, the viewing site was on lower ground surrounded by high trees. The Moon wasn't yet bright enough to overwhelm the Milky Way, but trees blocked the brightest parts, and clouds kept interfering. I could see the Small Magellanic Cloud in binoculars, but my phone camera couldn't capture it in a 10-second exposure. I did see globular cluster 47 Tucanae in the telescope provided. Only two of my phone images were marginally worthwhile. I removed color from the images and processed them to show one bright Milky Way section near Sagittarius. This bright area is just below and left of center in the next picture. The dark shapes across the bottom are trees.

Sagittarius was higher above the horizon than at home and oriented differently. Corona Australis, visible as a curved, upside down arc of stars left of center is visible in both pictures. In the second picture, taken a little later than the first, bright Jupiter appeared through a gap in the trees below center. Saturn is also visible higher up above the glow in Sagittarius.

I'm very disappointed in these images. My phone camera obviously isn't the best instrument for capturing dark sky details, but I expected better results. The constant march of clouds and unfortunate background lighting didn't help. Nevertheless, I was happy to see two southern hemisphere celestial sights I had never seen before.

After the stargazing we drove back to Palm Cove anticipating adventures the next day.