The blustery weather we had in the morning was no indication of what we would be enjoying for an innovative
Club social activity - a visit to the Stardome planetarium, followed by a pleasant walk up One Tree Hill
on a calm moonlit night and finishing off with coffee at Starbucks in Parnell.
All 44 of us
met at the One Tree Hill observatory at 6:30pm ready to go into the 7pm STARdome planetarium session.
We sat in reclining seats looking up inside a dome on to which images of the sky, the planets and the
STARs were projected. The theme of the 45 minute presentation was the spring sky. The two planets that
were easily visible were Venus and Mars, Venus showing very bright in the western sky. The presenter
told us about the constellations, and about the twelve signs of the zodiac, then showed us slides of
some of the many stars, planets, and galaxies.
Afterwards we were able to go out the back and
look at the moon, STARs and planets through some telescopes.
At 8:15pm we all assembled outside
to begin our walk up One Tree Hill. We took the footpath that followed the route of the original road
to eventually come onto the proper road up the hill. It was a glorious night with a full moon shining.
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In one place we could see sheep and lamps sleeping under the trees.
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We continued to up to the top of One Tree Hill and had a good look at the view all of around - the
orange and greeny-white lights looked like a whole mass of STARs shimmering below us. It was a real answer
to prayer that the blustery wind and cold had given way to a calm clear evening.
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After we returned to the car park outside the planetarium we got into our cars and went on to Parnell
to finish the evening by relaxing over coffee at STARbucks. Only fifteen of us went on to this; the rest
just wanted to go straight home and have an early night or watch some movies.
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Lin handed out a few “door prizes” for those who had been given lucky name tags at the Stardome prior
to the commencement of the session.
Many thanks to Lin, who always thinks up of novel social activities
for our club, and we have many more new things to look forward to.
COST: Stardome $12
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