Outreach Update

Published in the RSAA Lunations
Vol1 Issue44 1–30 September 2023

Outreach in August means Science Week and is always a busy time of the year.  We hosted a public night on the 18th as part of it, which despite some early rain, still saw 1000 people come up to Stromlo.  On the 26th we ran a special public night for people with hearing impairment by having Auslan interpreters for the talks and stargazing, as well as making access to the telescopes accessible for people with limited mobility or physical differences. We had about 400 for this night. Our last public night of the year will be on 22 September.

We also hosted our first SciFi movie night - where we screened a movie and discussed the science!  With the cafe and Visitor Centre opening soon, we will be running these more over the warmer months.

As part of ACT Science Week, we also hosted booths at Cooleman Court and the Canberra Centre as part of Science in the Centres. Outreachers ran activities and talked to people about astronomy on two different Sundays. Plus we had a number of people visiting schools and doing talks and solar observing.

In addition to science week, we had our normal visits from schools and private groups. We hosted 30 school groups with nearly 1100 student visiting in August. Starting in September, we will now be hosting school groups at Mt Stromlo as well as Mulligans Flat. This will help meet the huge demand from school groups that want to visit for astronomy evenings. However, there is a limit to how many groups we can host on site at a time. The skies at Mulligans Flat are decently dark, and it continues to grow our partnership as we head towards opening the Visitor Centre.

On that, Facilities and Services is finalizing the budgets and agreements with Mulligans Flat for re-opening the cafe and Visitor Centre.  We are on track for a December opening!

And if you haven’t signed-up, SSO Open Day will be at the end of September so if you are keen to help, email Chris Lidman christopher.lidman@anu.edu.au and Zoe Holcombe Zoe.Holcombe@anu.edu.au

Brad Tucker