Outreach Update

Published in the RSAA Lunations
Vol1 Issue71 1–30 April 2026

With an early Easter, school holidays came a bit earlier than normal and we had both school groups visiting Mt Stromlo as well as school holiday programs. Despite the school holidays, we still had nearly 600 students from Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia, Victoria, and New South Wales.

Most importantly this month, daylight savings came bringing an earlier start for observing, as well as many great, clear, cool autumun evenings. The clear nights meant that the many private groups we had with people visiting Canberra over the holidays had beautiful views of the skies.  A special treat was seeing/learning about the Laser Optical Ground Station and the work with Artemis II while it was happening.

We had 15 year 7 - 9 students for four days as part of a school holiday program. Amongst the many things they did was a deep dive into dark matter.  Thanks to Clinton Li, Jess Mills, Katelyn Tsipiras, Rishika Nair Prabhakaran, and Ben Lowe for helping! 

That same week we also had 5 year 11 and 12 Indigenous students attend a work experience program run by Karlie Noon and Pete Swanton.  The program provided the students with a great introduction and experience to what it is like to actually do astronomy. Special thanks to 3rd year undergraduate student Anneliese Joy for helping as well!

On the 24th, under perfect skies, we held our first Public Astronomy Night of the year.  More than 1200 people attended to enjoy the night which included talks and photos projected on the 74" dome.

Brad Tucker.

Image: School holiday students presenting the work on dark matter to their parents.