Bathurst Observatory Research Facility
Bathurst NSW Australia
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Bathurst Observatory Research Facility is an observatory site primarily for education, research and study, though we do offer general public viewing nights.
Open Nights Star Tours Available Now (conditions and limits apply)
Bookings will be essential for all tours.
(All tours subject to weather)
Tours are underway at the new site. The site is not complete yet, however, are able to offer tours to help complete other facilities.
Tours will be generally be available most Friday and Saturday nights.
No tours in the week of Full Moon
Please note that the main telescope is pretty big and requires use of a small stepladder for viewing. Please advise if you would have difficulties with steps and we can set up a different telescope.
* There may be some mid week research nights where tours are not available.
Reduced Tours Prices for groups
Costs :
As the site is not yet complete with all facilities, we are asking for donation towards completion (an amount you think is fair for the tour and my time).
(Note: we have NO credit card facilities)
Tour bookings and Enquiries, phone (0427292214 Please leave a message as we screen out spam calls), or email us. (Email is by far the best way to get us, if you don’t get a reply it means you have us blocked!!! Please change your settings!).
Tours require bookings and are weather dependent. (We can’t see stars through clouds!) Tour duration is about 1 hour, depending on time of year.
Our FaceBook page https://www.facebook.com/BathurstObservatory/ is regularly updated, so have a look for the latest news and images from the observatory.
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A rare fine day on the 31st August allowed me to image the sun. The large sunspot group numbered 4197 unleashed a large solar flare that may produce aurora on late on the 2nd September. The sun certainly looks crowded with sunspots at present. As it was a clear night too, I also imaged the Moon!
The one to mark your calendar for is the total lunar eclipse in early hours of the 8th of September. The times here are for eastern Australia. The Moon will start to enter Earth’s umbral shadow at 2:27 am and be totally in the shadow at 3:31 am (getting lower in the west). It will take on the copper colour that a total eclipse is famous for and mid eclipse occurs at 4:11 am! The Moon will remain eclipsed until 4:53am, when it starts to leave Earths shadow. By the time it fully leaves Earth’s shadow it will be pretty much on the western horizon for eastern Australia.
Tours will recommence once the run of cloudy weather goes away for a weekend!!! Did you know that there has not been a clear weekend for some 10 weeks!!! Sometimes I want to give away doing tours as a result. ... See MoreSee Less
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Please save our night sky by signing ADSA petition. www.aph.gov.au/e-petitions/petition/EN7346
See the little dot near the arrow? That is the interstellar comet 3I Atlas. It is still really faint and hardly noticeable other than its movement (I will make a gif of it this week). The top is a raw image from the 24th of August. While the one below is a stack of images processed and shows the comet as a blurred streak due to its movement through the solar system imaged over 15 minutes. The comet is producing some dust and gas, but will NOT be a spectacular object! I had to mark its location with the red arrow or you may not see it! ... See MoreSee Less
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It is the 3rd interstellar object recorded first seen around July this year by the Atlas telescope. A Harvard scientist Avi Loeb has speculated that it may not be a comet but a made object. It should be closest to us in November.
So.. it's not an alien starship... on it's way to menace Earth. How could Facebook get it so wrong!
I cant even find the arrow.
Nice, hopefully it will still be a good target for a scope. Details on gear please.
Where’s the arrow?
If it's travelling so fast as they all say. Why hadn't it passed earth yet.
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Watch this Space August and September 25
Tours have been very difficult to fit into my schedule as you may have noticed. The weather has not been kind, with a LOT of cloud and rain cancelling tours and putting my own work well behind schedule. At present, this does not look to be changing anytime soon. Tours are sadly paused for a bit, until the weather improves AND I catch up on my own work I need to do with the telescope.
As September begins, we do have a few interesting objects to observe. Saturn is making a return to the eastern evening sky. This year the rings are pretty much edge on, so will be harder to see. However, it will still be a good sight!
There are still good prospects for aurora as well, with the sun still very active. Hopefully I’ll get some more images of sunspots too. Folks will have noticed I haven’t imaged the Space Station for a while. So I might try for that as well!
The big event though is in the early hours of the 8th of September. There will be a total lunar eclipse visible for Australia. The times here are for eastern Australia. The Moon will start to enter Earth’s umbral shadow at 2:27 am and be totally in the shadow at 3:31 am (getting lower in the west). It will take on the copper colour that a total eclipse is famous for and mid eclipse occurs at 4:11 am! The Moon will remain eclipsed until 4:53am, when it starts to leave Earths shadow. By the time it fully leaves Earth’s shadow it will be pretty much on the western horizon for eastern Australia. I will post a reminder closer to the date! ... See MoreSee Less
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Ps. There are lots of fake stories about a six planet alignment, among others flying around social media. Some have tricked some highly regarded pages. Very sad.
Is your museum open?
As visitors to the observatory may recall, the museum I have has a collection of minerals, fossils and meteorites. There has been a bit of cloud about of late, so I joined up with a few friends from a fossil club and went on a collecting trip to gather some local fossils (from Forbes) to add to our growing museum. It is still cloudy, hence why no space image, but hope the trilobite fossils I found are still interesting!! ... See MoreSee Less
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We will have to drop in the next time we are in Bathurst, we are from Forbes, I didn't know about fossils at Forbes, we have been to the Age of Fisher's quite a few times.
Always something awesome to share with us, Ray.
Any day with a trilobite in it is a good day!
I turned the telescope towards the Lagoon Nebula (M8) after finding I needed to tweak the telescope. This nebula is a fairly bright and a good target for those branching out in astrophotography.
Comet 3IAtlas will be excited to image later this year (still too faint for my scope, I tried!). It will likely remain too faint to be seen without a telescope. I will though post some information in the coming months.
August tour dates will be posted as soon as I know my schedule. I haven't had many free nights of late I admit! ... See MoreSee Less
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I haven't imaged the Moon close up for a while so managed a few quick snaps on the evening of the 4th of July. ... See MoreSee Less
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Amazing shots. 🤩🤩
Working on the July tour dates, particularly, those for the school holidays. One issue is full moon occurs smack in the middle of school holidays!!! Tours are of course, near impossible with the bright moon wiping out much of the sky. So it looks like tours dates are pretty limited. I have two dates available;
July 15 and July 16th at 7:15 pm (booking essential)
I did have a clear weeknight recently and imaged NGC 6188. It is also known as the fighting dragons nebula! ... See MoreSee Less
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Firstly, I am sorry for delays in posting. I've had a pretty busy time with booked out tours, and a fair share of bad weather, have meant it has been difficult posting available tour dates. It does seem my first available dates will be during July (avoiding the full Moon of course). However, it has been an eventful month will Aurora and solar activity. I did squeeze in an imaging night a months ago and imaged galaxy NGC 4945! ... See MoreSee Less
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nice galaxy
A few images from the auroral storm on the 1st of June from the observatory. (before some high cloud moved in). ... See MoreSee Less
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Wow. How much was visible to the naked eye?
Incredible
My goodness. Great shots.
Beautiful.
Hi again, Great photos of the Aurora 👏 I'm back again with a new fb account.
Awesome pictures Niall!
Phil Wilson what we missed 🤣
Amazing images
Catherine Anne
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