The ocean was calling me… We had to make it back to the coast. But we didn’t want to drive all the way in one go. So we made a stop in the Warrumbungle National Park.
Warrumbungle National Park is a “dark sky national park”. It is home to an important observatory and visitors are asked to avoid light pollution and turn off unnecessary light after dark.
During our stay, the night sky was mostly clear but we didn’t manage to capture any great shots. But on the next day, when we continued our journey to the coast, we passed by the observatory in the distance. And then a huge sign with a 3d model of Saturn. A long drive later, we passed a similar sign of Uranus, then Neptune. And after a long while we decided to take a break and by pure coincidence, we chose a spot for our break right next to a sign with a tiny Pluto model on it. What is going on?
We just enjoyed the largest “to-scale-model” of the universe. All the planets that we passed are sized to scale and put apart in the correct distance. The observatory is effectively the sun or the centre of this little scale-galaxy. And we missed Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars and Jupiter because they are too close to the observatory. A pretty cool and impressive show of the unbelievable size of the universe. All of a sudden, the drive to Lightning Ridge and back didn’t feel so far…
