VictoriaFebruary 20
I know most of you are dying to know if we made it to our stargazing experience last night. We did!
It came close to being canceled due to the high winds. Thankfully we were able to go. After choosing our super warm Canada Goose jackets at the Dark Sky Reserve, we boarded the minibus from the center to the Mt John Observatory, about 15 minutes away from town.
The observatory is NZ’s main astronomical research facility, funded by the University of Canterbury in Christchurch. The observatory has the largest telescope in NZ, which searches for planets and other stars, along with four other telescopes, used for research focused on stars in the Milky Way galaxy.
Windy and dark are two words that I would use to describe the atmosphere at the top once we got off the bus. Our group of 22 were led to the observatory and were given lots of information from our guide, the very enthusiastic Lucia, about the southern sky and galaxy.
Southern Cross Constellation
Mt John Research Observatory
Clinton, you would’ve loved it! It was awesome to see so many stars without any light pollution, with our naked eye and through telescopes. We learned how to find the Southern Cross and how there is no North Star that we can see here in NZ, since we are too far south.
About 10 minutes into our visit on the Mt John Observatory summit we saw the most amazing thing! The International Space Station, ISS, zoomed across the horizon as clear as day. It was like a perfectly moving star with no flashing lights. The guide pointed it out to us and we were all equally wowed. When we got home, we looked up the viewing schedule on the NASA website and sure enough it was right on schedule. We hope to see it again tonight from our front porch at the apartment.
All bundled up it wasn’t too cold, so 90 minutes outside at 10 p.m. was the right amount of time. A very cool experience, literally and figuratively!
Yesterday’s winds finally died down and left us with a beautiful, sunny and cloudless day today. Perfect for the Mt John Summit hike, a 5.5 mile circumference with great views of Lake Tekapo and the observatory at the top.
We should’ve heeded the advice of AllTrails hikers and hiked clockwise though; it was tough until we got to the top. We made it and the views were definitely worth the burn.
Mt John was named after an early farmer in the district, John Hay, who used to run Tekapo Station, the first sheep farm in the Mackenzie Basin. It was cool to see the observatory in the daytime as it helped give perspective to where we had been the night before.
We are headed to Mt Cook/Aoraki tomorrow for a glacier tour and hike.
