Virtual Solar System Drive

After watching a beautiful misty sunrise at our latest camp on the banks of the Macquarie River it was an easy 35km drive into the regional centre of Dubbo to re-supply and gather information to help us decide “What & Where to next?”.

Morning mist burning off as the sun rises over camp

As soon as we got out of the car at the Dubbo Information centre we had our answer, not just regarding “What & Where?”, but also “What route to take?”.

We decided to do "The World's Largest Virtual Solar System Drive" 

Billed as “The World’s Largest Virtual Solar System Drive”, the road trip to the Siding Spring Observatory, (a 37m diameter dome housing the 3.9m diameter Australian-Anglo Telescope), perched atop a mountain in the Warrumbungle Range, is a scaled (1:38 million) model of our Solar System.

Our route would take us to the Sun at Siding Spring Observatory from Pluto in Dubbo (starting at lower left)

The 37m diameter dome represents the Sun (actual diameter of 1.39 million km).

The Australian-Anglo Telescope is housed within the 37m diameter dome

Starting at the outer reaches of our solar system, Pluto, at this scale, is about half the size of a billiard ball and is located a mere 190 km down the highway (in Dubbo), from the Observatory (vs. 7.2 billion km in reality).  As you drive towards the Sun each of the planets are represented by billboards placed in roadside turn-outs located the appropriate distance from the Sun/Observatory along the route.

Road distances (in km) of each planet to the Sun along our route from Dubbo

We stopped at each of the billboards containing information and a scale model of each planet and learned a bit about them all.  At scale, Jupiter, the largest planet in our Solar System is ~ 3.9m in diameter and 22 km from the sun (~800 million km).

Billboard with 3.9m diameter scale model of the planet Jupiter

At the end of a fun and informative drive to the Sun we toured the dome housing the big telescope.  As it happened we were lucky enough to be in the observation room to see both the dome and telescope being repositioned for its scientific star-gazing to be done later that night.

'Selfie' from Inside the dome as the telescope was being repositioned

The cool/cold clear night skies and light-pollution free conditions present in the elevated Warrumbungle region in central NSW make it the perfect place for star-gazing.  For these reasons the Siding Spring Observatory was built here in the1960s.  The observatory is a working research facility so, unfortunately, the public has no access to the 45 telescopes that are located here.  To get a closer view of the universe you have to visit one of several private observatories located in the area.

The vista of the Warrumbungle region from the mountain upon which the observatory sits was enough for us to decide to stay in the nearby National Park for a couple of days to do some of the hiking trails.

View of some peaks within Warrumbungle National Park from the Observatory

It is hard to do justice to the scenic beauty of the park with words alone - as a result of this, in the next edition of WTF? - Where are The Farrows?, I will give the pen a bit of a rest and be heavier on the pictures.