Learn to stargaze – an event that teaches you about the night sky

From early 2025 you can set your sights on showing your family and friends the night sky with confidence – provided you can set aside the time to learn to stargaze with Outback Astronomy.

Put this on your to-do list when on your next road trip through Broken Hill or if in town for a break or visiting for family or work.

We have at last listed this exclusive self-help event to teach you to understand how the night sky changes. With some guidance and instruction, and a copy of Outback Astronomy’s Stargazing Field Guide, you can make sense of the view above.

Check out our sky show calendar to find “Learn How to Stargaze”. The first events are listed on 29 and 30 January, 2025. In the following six months we have listed the event most weeks on Wednesdays and Thursdays. We don’t plan to host the event on two consecutive days – once one of these days is booked we will remove the other from our calendar. This is to conserve time we might need to address any ongoing matters with the power station issue. We thought in November 2024 our input was near an end, however, this was not to be!

Event inspired by many guests!

Among the most common things we learn from our guests is that fundamentals of sky changes are not front of mind when gazing up. Knowing what you need to recall and how to apply it to a backyard astronomy hobby, seemed to elude many people.

If you are one of those, you probably would agree with the statement that “astronomy is too hard for me”. Well, it was for this reason we published our Stargazing Field Guide – to plug the knowledge gap and bust the myth!

We have discovered from guests that some of that confusion sets in from astronomy guidance from a northern-hemisphere perspective. Unsuspecting southern hemisphere people are often not aware that some constellations, like Ursa Major and Ursa Minor (the big and little dippers) may not be accessible to them to see in their night sky. Our guide is fabulously southern hemisphere centric and clears the air on this type of annoyance. The learning session will add further to the clarifications about what you should be able to see from your home spot.

Learn to stargaze and share your knowledge

If you want to be able to discuss the sky at night with children and grandchildren, for example, this is a learning opportunity not to be missed. The events are scheduled for two and a half hours and include a copy of the field guide and also light refreshments, that will be tailored to suit the time of day. These are a little pricier than our usual events however, you should be able to leave our property to apply knowledge to understand the changing night sky view. This is fundamental to understanding astronomy as a hobbyist, and the essence of naked eye stargazing!

In the description of the learning session online we note the learning format is based on our Stargazing Field Guide. We produced the guide using illustrations from a digital notebook, like the one with this article. See the attached “sky dome” image to remind yourself of our venue. See how our stargazing site has inspired our illustrations in the book! In the image attached Taurus is noted as visible early December. This is the view from our flat area that you may have enjoyed at our venue on clear, dark nights of early December.

We do apologise for the delay in scheduling these Learn to Stargaze sessions. The great uncertainty caused by the proposed Hydrostor power station pushed many tasks to the side as we have had to fight hard to protect our property and business from its impacts.

Images: On this beautiful clear day in Broken Hill our drone delivered this wonderful perspective of our stargazing spot, the circular area we call the Sky Dome (that is why our cafe is known as the Sky Dome Cafe). In this view, you are looking to the South and South West. The Southern Cross in December, a few days before Christmas, would be found rising up from the South East (far left of image) in one of our sky shows. The illustration depicts the Sky Dome, looking north, to find Taurus in December.