In 2024, we celebrate the 100th anniversary of Mt Stromlo Observatory's founding, when it was established as the Commonwealth Solar Observatory.
Not only have some of the biggest mysteries of the universe been uncovered there, but its history is also intertwined into the history of Canberra.
Mt Stromlo was the best choice out of five of mountains that were examined originally. It was more remote than Black Mountain or Mt Ainslie and out of the remaining choices, it also had the best weather.
However, further actions were implemented to help the quality of observations at Mt Stromlo.
In 1915, Charles Weston undertook the effort to plant hundreds of hectares of pine forest around Mt Stromlo Observatory, to help stabilise and improve the quality of observations at Mt Stromlo.
These pine trees became a feature of Mt Stromlo and surrounding area, and unfortunately led to the catastrophic damage of Mt Stromlo in the 2003 bushfires.
How clear of an image or view of the universe we can get depends on how stable or turbulent the atmosphere is. As hot air rises, this creates turbulence, and this causes the stars to twinkle.
One of the reasons why an airplane may experience a few bumps during flight is similar to why stars twinkle - turbulence.
Before the pine trees, the mountain was relatively barren and as it heated up, hot air would rise and create turbulence over the mountain. The pine trees were planted at the request of the Observatory to help improve this. The trees would absorb heat, prevent less from rising up, reducing the turbulence and improving the image quality.
Telescopes domes are usually round and white for a similar reason - this reflects light way from the dome, so the inside doesn't heat up. If it were to heat up, as soon as you open the telescope dome at night, the hot air would rise and ruin your images.
This wasn't the only decision early in the design of Canberra to work and support the observatory. Lighting requirements for Canberra have always featured as one of the design choices to aid the work of the Observatory.
Nowadays, special lighting requirements around Mt Stromlo, such as in the Molonglo town centre and surrounding suburbs, exist to minimize light pollution impacts on the operations. The older inner north suburbs are dark though not because of the observatory, just old light poles.
In fact, the ACT government and its partner Omexom, who manage the street light infrastructure, have been a leading example of improving the efficiency, safety, and all the while, reducing the light pollution to aid the Observatory along with native animals. Canberra skies have gotten darker by 30% since new infrastructure started to be implemented in 2019.
Some history is less visible.
When the first director of Mt Stromlo, then the Commonwealth Solar Observatory, Walter Duffield, arrived in October 1924 to get the observatory going, the main buildings were not finished yet. John Smith Murdoch had only finished the designs, and they would not be completed until 1927.
The Duffields, and other astronomers, took up residence and operation in the Hotel Canberra, now the Hyatt Hotel, which also celebrates its 100th anniversary this year. The Duffields were in fact the first guests at the hotel, and in 1927, moved up to a very similar looking building to the Hyatt - the Commonwealth Solar Observatory on Mt Stromlo
- Brad Tucker is an astrophysicist and cosmologist at Mt Stromlo Observatory and the National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science at the ANU.
