From A 23rd Floor Apartment In Hong Kong To Our Wide Open Night Sky

Peter, Grace, Chungyin And Chungkei Fulfil A Wish

Coming to Melbourne to attend a family wedding, this Hong Kong residing family had longed for a night under the stars away from Hong Kong’s busy city streets and high rise apartments and all its light pollution. Before leaving home for their eight day stay here, to our delight they booked an astronomy tour with overnight stay by the beach with Honeysuckles Astronomy Tours. The family was not disappointed.

Upon arriving in mid-afternoon, Peter and Grace led the kids over to the beach for a long and almost deserted beach walk along the Ninety Mile Beach. It was paradise. Almost nobody in sight the entire time – a rare experience for residents of a city like Hong Kong. After dinner, we all settled in to a night’s star gazing. Their previous telescope observing experience in the northern hemisphere was very limited and we aimed to expand that history considerably.

Commencing with a very thin but spectacular three-day-old crescent setting Moon, we viewed Venus, magnificent Saturn and faraway Neptune; and that was just the entree! Triple stars, globular clusters, galaxies and superb star forming regions were to follow. Distances and other features were explained, giving the family a good broad appreciation of what is “up there” and some of the numbers involved. It was great fun and everyone enjoyed the night.

The following morning, mum and dad went on another long beach walk before we served up our home style omelets for breakfast for the family, filled with herbs from the garden. It was a great getaway experience for them – a getaway from Hong Kong, no less! 🙂