In January 2003, Canberra suffered some horrendous bushfires. Four people died and 490 homes were destroyed. Also destroyed was the Mt. Stromlo observatory. Since this was a couple of years before I started my regular "get out of town" trips, I never had the chance to visit it although I've left the ghost of it on my "To Do" list as a reminder that if you don't get around to doing something now... you may never get to do it.

One of Mt. Stromlo's telescopes was an 8 metre long Yale Columbia refractor built at Yale University USA in 1924. It arrived in Canberra in 1952 and was used to make parallax observations until 1998.

This sculpture by Tim Wetherell was constructed in 2003 from fire-damaged steel from the refractor. The fact that it has been left in a "rusted" state reflects the damage from the fires. It stands outside the Questacon science museum. (Which is, as far as I can tell, primarily for children. Or if it's not, they need to work on their web site a bit to dispel that notion.)