Cue, Western Australia. Another Corner of my Back Yard

The continuous rainy weather and cloud in Perth have been getting me down. Now we have the luxury of the camper we can pack up and head off to warmer and hopefully clearer weather. We've done a couple of shakedown trips in the camper so it was time to try out an astrophotography trip as that's one of the reasone we got the camper.

According to the forecasts Cue looked good. Far enough north for clear skies but not too far to be an easy days drive. Located in a semi desert savannah region what could go wrong! The weather it turns out had other ideas. It clouded over and was windy and rainy. We did get some clear skies when it wasn't supposed to which makes it hard to set up a telescope but in the end it came together and I got three hours in my target of NGC6188 aka the Dragons of Ara. That's not really enough time for a good image but it allowed me to confirm that the light pollution level is very low in Cue. I just set up next to the camper, no finding a location out of town to get maximum darkness.

On the travelling front the everlastings were out which I had not experienced before. We had a look at the Big Bell ghost town. There is hardly anything left now compared to when I was last there in 1968. I mentioned about home movies we took then but I have not been able to lay my hands on them yet.

As I mentioned in the video the caravan park is pretty nice. More people there than I thought. Quite a few prospecting by the looks of it. We wne out to the old Poona emerald mine and had a quite look around. I found some average bits of green beryl but nothing to write home about. I didn't include that in the video. Could not work out how to make rummaging around in old mine tailings interesting, especially as I don't know what I am doing.

I also mentioned Herbert Hoover, 31st President of the US of A. Looks like he might have called through Cue as pert of his work in the late 19th century but was actually superintendant of the mine a Gwalia just out of Leonora. That's a few hundred kilometres from Cue but in the same general region.

I'm still working on Africa videos. I'm about half way through the next installment which is Sesriem to Solitaire and another extraordinary camp site. I'll get it done as soon as I can as I am a whole trip behind. No rest for the wicked!