We had a great treat at the Melbourne Planetarium last night. Paul Curnow from Adelaide Planetarium was visiting and gave a fantastic planetarium lecture entitled “Beneath Australian Skies”.

The audience was mainly members of the public but also included many Melbourne Planetarium presenters as well as the team from Bunjilaka, the Aboriginal Cultural Centre at Melbourne Museum. Caroline Martin of the Boon Wurrung and also the Manager of Bunjilaka attended and shared many of her own stories with Paul.

It was also particularly inspiring for the Planetarium team and has renewed our energy for including more indigenous Australian stories into our own What’s in the Night Sky? presentations. And personally, it was lovely to see someone else take charge of “my” planetarium, allowing me to simply sit back and enjoy the experience! I highly recommend it! 

All told, it was a wonderful evening of building cross-cultural respect and understanding. There is so much we can learn from each other if we work together with respect to knowledge and people.

For extensive information on Aboriginal Astronomy see Paul’s website: http://sa.apana.org.au/~paulc/loreaussie.html