The telescope on Mount Stromlo was there to test the mountain. From 1911, the Oddie refractor helped astronomers assess the hill’s suitability for a proposed Commonwealth observatory. [1]
The instrument was a nine-inch refractor donated by Ballarat businessman and amateur astronomer James Oddie. Victorian Government Astronomer Pietro Baracchi arranged its repair in Melbourne and its installation at the temporary observatory. From September 1911, Baracchi and his assistant Joseph Baldwin made repeated observing visits, taking turns to spend about a week there. [1][3]
Where is this place?
Mount Stromlo Observatory, Australian Capital Territory, Australia — observatory-site context, not a precise Oddie-building pin. This map locates the town or region, not a verified exact historic event site.
Their targets included the Sun, planets, double stars and distant clusters and nebulae. [1]
Canberra Museum and Gallery’s exhibition reproduces Walter Geoffrey Duffield’s 1909 requirements for an observatory site. Rainfall totals were not enough: a few heavy showers would interrupt observing differently from many drizzly days. Low winds mattered because a tower telescope needed freedom from vibration. The pattern of the weather mattered as much as an attractive view. [2]
The exhibition also describes a camera attached to the Oddie’s tube. Its Dallmeyer portrait lens and specially made mounting turned the instrument into a platform for stellar photography. The trial left photographs as well as descriptions; the museum records that 23 plates survive in Museums Victoria’s collection. [2]
Even a temporary observatory needed somewhere for people to stay and work. The Oddie building included bedrooms, a caretaker’s accommodation, a kitchen and a darkroom. Site testing was not a single clear night followed by a decision. [3]
The larger project would complement northern observatories during their winter. War delayed the permanent institution until the 1920s; the site had been tested well before then. [1]
Mitch Ames’s 2014 photograph shows the Oddie building’s roofless walls behind temporary fencing. The shell belongs to a later chapter: the 2003 bushfire destroyed the dome and telescope. [3]
ANU records its restoration in the 1990s and its role as an important public-outreach instrument. The Oddie was recreated in 2011 for the centenary of its arrival. That later instrument should not be confused with the one used in the original trials. [4]