$19.95
This book gives you an easy-to-read introduction to what we know about Aboriginal Astronomy, and the current state of research into this area.
Each of the 400 different Aboriginal cultures in Australia has a distinct mythology, ceremonies, and art forms, some of which have a strong astronomical component. Many share common traditions such as the “emu in the sky” constellation of dark clouds, and stories about the Sun, Moon, Orion, and the Pleiades. Several use the rising and setting of particular stars to indicate the time to harvest a food source, and some link the Sun and Moon to tides, and even explain eclipses as a conjunction of the Sun and Moon.
Thse traditions reveal a depth and complexity of Aboriginal cultures which are not widely appreciated by outsiders. This book explores the wonderful mystical Aboriginal astronomical stories and traditions, and the way in which these are used for practical applications such as navigation and harvesting. It also describes the journey of exploration which is opening Western eyes to this treasury of ancient Aboriginal knowledge.
It's written by Prof. Ray Norris (an astrophysicist with CSIRO, and an Adjunct Professor at the Dept. of Indigenous Studies, Macquarie University), and his wife Cilla. They have spent the last five years studying Aboriginal Astronomy.
Their research has included:
- uncovering little-known academic manuscripts,
- visiting Aboriginal sites throughout Australia, including the Sydney rock-art,
- spending time with the Yolngu communities in Arnhem Land.
$19.95
Children can put their flying skills to the test with this chunky pad of brightly patterned spaceships. Each tear-out, patterned paper sheet can be folded, origami-style, into a flying spacecraft by following the step-by-step instructions included.$19.95
A display of astronomical wonders captured by Central West NSW astrophotographers Rodney Watters and Niall MacNeill.
The images were mostly captured from their observatories near Bathurst but also from some other locations in Central West NSW.
The calendar includes moon phases and major public holidays. It is approximately 21 x 30cm in size, opening to 43 x 30cm.
$29.95
Bill Bryson describes himself as a reluctant traveller: but even when he stays safely in his own study at home, he can't contain his curiosity about the world around him. A Short History of Nearly Everything is his quest to find out everything that has happened from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization - how we got from there, being nothing at all, to here, being us. Bill Bryson's challenge is to take subjects that normally bore the pants off most of us, like geology, chemistry and particle physics, and see if there isn't some way to render them comprehensible to people who have never thought they could be interested in science. It's not so much about what we know, as about how we know what we know. How do we know what is in the centre of the Earth, or what a black hole is, or where the continents were 600 million years ago? How did anyone ever figure these things out? On his travels through time and space, he encounters a splendid collection of astonishingly eccentric, competitive, obsessive and foolish scientists, like the painfully shy Henry Cavendish who worked out many conundrums like how much the Earth weighed, but never bothered to tell anybody about many of his findings. In the company of such extraordinary people, Bill Bryson takes us with him on the ultimate eye-opening journey, and reveals the world in a way most of us have never seen it before.