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Coonabarabran, a town of 3500 people in the central west of NSW,
claims to be the astronomy capital of Australia, and as it is
the closest town to the Siding Spring Observatory it is a reasonable call!
At Siding Spring, the
Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics of the Australian National University
operates its research telescopes and hosts telescopes from institutions around
the world including Japan, Korea, Poland, the UK and the USA.
And CSIRO's 22m Mopra radio telescope is located between Coonabarabran and the Siding Spring Observatory.
A number of businesses and buildings in Coonabarabran feature astronomically themed
signs and information plaques, such as that shown above.
M100 (the 100th object in Charles Messier's catalog of nebulae and star clusters)
is a "grand design" spiral galaxy that is one of the largest and brightest galaxies in the Virgo Cluster.
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