What is Mount Stromlo Observatory?
[[Image:Mt Stromlo Obs2.jpg|thumb|250px|right|Ruins of the old administration building with the dome of the Farnham telescope]] [[Image:Mt Stromlo Obs1.jpg|thumb|right|Remains of the dome of the 50-inch Great Melbourne telescope]] [[File:The Astonomer.jpg|thumb|right|Statue of an astronomer by scientist and artist Tim Wetherell at [[Questacon]], [[Canberra, Australian Capital Territory]]. It was made from parts of the Yale-Columbia Refractor (telescope) (c 1925) destroyed in the 2003 bushfires.]] '''Mount Stromlo Observatory''' ('''MSO''') just outside of [[Canberra]], [[Australia]], is part of the Research School of [[Astronomy]] and [[Astrophysics]] at the [[Australian National University]] (ANU). ==History== The [[observatory]] was built in 1924 as The Commonwealth [[Solar telescope|Solar Observatory]]. [[Mount Stromlo]] had already been used for observations in the previous decade, with a small observatory being built in 1911 by [[Pietro Baracchi]] using the Oddie telescope.<ref>{{cite book|author=J. L. Perdrix |url=http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A070169b.htm |title=Baracchi, Pietro Paolo Giovanni Ernesto (1851 - 1926) |work=[[Australian Dictionary of Biography]], Volume 7 |publisher=[[Melbourne University Press|MUP]] |year=1979 |pages=166–167}}</ref> The dome built to house the Oddie telescope was the first Commonwealth building built in the new [[Australian Capital Territory]]. Until [[World War II]], the observatory specialised in solar and atmospheric observations. During the war the workshops made [[gun sight]]s, and other optical equipment. After the war, the observatory began stellar and galactic astronomy and was renamed The Commonwealth Observatory. When ANU began in 1946 in nearby Canberra, they shared staff and started graduate studies. In 1957 the Mount Stromlo Observatory became part of the ANU. ===Bushfire=== On January 18, 2003, a huge [[bushfire]] hit Canberra and Mount Stromlo. The observatory was surrounded by a [[plantation]] [[pine]] forest. Five telescopes, workshops, seven