SYDNEY: More than 1800 people gathered at the Australian National University this week to stargaze at the same time with telescopes and binoculars.
“The clouds over Canberra gave us a few headaches, but they parted long enough for us to see the stars and moon and set a new record,” Brad Tucker from the ANU’s School of Astronomy and Astrophysics said on Friday. Before the ANU’s Guinness World Record of 1869 stargazers, the record stood at 640 people.
Belconnen’s Blasius Kim, 18, was skeptical when he noticed the cloudy skies early in the day but decided to join the crowds and set up his 500 millimetre telescope on the oval.
“When I got here I was completely mesmerised by the number of people, everyone’s very passionate about what they can see with their little telescopes they’ve brought.
“I had no idea there would be so many people in a small city like Canberra to come and look at the stars and try to break the world record.”
Mr Kim said the weather conditions weren’t ideal but that hadn’t stopped the crowds from enjoying the spectacle.
