Giant Planisphere – Yandanooka

The RV-friendly part is the operative detail. Free or low-cost overnight stopping for self-contained vehicles has become one of the main levers small inland towns have for capturing travellers, and pairing it with a permanent stargazing installation gives people a reason to stay the night rather than pass through at four in the afternoon. A hall, somewhere to stop and something to look at after dark is a complete offer.

The Mid West has the sky for it. This is the country that hosts the Murchison Widefield Array and part of the Square Kilometre Array – radio astronomy sited here precisely because the region has the lowest levels of radio interference and some of the darkest skies anywhere on earth. A giant planisphere in a Yandanooka hall carpark is the domestic end of the same natural advantage.

Mingenew, a short drive north, has its own oversized object in the Big Ears wheat sculpture at Cecil Newton Park, and its CBH terminal is the largest inland grower-fed grain receival site in the Southern Hemisphere.

This is the fifth giant planisphere in this catalogue, all of them in Western Australia.

The file is empty on its size, the fabric of it and a date.