The sparsely populated Lake Tekapu has a scenery somewhat similar to China's Xinjiang
New Zealand's summer days are long, and at ten o'clock in the evening, the South Island ushers in a complete night. Jupiter rises with the moon, reflecting the surface of Lake Tekapu under the night sky as bright as a mirror, and even the slight luster of the water waves can be seen.
After sunset, Lake Tekapo, the water of the lake glows a mysterious blue
New Zealand's Aoraki Mackenzie International Dark Sky Reserve is the first Night Sky Reserve in the Southern Hemisphere and the largest in the world. Bordered by the Southern Alps to the west and the Double Thumb Mountains to the east, the 4,300-square-kilometre reserve is surrounded by majestic alpine beauty. Among them, the Mount John Observatory, which overlooks the Mackenzie Basin and Lake Tekapo, is considered one of the world's top sites for observing and studying the sky in the southern hemisphere.
I booked an Earth & Sky trip to Mount John when I checked into the hotel. At eight o'clock in the evening, the tour bus picked me up at the stargazing office in town, where I lined up on the spot to buy tickets. If the weather conditions are not good, you can also choose not to take this risk and go home. After buying the ticket, he went to the queue to receive the cotton coat, "Tonight is very sunny, you will definitely see a lot of stars!" "The lad in the cotton coat seems to be more excited than we tourists.
Hitchhiker up the hill. There were no street lights, the night was enveloping everything, I couldn't see the faces of the passengers next to me, and there was only the route drawn in fluorescence outside the window. The guide introduces you to the situation about Mount John. Because of its average annual number of sunny days, the stability and transparency of the atmosphere, coupled with the unique dark night sky, this observatory is internationally recognized as one of the best observatories for observing the night sky in the southern hemisphere. The University of Canterbury, which manages it, has four large telescopes for use by astronomers from New Zealand and around the world, including New Zealand's largest telescope, which can observe up to 50 million stars per night. Earth & Sky, a professional star travel company, is responsible for organizing tourists to go up the mountain to stargazing every night and providing professional tour guide services.
"Finally, I would like to tell you that in fact, all the stars we see are from yesterday, when human beings were not yet born and the oceans were still on land. And what is happening above them today, no one can know. The tour guide concluded with these few sensational words, and the carriage was quiet, perhaps everyone was silently thinking about the vastness of the universe and the smallness of human beings. Soon, after a few turns, we entered the flat territory of the observatory. "Now you can get off the bus, and if you have time during the day tomorrow, you are welcome to come up the mountain." We really want to know what you guys really look like. "I swear, it was the funniest joke I'd ever heard that day.
The mountain was pitch black, with only the dark red fluorescence on the ground paving the way out and the direction of the steps. You need to be very careful when you move around, otherwise you will bump into others. "Are there any tourists who speak Mandarin?" A bit unexpected, at this observatory, there is actually Chinese tour guide service. We gathered at the source of the sound, a young boy. The conversation learned that Ken is from Hong Kong, and instead of choosing a job immediately after graduating from university, he came to New Zealand and spent his holidays working here. According to him, the weather was nice, quiet and sunny today, and it was a good day for stargazing. "In winter, the wind at the top of the mountain used to reach more than 200 km / h, and the temperature dropped to minus ten degrees Celsius, making it difficult for people to walk outdoors."
Because he likes stargazing, Ken learned a lot about astronomy here. His teacher, Fraser Gunn, who was not there that night, was said to be an out-and-out star-obsessed who once spent the night at the top of the mountain taking pictures of the starry sky. Many of the observatory's postcards and albums are his works.
"New Zealanders are really great." In the direction of Ken's finger, we looked at the faint yellow light of the town of Tekapo. "Not to mention that you may not notice, but in order to reduce light pollution, the town's street lights are specially designed, so the starry sky here is particularly clear."
The Mount John Observatory is one of the best stargazing sites in the Southern Hemisphere
I looked up at the sky. The Milky Way pours like spilled milk, pouring in the center of the sky. The Great Magellanic Cloud is like two clusters of soft cotton wool scattered not far away— a pattern of unimaginable size that is actually an entire galaxy!
Ken turns on his long-range professional flashlight and sketches out the stars one by one for us— how in ancient maritime times, people looked for the direction of the South Pole with the help of the Southern Cross and its two pointing stars. And the brightest star in the summer starry sky, that is Sirius; Jupiter usually appears with the moon, and if you point the telescope at it, you can see the dazzling halos and moons; Orion has a gorgeous belt and shield; observing Puppy requires a little imagination, because it only has two stars that can be seen with the naked eye... Guided by Ken's super flashlight, the originally chaotic starry sky began to clear.
"What a big shooting star!" Another girl in the group cried out. I turned my head to look for it, but it was too late. "It will definitely come back," Ken reassured me, "and I can see three or four every night." There are more meteor showers. "Is that slowly moving star a shooting star that runs slower?" I noticed a slightly paler star in the sky, moving from east to west. "Oh, that's a satellite or a space station." Ken explains.
Summer starry sky in the Southern Hemisphere
We came to the observatory's huge telescope again. Ken skillfully adjusts the angle, and a nebula like an Impressionist painting appears gorgeously in the shot, and it is impossible to tell how many stars there are, brilliantly combined. How long ago did that light come from? Are there intelligent beings like us in those lights? "This is my favorite, the 47 Tucanae Nebula." Ken's tone seemed to be showing off a beloved treasure. In fact, the observatory staff, including him, are all star-obsessed, and sometimes send away tourists, but they still don't want to leave, so they sleep in the glass house all night and watch the stars. "You know what? The winter starry sky is much more beautiful, and the brightness of the Milky Way of Light is three to four times that of the present. Of course, the environment is also very harsh. "Perhaps, weighing in my mind, next time I will choose to visit Mount John again in the winter.