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MAN: One certain thing about Central Australia is it's the boss.
If you try and fight it, you'll find yourself
packing your bags and leaving very quickly.
Central Australia is a land of extremes.
-6 in winter up to +45, 50 in summer.
The types of animals, the types of plants that live here and thrive
have accustomed themselves to this extremity,
and it's a fine line between absolute rugged beauty
to a test of survival,
and it's that fine line that makes the outback the outback.
In Central Australia, our family created this little centre,
called Earth Sanctuary.
A normal day for us involves
introducing people of all walks of life to the natural world here.
By the end of the day, on sunset, the earth starts to thaw,
and this is when we set up the telescope.
We have groups that come in
and we introduce the wonders of the southern sky.
Often we get an evening star, Venus might be up, or a crescent moon,
and we start to see the higher-magnitude stars
slowly pop out and break through into the darkness.
And before you know it,
it turns into 3,000 or 4,000 stars as a canopy above your head,
and we're very lucky to say that's the normal night here for us.
I find the night sky so exciting, because the potentials are endless.
The questions the night sky presents are mind-boggling.
As much as it takes you away from the planet Earth,
it brings you back to an appreciation
of the sheer variety of species that exist
and build appreciation for how unique planet Earth is.
For me personally, lying in a swag and looking up at the night sky,
it is an emotional experience.
We call it the 'chandelier' description,
'cause everything sparkles.
It's like you've grabbed a handful of jewels
and spread them across onto a dark fabric.
And it brings you back personally to the ages.
It's the only thing that we can all see today
that our ancient ancestors were looking at
many thousands of years ago.
Everyone tried to make sense of the night sky
and our role on planet Earth and who we are and so on,
so it opens up the big questions,
and every night, personally, I fall asleep with those questions.