Before Galileo

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http://www.abc.net.au/tv/messagestick/stories/s2730570.htm

In the International Year of Astronomy, astronomers world-wide are celebrating the 400th anniversary of Galileo turning a telescope to the sky and while some Aboriginal artists and elders are learning from astronomers and seeing a western view of their constellations, they in turn are teaching astronomers their stories and ways they have viewed the stars way before Galileo was born. Wardaman Senior elder Bill Yidumduma Harney from Menngen, near Katherine in the NT, was raised by Wardaman lore men and women in the bush, during the assimilation era and taught the spiritual and practical significance of reading the night sky.

This program will look at the ways in which western science intersects with Aboriginal Cosmology, leading us to a deeper understanding of the night sky, gained by learning the practical pointers of the constellations and the guiding spirits that occupy the dark nebulae in between.