Brian Schmidt will never forget seeing a library turn to dust before his eyes.
It was days after the devastating bushfires of January 2003, and the Australian National University astrophysicist was up at the Mount Stromlo Observatory in Canberra to check out the damage.
It was far worse than he and his team could have imagined; the fire had destroyed five telescopes, workshops, seven homes, and the heritage-listed administration building.
"I was looking through the window into the library, one of the most important astronomy libraries in the world, the equal of Harvard's library, where I had come from, and all the papers in the books, you could still see them," he said.
"They looked like they were still there, and a little puff of wind came through, and I just saw the pages disappear into dust, into my face.
"I remember kind of stepping back and going, 'oh, geez' ... It was a real moment where it just struck me, the magnitude of what had happened."
But despite this setback, the observatory remains one of the world's preeminent centres for astronomy, spawning some of the world's greatest scientists, and helping uncover some of the world's biggest mysteries.
It's the subject of a new exhibition at Canberra Museum and Gallery, showcasing some of the observatory's groundbreaking discoveries and hidden stories.
The show is a combination of Immersive digital interactives, objects, and oral histories, from the observatory's modest beginnings to international prominence.
Mount Stromlo Observatory was Canberra's first public building - the administration wing and residence were built by the same architect who designed the Hyatt Hotel Canberra and Hotel Kurrajong - but its history goes back further than 1924.
At the beginning of the 20th century, an international project was in full swing to establish a world-wide network of telescopes in order to study the sun for 24 hours a day.
Observatories were established in places like the UK, the US, and India, but there was a gap in the Southern Hemisphere, where the sun could be monitored for longer.
The nascent capital lobbied to be able to fill the gap, and carefully chose Mount Stromlo as the best of five mountains on offer (it had better weather than Black Mountain or Mount Ainslie).
By then, Canberra's first head of parks and gardens, Charles Weston, had begun reforesting the barren and overgrazed landscape, and oversaw the planting of hundreds of hectares of pine forest around the observatory, to help absorb the heat and improve the image quality.
The pines were the area's pride and joy, and also its downfall; they led to the catastrophic damage wrought by the 2003 bushfires.
But this was far into the future; when Mount Stromlo's first director Walter Duffield arrived in October 1924 to get the project going, the main buildings were not finished.
John Smith Murdoch had only finished the designs, and they would not be completed until 1927.
But he had completed the Hotel Canberra (now the Hyatt) by then, and so the Duffields became the hotel's very first guests.
By the time the observatory was established, it was in one of the world's least exciting places.
At least, it was then; today, Canberra is the cool and cosmopolitan capital we know and love.
Back then, it was little more than a smattering of houses, some forested hills, and a grand dream.
But the Mount Stromlo Observatory has gone from strength to strength, and is continuing to contribute to international scientific endeavour.
Professor Schmidt, the university's vice-chancellor until January this year, was co-awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2011 for his work showing that the cosmos is expanding at an accelerating rate.
And today, it's leading Australia's role in the billion-dollar, international Giant Magellan Telescope, which has 100 times the sensitivity of the Hubble Space Telescope and delivers images that are 10 times sharper.
"We have this advanced instrumentation centre, we're partners in the largest telescope in the world," Professor Schmidt said.
"It remains, despite that setback, that international centre for astronomy, an institution, the preeminent southern hemisphere institution in the world.
"A lot's changed, but it's still there, and still on the cutting edge at some level, as much now as it's ever been. The strongest 20 years of Mount Stromlo's life have been the last 20. That's something we should be really proud about."
It's the mix of science and social history that exhibition curator Hannah Paddon hoped would bring all kinds of visitors to see the show.
"I hope that visitors do come away with a bit of awe and wonder from it ... and a bit of pride, actually," she said.
"The Oddie Dome was the first public building in the ACT, but since then, it has gone on to achieve some fantastic things, including Ken Freeman discovering dark matter, or Brian Schmidt discovering that the universe is actually accelerating and growing.
"I think there's something for everyone, whether you're a history buff or a science buff."
- Outer Space: Stromlo to the Stars is now showing at Canberra Museum and Gallery. Entry is free.
