By Helen Mann, Yarra Glen & District Living & Learning Centre
In July 1928 people in Yarra Glen and Healesville reported a clear sighting of the Aurora Australis in the south-east between 7 and 8pm. In an arc-like formation from the south-west to the south-east horizon “it had the appearance of a brilliant rose-tinted curtain, shot through with ribbons of white light…” which gradually faded to pale green and white. The Healesville Guardian in its report on 14 July 1928 stated that the last occasion the lights had been visible was 24 October 1927.
These days with the light pollution of cities and towns one needs to go to our southern coastline to see this natural wonder, but the clear night skies of the early 20th century attracted Victoria’s leading amateur astronomer of the time to Yarra Glen.
David Ross (1850-1930) and his brother John Russell Ross had migrated to Australia from Scotland in 1876. From a young age David was interested in astronomy as well as machinery of all kinds including clocks, steam engines and water-wheels. Although he earned his livelihood as a bank officer he had sufficient optical and mechanical skills to make his own parabolic mirrors and a number of reflecting microscopes. He is credited with discovering two comets (1904 II and 1906 FI) and was the first in the Southern Hemisphere to locate Halley’s comet when it re-appeared in 1910. He was a keen member of the Royal Astronomical Society
In 1915 Ross retired to Christmas Hills and lived at “Kincraig” which overlooks the town of Yarra Glen. Here at the home of his brother’s family, he converted an old fruit-packing shed into a rotating octagonal observatory.
There is also a Healesville connection to this story. David’s niece Jean Russell Ross married George Maxwell in 1896. In 1909 they purchased 125 acres near “The Grange” south west of Healesville. They called the property “Ross”. Later divisions of the property and realignment of the Maroondah Highway altered boundaries and the original part of the highway is now called Maxwell Road.
