@stargazer: Thanks for your advice regarding dark sky observing, @courtenay. Winter would definitely be my season of choice, both for the cooler weather and the longer nights to enjoy the sky. The Outback would be ideal for dark conditions but getting there would probably be impractical. (Random note: I read Nevil Shute's A Town Like Alice when I was young and it was one of my earliest introductions to Australia).

As a matter of interest, the Alice Springs Public Library is also called the Neville Shute Memorial Library, and that town is a railway stop on the weekly Ghan Railway from Adelaide to Darwin.  The famous landmark, in Central Australia, where there is also accommodation, is called Uluru, & is about 335 km from Alice Springs Yes, you are right about choosing winter, as summer daytime temperatures there have gone as high as 47°C, at the centre of the Australian continent. 

However, in Parkes in NSW, on the 8th January, each year, they have a festival for Elvis Presley, as well as proximity to the Parkes Observatory, which is an important Southern Hemisphere relay for NASA. On the road from Parkes into Dubbo, the Taronga Western Plains Wildlife Zoo has its home, as another great local tourist attraction for that area. There are other observatories around NSW, not only in Sydney, such as Tidbinbilla, near Canberra, our national capital in ACT, or Siding Springs, near Coonabarabran & the Warrumbungles. 

Meanwhile, the monsoon has finally arrived in Oz, and temperatures are a bit lower as a result, though Northern Queensland has already had some bad floods. 

Good to hear you are receiving a lovely snowfall, stargazer! I assume this storm is the same that made its way eastwards to us overnight last night, with 8-10" of fluffy, soft white stuff. So beautiful! We spent an hour shoveling our fairly lengthy driveway this morning, which was such fun. (This was not 'heart-attack snow'.) Comfortably cold temperatures continue throughout this week (a few degrees below freezing by day and -10 or 11 at night (14 or 12F) , with flurries most days, and more snow forecast for this Wednesday and Saturday.  

This past week we were up in ski country, which has received mounds of snow the past month+. Every day we were there it snowed, with some snowfalls lasting hours. We played outside in the powdery snow a few hours every day, so wonderful—snow-shoeing, building long tunnels, etc. A fantastic week together with our family in the pristine white outdoors (we did sleep inside, haha)!

Loving this bountiful snowy winter weather!

Our soon-to-be daughter-in-law is right now flying up to Iqaluit (Nunavut) on Baffin Island to do a medical locum for two weeks. She has been there before, and is eager to visit and work there again with its frigid temperatures and loads of snow! ('Though she prefers the snow to the the icy temps. )