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b'This is the second of 6 \\u2018Astrotour\\u2019 episodes of Astrophiz, where we\\u2019ll be publishing recordings of interviews I did on a two and a half thousand kilometre tour of five of Australia\\u2019s finest Eastern state radio and optical observatories.\\n\\nDr Chris Lidman, who is\\xa0the first Director of the ANU Siding Spring Observatory, which is deep in a pristine dark sky\\xa0parkin the Wurrumbungle ranges in North Eastern New South Wales in Australia. Chris was a member of the team which shared the 2011 Nobel Prize for Physics\\xa0andhas more than 30,000 citations from 197 research papers and more than 100 other publications. So apart from being a very active researcher, he has responsibility\\xa0for many of the telescopes based on site, from the powerful Skymapper right up to this immense 3.9m AAT\\n\\nWe also extend our condolences to Dr Ian Musgrave, whose 96yo mother passed away recently. He will be back with us in two weeks.\\n\\nSo in Ian\\u2019s absence for this episode, I\\u2019ll give a shortened version of Ian\\u2019s expert commentary \\u201cWhat\\u2019s Up Doc\\u201d and I\\u2019ll try to give you an idea of some things to watch out for in the sky over the next couple of weeks.\\n\\nNow because I\\u2019m doing an Ian here, I\\u2019ll go off on one of his astronomical tangents about Mercury.\\nThe BepiColombo Mercury mission was launched from French Giana.\\n\\nIn the news:\\xa0\\n\\nThe search for FRBs is turning up some really interesting results. A new paper from ICRAR is published.'