The important question of the visibility of the moon will become even more resonant, this weekend, as Muslims around the world look to the skies for a glimpse of the lunar sliver that will signal the end of Ramadan.

This morning I was on the telephone to a devout man in the "naked eye tradition" - those who will only end the fast when the moon has been spotted - who wanted clarification of the moon's rise and set times on the website of Melbourne's Planetarium. Where should he look? When will it rise? At another (American) website a dismal-looking black square signified invisible moons until halfway through the weekend, but the man on the phone insisted that he could see the hint of reflected light, on his own screen, "like a reversed C." I said: "you look with the eyes of faith..." 

Photo: James W. Young  Source: NASA/courtesy of nasaimages.org

Īd mubārak!

Photo: Siobhan Motherway  Source: Museum Victoria

One of the most eye-catching objects in Melbourne Museum's Discovery Centre is this large slab of rock, upon which are mounted several specimens of ammonoid (the curly ones) and nautiloid (the pointy ones) fossils. These creatures lived about 380 million years ago, and are related to modern squids, octopus and cuttlefish. 

One of the best things about working in a centre with diverse and publically-accessible collections is listening to the array of interpretations visitors make about the objects. This fossil slab has been the subject of a variety of different theories and questions, including: "it's dinosaur fossils! Those round ones are EYES and the pointy ones are big sharp CLAWS!" and "is this real? It looks like a movie prop..."

One thing remains common in all visitor interactions with this object, though; everyone wants to touch it. It's remarkably tactile with its roughened rocky base and the smooth rounded shapes of the fossils, irresistible to the fingers of toddler and elder alike.

This morning a migrant from Malta was in the Immigration Discovery Centre, sourcing pictures of the Castel Felice and reminiscing about his island. He explained that his childhood home had been across the road from the sea, with views of the port and its enormous vessels. Later on, he came to my desk, leant across it and whispered: "perhaps one day you'll visit the little island." Hope so. 

Photo of a yacht bearing the Maltese cross. Source: Museum Victoria

Photo: Philip Thiel  Source: Museum Victoria

The collections of Museum Victoria partly depend on donations received from members of the public, and generous Victorians are often seen visiting the Discovery Centre with offers of all sorts of things - owls, rocks, shoes, skulls... It's one of the nicest parts of our work, here, getting to see these curious objects, and helping possible donors make contact with our curators whose job it is to decide if they will become public property.

This morning at the Immigration Discovery Centre a couple showed me a beautiful tablecloth they'd received as a wedding gift in 1964. The groom's sisters had sent the hand-embroidered cloth from Slovenia to Australia along the same route that he himself had travelled fourteen years previously; they'd done the needlework themselves.   

Photo: Philip Thiel  Source: Museum Victoria 

The tablecloth got me and the visitors talking about life in Melbourne back in the '50s. The woman said: "it was a different place, then." Her husband added: "they needed a hell of a lot of interpreters."

Today at the Immigration Discovery Centre a woman unscrolled a hand-written family tree across the desk and said, proudly: "I made it yesterday." Not to  be outdone, the man who accompanied her said: "we've traced it back to 1036."

This fine document didn't go back quite so far, but did feature plenty of vertical lines and evocative question-marks. Everyone within earshot gathered to appreciate the item.