Amateur astronomers in Victoria, NSW and Queensland have been busy – and they have been honoured by the Astronomical Society of Australia (ASA) for their efforts.
The astronomers were all awarded the Page Medal, named after amateur astronomer Berenice Page and awarded every two years for scientific contributions.
For his part, Hazelwood astronomer Chris Stockdale co-discovered an ‘ultra-hot Neptune’, four ‘super Jupiters’ and several potential Earth-like planets in orbit around distant stars from his Gippsland property.
He has co-written over 100 planet discovery papers including one in the esteemed journal Nature.
From the dome in his backyard, he looks for a slight drop (usually 1%) in starlight as planets orbiting distant stars pass between us and their star, the society explains.
Since 2018, NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) identified nearly 8000 potential exoplanets (click here to learn what that is) at a cost of nearly $500 million.
Stockdale goes over TESS’s work using his telescope to validate potential planets so that the $20 billion James Webb Space Telescope can then take a closer look of them in the search for evidence of an Earth-like atmosphere.
He also collaborates on planet hunting with the global Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope network, based in California.
“I first got a taste for space during (the) Apollo (missions from 1961-1972),” Stockdale says; click here for NASA’s listing of all the missions.
“We were living on a farm with dark skies where my dad showed me a comet, which I watched and sketched from day to day.”
Chris reckons his planet-watching setup is worth about $100,000; it makes observations automatically through the night then he uses his IT skills to crunch the data.
ASTRONOMERS DISCOVER A RING
Jonathan Bradshaw, Renato Langersek and John Broughton are the first amateur astronomers to discover a planetary ring around a dwarf planet.
The giant ring rotates 4000 kilometres above the dwarf planet of Quaoar which, according to established theories, shouldn’t have existed.
They were co-authors of a Nature paper that reported on their discovery and on subsequent observations of Quaoar.
Using telescopes in Samford, Brisbane and the Gold Coast in 2021, the trio were all watching as Quaoar passed in front of a distant star.
“The star blinked before and after Quaoar passed in front of it. Renato, John and I all saw it so we knew it wasn’t a glitch,” Bradshaw says.
“The best explanation was that there was a ring. It was an enigma because it is much further from Quaoar than expected by the Roche Limit.”
Rings are usually found inside the Roche Limit (click here to learn more), where the planet’s tidal forces stop rings and debris from forming into a moon; Quaoar is roughly half the size of Pluto and takes 288 years to orbit the Sun. It’s now known to have a moon and two rings.
“Our discovery generated an avalanche of interest around the world,” says Renato. “We were invited to participate in occultation events in the USA, Mexico and with NASA in the Northern Territory.”
ASA RECOGNITION
“These three remarkable astronomers demonstrate that dedicated amateurs can make significant contributions to our understanding of the cosmos,” says Professor Richard McDermid, President of the Astronomical Society of Australia and Director of AAO (Australian Astronomical Optics) at Macquarie University.
“These ‘backyard astronomers’ remind us that everyone can look at the night sky and observe and their observations can guide the work of billion-dollar telescopes,” said Dr Tanya Hill, ASA prizes co-ordinator and astronomer at the Melbourne Planetarium.
The medals were presented at the National Australian Convention of Amateur Astronomers dinner at Tamworth, NSW, on Saturday, April 4.
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