Astronomy in Australia

The Organisation DOI: 10.18727/0722-6691/5047 Astronomy in Australia Fred Watson1 Aboriginal peoples, is the Emu, whose position as engineer and surveyor to Warrick Couch1 head, neck and body are the Coalsack the new settlement, Dawes was also a Nebula and the dust clouds of Circinus, botanist and a keen astronomer who Norma and Scorpius. built a small observatory at what is now 1 Australian Astronomical Observatory, called Dawes Point, close to the southern Sydney, Australia Conventional “join-the-dots” constella- pylon of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. He tions also abound, but vary widely from is also notable as the first compiler of an one Aboriginal culture to another. Orion, Aboriginal language dictionary through Australians have watched the sky for for example, is seen as Njiru (the hunter) his association with Petyegarang (Grey tens of thousands of years. The nine- in the Central Desert Region, but the Kangaroo), a woman of the Eora Nation. teenth century saw the foundation of Yolngu people of Northern Australia see government observatories in capital the constellation as a canoe, with three Of more lasting significance to astronomy cities such as Sydney and Melbourne. brothers sitting abreast in the centre is a piece of Australian-Scottish heritage While early twentieth-century astron- ( Orion’s Belt) and a forbidden fish in the centring around Sir Thomas Makdougall omy focused largely on solar physics, canoe represented by the Orion Nebula. Brisbane (1773–1860), a conservation- the advent of radio astronomy at the Virtually all Dreamtime stories character- minded soldier, statesman and scientist. end of the Second World War enabled ise the Moon as male and the Sun as Brisbane was the sixth governor of New Australia to take a leading role in the female, with a tacit understanding that South Wales (NSW), and an examination new science, with particular emphasis the covering of the Sun by the Moon dur- of his career prior to this suggests that on low-frequency studies. Today, the ing an eclipse represents the consumma- astronomy was the principal driving force radio quietness of its outback interior tion of the relationship. Likewise, planets of his life. provides an excellent location for the figure in Dreamtime astronomy, with Australian core of the Square Kilometre Venus, for example, taking on a person- The main reason for his keenness to Array. Australian optical astronomy has age known as Barnumbir in Arnhem become governor of NSW may have been flourished since the 1960s, with the Land. Barnumbir is a woman held firmly to establish an observatory in Parramatta 3.9-metre Anglo-Australian Telescope on a rope extending from the eastern in 1822, which he wanted to become becoming the principal national facility horizon (morning star) or western horizon “the Greenwich of the Southern Hemi- in 1974. Access to ESO’s facilities at the (evening star), a neat explanation for the sphere”. The Parramatta Observatory has La Silla Paranal Observatory is warmly planet’s limited excursions from the Sun. a precursor in Largs, Scotland (1808) that welcomed by all Australian still exists, albeit in a highly dilapidated astronomers. Besides the creation myths, the stories and unstable condition. This elegant told in Aboriginal astronomy served a stone building was lost to history until the practical purpose. The orientation of the early 1980s, standing on a hillside in the It is no idle boast that Australia has the Emu would indicate when it was time for middle of what is now a cow pasture and world’s oldest continuing culture. Recent the Central Desert people to begin col- almost overgrown by vegetation. research at a rock shelter in Kakadu, near lecting emu eggs. Likewise, the Boorong Jabiru in Australia’s Northern Territory, people in north-western Victoria used Brisbane’s Parramatta Observatory used optically-stimulated luminescence the constellation of Lyra to tell them when (1822–1847) was essentially a copy of to date human settlement there back to gather malleefowl eggs. Dreamtime his Largs building, but in wood rather to a staggering 65 000 years. Stone tools astronomy was also used to establish a than stone, and equipped with positional and buried ochre pigments suggest the moral framework among the younger instruments brought from Scotland. In inhabitants were both technologically and members of the community, instilling turn, the Parramatta Observatory became culturally adept, with observations of the values that had a demonstrable connec- the forerunner of the Sydney Observatory sky likely being an important part of their tion to their ancestor spirits in the sky. (1858), which inherited Parramatta’s daily rituals. telescopes. The wooden observatory at Parramatta is long gone, but the stone Australian Aboriginal people trace their Colonial astronomy supports for a later transit telescope cultural heritage back to the Dreamtime remain in Parramatta Park. Brisbane him- — an ancient era of creation, rich in leg- The arrival of the First Fleet in January self left Australia in 1825 after visiting a ends linking human and animal life with 1788 brought up to 1500 British settlers new penal settlement near Moreton Bay, the country in which they lived. Dream- to Port Jackson in Sydney. Over the next which now bears his name as the capital time stories differ from one Aboriginal century, the effect of continuing settle- city of Queensland. nation to another, but are full of allusions ment on the indigenous population was to the sky, with the Sun, Moon, planets devastating. Meanwhile, the new colony The first NSW Government Astronomer and stars all playing significant roles. flourished. The settlers included convicts, was William Scott, appointed in 1856, The Milky Way is also important, with free settlers and military personnel, and two years before the opening of the “negative constellations” being identified its first noteworthy astronomical figure was Sydney Observatory. Erected on the in its dust lanes. The most notable of William Dawes (1762–1836), a lieutenant highest point of the new colony close these, which is common to many different in the Royal Marines. Besides his official to Dawes Point, the stylish sandstone 2 The Messenger 170 – December 2017 Figure 1. Seen here at the time of its role in the Apollo lunar landings, the 64-metre Parkes Telescope is still CSIRO a workhorse of Australian radio astronomy. reopening four years later as a public ob servatory under the auspices of Sydney’s Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences. The Great Melbourne Telescope Another noteworthy observatory was built in the colony of Victoria as a direct result of wealth accumulated during the 1850s gold rush. June 1863 saw the foundation of a government-funded observatory in the capital city, Melbourne. The newfound riches of the Victorian government enabled the Royal Society to construct a large Southern Hemisphere reflector. The remarkable 1.2-metre Great Melbourne Telescope, then the world’s largest work- ing equatorial reflector, entered service in August 1869. The Government Astronomer, Robert Ellery (1827–1908), expressed confidence in its capabilities as a premier research instrument. Sadly, this optimism was never fulfilled. The Great Melbourne’s Cassegrain layout amplified the primary mirror’s focal ratio to f/42, rendering the new technique of photography useless for all but the brightest objects. The mirror itself was made of speculum metal instead of with the newer technology of silver-on-glass. As a result, the mirror tar- nished rapidly, requiring frequent risky re-polishing to restore its reflectivity. After many valiant efforts by Ellery, the Great building is today dwarfed by the sky- Astrographic Catalogue project in 1887. Melbourne Telescope went into a long, scrapers around it. Its principal function Russell also incorporated meteorology slow decline and was eventually closed in the early years was to provide a time- into the functions of the observatory. down in March 1944. keeping service for the community, com- plete with a time ball to allow mariners Russell’s efforts were criticised by a The telescope was then sold to the in the harbour to set their chronometers. prominent amateur Australian astrono- Commonwealth Solar Observatory at mer, John Tebbutt (1834–1916), who is Mount Stromlo, on the outskirts of Astronomical research significantly himself best known for discovering the Canberra. Although it changed hands advanced during the 35-year custodian- spectacular comets of 1861 and 1881, at scrap value (£500) it subsequently ship of the third Government Astronomer, and was honoured in 1914 by a visit from underwent a series of metamorphoses, Henry Chamberlain Russell, who was the Astronomer Royal Frank Watson culminating in the installation of a new appointed in 1870. Highlights include the Dyson. By then, Australia had attained 1.3-metre Pyrex mirror in 1959. The procurement of a 29-centimetre Schröder nationhood in the wake of the Federation institution itself also metamorphosed refractor in 1874, which is still operational; of 1901. Tebbutt’s work was celebrated into the Mount Stromlo Observatory of a major campaign to observe the 1874 on the Australian $100 note from 1984 the Australian National University (ANU), transit of Venus; and the incorporation to 1996. The Sydney Observatory itself which remains one of the nation’s premier of the Sydney Observatory into the ceased astronomical research in 1982, research centres. The Messenger 170 – December 2017 3 The Organisation Watson F. & Couch W., Astronomy in Australia In the early 1990s, the Great Melbourne 1954, he moved to Australia’s southern- (inaugurated in 1961; Figure 1) quickly Telescope, by then well over a century old, most state, Tasmania, which was then became icons of the new science. was reincarnated yet again to perform a largely radio quiet. specific scientific task — hunting for Australian radio astronomy had come of non-luminous objects in the galactic halo Radio astronomy in Australia had its age by the time the Parkes Observatory that might make up the mysterious “dark origins in radar research carried out in the was built, and the facility became well- matter” known to permeate the Universe.

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