News & Views item - May 2006

 

 

Mt Stromlo 3.4-Years On. (May 8, 2006)

    On January 18, 2003 the bush fires that were destroying thousands of hectares of the Australian Capitol Territory climbed Mt. Stromlo and decimated the mountaintop observatory maintained

Credits, via Science: D Normile; (Inset) Daniel Berehula/Getty Images

 by the Australia National University's (ANU) Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics (RSAA).

 

According to the recent "News Focus" item in Science the losses included:

While most of the administration and scientific computing facilities were spared, utilities were non-existent. But within three days the computing staff, "had a copy of the Mount Stromlo server running on campus; 80 astronomers and grad students occupied a computer center for 3 weeks. That gave ANU technicians time to set up generators and a microwave link on the mountain. The staff felt 'we can do without toilets, we can bring our own water, but we have to have Internet,' says [Mt Stromlo and RSAA director Penny] Sackett."

 

Virtually immediately ANU's Vice-Chancellor, Ian Chubb called together two dozen university officials and with Professor Sackett began planning Mount Stromlo's rebuilding.  They submitted an estimate to the Department of Education, Science and Training that between $15-20 million would be required to bring Mt. Stomlo up to world class standard.

 

Science sums up Mt Stromlo's contribution's to astronomy, "Mount Stromlo Observatory, a leading astronomy center that over its 82-year history has been known for achievements such as deciphering the nature of the solar corona and gathering some of the first clues to the chemical makeup of the universe beyond the Milky Way."

 

In the event on May 15, 2003 a post Federal Budget media release from the then Minister for Science, Peter McGauran featured in top spot, "$7.3 million for Mt Stromlo Observatory."

 

In the intervening three years Science reports "The 50-inch Great Melbourne Telescope [which] had been scheduled for another major upgrade [i]nstead was redesigned from the ground up, keeping the same size reflector but with a vastly enlarged field of view and a snazzy 300-million-pixel digital camera. [RSAA astronomer Brian] Schmidt says the new scope, called SkyMapper, will be capable of surveying the entire southern sky in two nights, something that would "take a lifetime" with current telescopes. A primary target will be keeping an eye out for extremely rare nearby supernovas. "SkyMapper is really going to be quite revolutionary for [studying] supernovas," predicts the University of Hawaii's [John] Tonry."

 

And ANU is suing its insurers, who ANU claims have so far paid only a fraction of what it is entitled. And the shortage of funds entailed by the Department of Education, Science and Training's parsimony is delaying restoration of the Commonwealth Solar Observatory and the replacement of the 74-inch telescope. "That has left a big hole in our observing program," says Schmidt.

 

Now Science reports, "3 years after the fire, RSAA has passed or is reaching a number of milestones. [A newly built] NIFS was delivered to Gemini North last fall, and the Adaptive Optics Imager for Gemini South is nearing completion. Once SkyMapper comes on line, it will largely be business as usual again for Mount Stromlo's astronomers. But their remarkable recovery suggests that the fire of 2003, if anything, has broadened their horizons."

 

Nevertheless, the short-sightedness of the government, with it's surplus billions, not to have made available the funding requested is a clear demonstration of the lack of value it places on fundamental research.