Broken Hill Astronomer published in Nature

[Quark]

Nature is the most prestigious peer reviewed science journal in the world and the holy grail of all science researchers, regardless of their field, is to be published there.

Last night the embargo on my latest co-authored Nature paper was lifted as it was published online in Nature Astronomy. This came from the long time collaboration I have had with the lead author Agustin Sanchez-Lavega who included me as a co-author. Agustin is a Professor of Physics, head of Applied Physics and head of the Planetary Sciences Group at the University of the Basque Country in Bilboa Spain.

This paper, of course Saturn, is with regard to a storm in the NPR which evolved from a tiny bright spot in late March 2018 to a quite amazing structure virtually encompassing a whole latitude band approx 8000 klm wide by the time 60 Minutes took me to JPL in July 2018. Carolyn Porco was unaware of the new storm and it is one of the highlights of my life being able to use our producer’s laptop to show her how this had evolved from just a spot into this stunning intricate structure. Her face just lit up, she was just as excited as me.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-019-0914-9

Regards
Trevor

[gary]

Hi Trevor,

Wow! That is absolutely fabulous! Well done & congratulations!

Best Regards

Gary & Mai

[multiweb]

Top stuff Trevor. All your hard work paid off. You must be stoked. :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

[morls]

Congratulations, a great achievement and contribution to knowledge.

[Dennis]

Lovely story Trevor and congratulations, such dedicated work and your passion for astronomy are deserving of this recognition.:):thumbsup:

Cheers

Dennis

[Sunfish]

Great work. Well deserved .

[PeterM]

Bravo Trevor!` this is fantastic! Congratulations indeed.

[JA]

Well done Trevor. Congratulations :thumbsup:

Best
JA

[RobF]

B awesome effort Trevor! :thumbsup: :bowdown:

[Retrograde]

Congratulations Trevor - a fine achievement!

[Quark]

Thanks very much to all for your replies to my news.

The work of amateur astronomers is becoming ever more important, especially in the field of Planetary Science. Many amateurs contributed image data that was used in this paper. The "Supplementary Information" file also includes a table with every amateur listed who contributed image data used in the paper. Within the paper itself, in every instance where a image is used in a figure, acknowledgement of that particular imager is given.

It is very satisfying to see professionals acknowledge the effort of amateurs in this way especially in such a prestigious journal as Nature Astronomy.

[gary]

Science News is running an article (https://www.sciencenews.org/article/storms-saturn-north-pole-great-white-spot)by Maria Temming that reports on the
Nature Astronomy article that Trevor co-authored.



Full article, images here :-
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/storms-saturn-north-pole-great-white-spot

[Atmos]

That’s really awesome Trevor, I’ve always enjoyed seeing the planetary images you’ve posted on here and been stunned by the details you’ve been able to extract :)

[andyc]

Congrats again Trevor, another Saturnian feather in your cap! It was a treat to see one of my images featured in Figure 1 (middle of the top row), and good they acknowledged the many amateurs' data they used in the supplementary data (https://static-content.springer.com/esm/art%3A10.1038%2Fs41550-019-0914-9/MediaObjects/41550_2019_914_MOESM1_ESM.pdf). Australia was well represented, with (apart from Trevor and myself) Paul Haese, Mark Lonsdale, Phil Miles, Darryl Milika, Troy Tranter, Anthony Wesley, Leigh Westerland and Michael Wong also contributing one or more images.


After being at the DPS-EPSC meeting last month, it's really clear how grateful the professionals are for the amateur image contributions, the real value that can be got from modern amateur imaging, and quite how much the amateur data is actively used for outer planet research.