Saturn images

[AstralTraveller]

I just saw the following story.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/06/10/2269544.htm

Congratulations Trevor, that's quite a achievement.

The article doesn't say when the photos were taken. I'm just wondering whether anyone else is sitting on a treasure they haven't noticed.

[madtuna]

how damn good is that!! living the dream!

huge congrats Trev! :thumbsup:

[Screwdriverone]

Wow,

Is that "one small step for (a) Broken Hill man, one giant leap for Aussie Astronomers?"

Very impressive, maybe a trip to the States is on the cards to tour mission control? Oh, and don't take anything less than $1m (US) per year PLUS expenses! :lol:

Congratulations Trevor.

Cheers
Chris

[gaa_ian]

Well done Trevor !
Its great to see Amateur Astronomers making the nightly news. :thumbsup:

[cahullian]

Sounds like a dream come true Trev. Keep up the great work mate.
Where to from here??

Gazz

[Quark]

Hi all,
I apologise for not keeping you all up to date with my work for the Cassini RPWS team, wasn't sure that anyone would really be interested, but thing have been pretty chaotic over the last month or so.

The morphology of the storm has changed considerably since I first imaged it in February. I have now imaged it about 80 times to date, activity has varied considerably, at one stage there were three very small storms very close together. Too close together for my RGB imaging ability. Bear in mind I am very new to RGB imaging. I found it much easier to do monochrome images of this group.
Cannot believe the media interest in this, I thought the media were only interested in politicians, celebrities and catastrophic events not in what ordinary folk got up to.

I have done interviews on our local ABC 999 radio, ABC 891 Adelaide, Radio Nationals Science Show with Robyn Williams, the Sydney Morning Herald, Newcastle FM radio 2NUR.
Sarah Clarke ABC TV' National Environment & Science reporter rang me, apparently someone from NASA TV contacted the ABC trying to track me down to do a story.

Sarah organised a TV crew to come to my observatory where she recorded a radio story for AM, a TV story for the news and a story for NASA TV. She interviewed Georg Fischer from the Cassini RPWS team and organised Fred Watson to come down to Sydney and be a part of it from Sydney Observatory. I greatly appreciated Fred's very kind words about my work.

Sarah Maddison from SAO at Swinburne has dobbed me to two undergraduates doing a journalism degree that have to write a feature article for an online Uni magazine about the experiences of a Swinburne Graduate.

Yesterday channel 10 from Adelaide rang, they flew in a TV crew that did a story at my observatory and tagged along with me while a gave an astronomy presentation to MLC School from Sydney, MLC bring there year 9 students to Broken Hill each year for 2 weeks. I give the whole group a general astronomy presentation and the students that select astronomy as an elective (while in Broken Hill) get bused into my observatory for some in depth astronomy, my spectroscope usually goes over well with them.

I have also been contacted by a woman claiming to be from Alice Springs TV , she will be in our area in the next couple of weeks and wants to do a story in my observatory.

The last message from Georg to our group included an invitation to Muenster in Germany for a seminar in September, can you believe that. It amazes me that things like this could possibly happen to such ordinary folk.

It is getting very difficult to image the longitude where the storm activity is occurring before I lose Saturn over my neighbours house. I am adopting different tactics and will try imaging in the twilight through a red filter.
Even if this is successful I will probably only be able to to this for about another three weeks before I lose Saturn below my local horizon.

When Saturn returns to the morning sky I intend continuing my work as Cassini will remain operational for some time yet.

I have often wondered about comments from various people that I have seen on TV about the feeling of "living a dream", I really am living my dream of being able to make a contribution to science as a broken down ex mine worker living in the middle of nowhere.

Regards
Trevor

[venus]

Congratulations Trever, extra-ordinary folk indeed!

[Ric]

Your doing some wonderful work Trevor.

Enjoy your dream, you have definitely worked for it and deserve the accolades.

Top stuff

[badchap]

I'm going to *bump* up this thread for the time being.

Today's Herald Sun has a story about Trevor as well. (with a great photo too !) and includes about 13 (I think) of Trevor's photos, too.

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23901831-2862,00.html

I would not expect Trevor to remember, but I had the pleasure of meeting him briefly when I went from Melbourne suburbs to Broken Hill for a few days, with my husband and our then 3 yr old girl, to view the 2001 Leonids meteor shower. His enthusiasm was wonderful, and he had arranged for visitors and locals to go to a site a little way out of town, to get the best possible views of the Leonids. We all had a great night !
(I offered a comment pretty much along those same lines about that story, but I don't know if it will show up anywhere)


Well done Trevor !

regards, Carmel & family

[Kevnool]

I,ll ring Trevor to reply to this latest thread....cheers kev.

[badchap]

:)

[Quark]

Hi Carmel,
What a night that was, I will take it to the grave with me. The entire sky covered with meteor trails. What a pleasure it was to share that experience with such like minded people.

As you have no doubt read, things have changed considerably for me, onward and upward so to speak.

The astronomy community is a particularly tight one and it is good to hear from you again. I was not able to get that particular version of The Herald Sun. We get the county version and Paul Stewart's article was in the Victorian news section, not in our version. I did see it on the internet though and apart from calling me an astrologer, stuffing up the captions for my photo's and saying they were taken by Melbourne amateur Trevor Barry it was not bad. I must look up that other Trevor Barry next time I come to Melbourne.

Regards
Trevor

[iceman]

Congrats again, Trevor. The story is just getting more interesting for you.

[Quark]

More than you can imagine Mike,

I thought this would just die a natural death, that things would settle down so that I could just get on with what I'm doing but each week something happens.

Sarah Clarke from the ABC tells me that she sent a version of her story to NASA TV and last week I had four phone calls from the BBC in London. Penny Haslam interviewed me on her morning radio show last Wednesday and Paul Kerley from BBC news rang Wednesday night and recorded an interview, went for an hour, he asked me to send him a selection of images and then got me to talk about each image. He said he was putting together a TV story using the interview over the top of the images.

Must be a world wide lack of material for the media at the moment, still it is encouraging that the media is showing any interest at all in what amateur astronomers are doing.

Regards
Trevor

[renormalised]

It's really encouraging to see astronomy getting press time, and especially amateur astronomy getting the press it deservedly needs. It's just a pity the journo's can't seem to get things right!!!:P:D

[Jen]

:clap::clap:

[Davros]

Amazing and inspirational, congratulations Trevor.

[mellotron]

The story with pics and commentary is now linked from the front page of the BBC News website.. wow!!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7468832.stm

[renormalised]

That was really interesting. Trevor's enthusiasm really comes across in the interview:)

[Quark]

Hi Renormaised,
I'm sorry about this, I am sure you all have heard more than enough about this story. But the media just keep contacting me.

Every other day my phone rings with calls from various media outlets around the world, there must be a total lack of news at the moment.

The BBC rang and organised an interview with me by Penny Haslam on a BBC morning radio program Wednesday 18th June, that night Paul Kerley from BBC news rang and asked me to send him a selection of astro images, he then organised a sound studio and recorded a commentary by me of those images. He emailed me this morning with a link to his story.

I must admit to being very surprised to find someone from Iceinspace already being aware of it and posting a link.

The media interest continues, last night I was contacted by a major TV science show, they were on the phone for over an hour. There is a high probability that they will be doing a major feature about this story. The person that spoke to me left me with the comment that they would be recommending to the producers that they proceed.

Before they hung up I asked them to pause for a moment while I pinched myself, yep I was their and it was all legitimate.

Regards
Trevor

[taminga16]

I have often wondered about comments from various people that I have seen on TV about the feeling of "living a dream", I really am living my dream of being able to make a contribution to science as a broken down ex mine worker living in the middle of nowhere.

Regards
Trevor[/QUOTE]

Thank you Trevor, Which bits are broken?

Regards,

Greg.

[Quark]

Thank you Trevor, Which bits are broken?

Regards,

Greg.[/quote]
Hi Greg,
34 years working in very heavy industry, often in confined spaces does nothing for your body. It catches up eventually. I have problems with my neck, knees and right ankle. But my major problem is the condition of my lower back. I have disc's sticking out the left side of my spine, my CAT scans look just great.

Astronomy helps me greatly. When I finished on the mines and started my degree I just immersed myself in it, ignoring everything else, I still do. I find that while I am so involved in what I am doing I feel better about myself and have less time to worry about the bits that don't work so well any more.

You could say I use astronomy for pain relief.

Regards
Trevor

[renormalised]

"Here, take a couple of Saturn's and see me in the morning":P:P:D

[taminga16]

Thank you again Trevor,
I apologise if it seemed that I was seeking a medical history, my query was made in an effort to suggest that whatever your physical state it is not restricting you in your achievements. Well done.

Regards,

Greg.

P.S. If our x-rays were ever confused the diagnoses would be similar and I would hazard a guess that your hands would look a bit like mine as well.

[Quark]

Yep, sure does work for me.

Trevor

[Jen]

:lol::lol::lol::lol:

[Screwdriverone]

A "couple" of Saturns?

Either you need to do some serious collimation or the eyesight is starting to go too! :lol:

Chris

[AlexN]

Top stuff Trev! a big high five to that!! :)

Next time the media get in your ear, make sure to let it slip that your work (and the "work" of all us other amature astronomers) is greatly hampered by local light pollution... street lights are unnecessary as are every light being on in the city when NOBODY is there....

It would be a big help to you and us if they switched off after say.. 9pm...

:D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D (Jen - I'm catching your emoticon infection :D :) )

[Phil]

This is a great story. Well done Trevor.
Phil

[Jen]

:lol::lol::2thumbs::2thumbs::cheers :
Hey Alex yes its very catchy beware :thumbsup:
:jump:

[AlexN]

Is :thumbsup: it :face: ever !!

:ship2: I can :rundog: hardly :stupid: put two :gday: words :bowdown: together :jump: without emoticons :party: in between..

Its very say :violin:

[Jen]

:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:
:lol::lol::lol::lol:
LOL Alex:2thumbs:
:cool:
:gamer:
:wink2:

[MrB]

Just a heads-up for anyone in WA(that aren't at work ;)), the TTN program on ch10 is about to show a story about Trevor in the next few mins(TTN is on now).
Sorry to those in the eastern states, would have warned you two hours ago if I had a time-machine! :D
That is, I will warn you yesterday to set your VCR's to record it if your at work today and someone lends me a time machine.

[Jen]

:lol::lol::lol::lol:
:ship2:

[Moonboy]

:confuse2::confuse2::confuse2: