Hi Kevin,
Thanks for the link.
Actually Rob unfortunately was forced out of work around 2013 when
funding for the southern-skies near-earth object (NEO) search program
came to an end.
Originally the funding ultimately came from NASA but when they
stopped that funding ANU picked it up for a while.
See
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articl...14/3758927.htm
Armed with a log of hundreds of newly discovered asteroids and comets,
Rob pitched his case for additional funding from various Australian
academic and government bodies.
But none were forthcoming.
Rob told me that at a meeting with one of these bodies, if my memory
serves, they told him something along the lines that they wouldn't
be willing to fund a NEO search because they didn't know what the
probability of the risk of a NEO striking Earth would be.
Rob replied, "It is that risk that I am trying to ascertain".
Then in January 2013 the catastrophic bushfires hit the Warrumbungles,
came up the side of Siding Spring and came very close to Coonabarabran.
Rob lost his house in the fire.
A Coonabrabran local told me that on the night of the fire when many
had taken refuge in one of the clubs, Rob was stoically consoling
distressed and crying woman whose own houses were known to be fine
but knowing full well that his own house had been lost.
Rob's house was insured but I believe there has been a long going battle
with the insurer.
I last saw Rob in April this year when I bumped into him at lunchtime
in the Feathers Cafe in Coonabarabran. The cafe has a anteroom where
Rob and fellow local astronomy enthusiasts had just held a meeting.
They were keeping themselves busy with designing a tracking telescope
and I recollect a project to triangulate meteors from a collection of cameras
spread over a large area.
Later that night they joined us at the Warrumbungles Mountain Motel
for observing.
The southern NEO program ran on an absolute an shoestring using the
0.5m Uppsala Schmidt, built in 1956, coupled with a 4Kx4K CCD array.
Actually the photo in the ABC article of the dome is the wrong observatory.
That is the ANU SkyMapper, not the Uppsala Schmidt.
I remember when the program started. A group of us walked into the
cafe up on Siding Spring and Rob was there having his lunch. Rob's
eyes lit up and he smiled and welcomed up. "Perfect timing", he said,
"You are just who I was looking for".
After we finished our lunch, Rob assisted and directed us into the task of
hoisting the heavy counterweights up onto the Uppsala Schmidt mount
as part of its recommissioning for the NEO survey.
So I maintain a few of us played an infinitesimally small role in the discovery
of C/2006 P1 McNaught and a host of other objects by using nothing but
our muscles and pulling that day on a rope.
Image 1 :- Rob in 2007 pointing out details of the previous night's survey
