LOCAL amateur astronomer Trevor Barry was recently invited to Central West Astronomical Society’s AstroFest in Parkes at the end of September to talk about his work observing the rotations of Saturn’s North Pole ‘hexagon’ for 3115 consecutive days.
Mr Barry, a former mine worker, became interested in astronomy some 25 years ago, when a work colleague invited him over to look through his telescope.
He said he “had no interest interest in the night sky at all”, and when dropping his wife Cheryl Barry off at her mother’s he told her he’d only be half an hour or so.
Upon looking through the telescope Mr Barry said he was overwhelmed with the beauty of the stars.
“I looked in and there was Saturn. It looked out of the textbook, I couldn’t believe it!” he said.
“The rings, these little points of light out one side. Well, they were the moons of Saturn. I thought, how could this be? Through a homemade telescope, how could this possibly be? It just opened up a whole new world”
Mr Barry said he was so thrilled that he didn’t collect Ms Barry from her mother’s until 2am the next morning.
Following the guidance of a library book about telescopes, he began building his first telescope which he housed under the back verandah.
The telescope was counterweighted but when moving it out to look at the stars one day, Mr Barry lifted it too high, and he was launched over the top and into Ms Barry’s rose garden.
“So I decided to build an observatory to house the telescope” he said.
The observatory has been through many renovations and today is a two storey building in Mr Barry’s back yard, with a rotating dome ceiling powered by the engine from an old wringer washing machine, and a six-foot homemade telescope.
His passion is Saturn, and his work recognising and imaging a rare electrical storm on the planet earned him an invite from NASA to be a part of their Cassini team of ground-based amateur astronomers collecting data.
Mr Barry said he thinks we’re lucky to live in a solar system that has a planet like Saturn.
“It’s just stunning to look at” he said.
He’s won an array of awards for his astronomy work, including the prestigious Haas Observer’s Award last year, of which he is the only second Australian to receive one.
Mr Barry said Broken Hill is a great place for stargazing as most of the major cities have too much light pollution to see anything.
“The rings of Saturn are there every night of the year, and no one sees them” he said.
“Most of the population never looks up. I’d never thought to look up.”
