M: Bob, can you tell me a little bit about how you became interested
in astronomy?
B: My father had been in the scouts years before I was born, and
so he knew the names of a few stars and constellations. When I was
about 9 or 10 he introduced me to these things. He brought home an old
star atlas from the university library and so I learned the constellations
from that and started observing with a pair of binoculars. When I
was in my early teen years in high school my brother made a telescope for
me out of a paper tube and a spectacle lens with a microscope eyepiece.
I didn't own a proper telescope until I left school. At 18 or 19
years of age, that would be 1955 or '56, I bought a 2" refractor and a
5" reflecting telescope made by someone else. This reflector was
just a tube and optics - no mounting. It took me 12 months to learn how
to make the thing work. I began to look at different types of objects in the sky. In those
days I was able to observe 12th magnitude objects from the roof of our
house in suburban Sydney, of course the light pollution wasn't then anywhere
as bad as it is now. In the mid '50s I began to read about supernovae
and considered the possibilities of supernovae hunting. I started
using the 5" telescope to look at galaxies. The telescope enabled
me to see a good many bright galaxies, but it was too small to find supernovae
in more than a few dozen galaxies. So it was about 1960 when I bought
a 10" mirror to put into a telescope, but it didn't actually get made into
a telescope until about 1966 after I'd been to college. So while
I had the ambitions of finding a supernova in those early days, I never
had a serious chance of finding one.
M: Had you ever thought about becoming a professional astronomer?
B: That was not a possibility for certain reasons, one was that
I felt a call to do ministerial or missionary work and also because I didn't
have any great mathematical skills. There were no jobs around in
that area anyway.
M: Why supernovae? Why not variable stars? Why not
drawing planets?
B: It just took my fancy.
M: But you obviously had some idea that using what is considered
today to be a very small telescope, you could even find supernovae.
B: But with a 10" or 12" telescope I would expect to be more successful.
In Australia in the 1950s a 10" or 12" telescope was a large telescope.
There were almost no amateur telescopes bigger than that. The only
way for an amateur to get a telescope bigger than that was to make it yourself
and it would have cost a lot of money. It just happened that the
10" mirror became available (it took a month's wages to buy it) and six
years later before the family arrived I had a bit of spare money to buy
the rest and make one that worked.
M: Was it permanently mounted?
B: No, no. I'd take the tube and counterweights off, to
move it in and out.
M: Was there any relationship between your calling to evangelical
work and your interest in the cosmos?
B: Not really, no.
M: They have always been two separate parts of your life?
B: Astronomy is a hobby. Obviously I have thought about
science, religion and cosmology and related sorts of things but that wasn't
the reason I became interested in astronomy. In fact, some years
ago I wrote a philosophy book about it, although it is only a "desk-top"
production, at present.
M: It's curious because all of us have this path through space-time
and while we inevitably take one such path it is certainly only one of
an infinite number of possibilities. So when I say "Why supernovae?"
there must be some reason that you considered it while there was an entire
world of amateurs who apparently never gave it a thought. There were
many other amateurs with 10" and 12" telescopes but no one else took that
path. Your first supernova was in 1981, correct?
B: As I said, I thought of looking for supernovae in the 1950's
with the 5" telescope. But, at that stage, I was really just starting
to make my first observations of galaxies, any galaxies. I knew that
I was very unlikely to find a supernova until I had a larger telescope.
Zwicky had published papers on supernovae which described the magnitudes
of the ones that had been found at that stage. Only 50 or 60 supernovae
had been found at that time. Naturally, they were mostly brighter
ones found with the 48" Palomar Schmidt. The 1937 supernova
in IC 4182 was 8th magnitude and a lot of the others were 10th and 12th
magnitude, so there was a good possibility of seeing some of them with
a 10" telescope from a reasonable site.
M: Did you ever meet or correspond with Zwicky?
B: At one stage, during the 1950s, I compared two photographs
of NGC 1300 which had been published in different books and one of them
had a photographic fault in it that looked like an over exposed star in
the arm of the galaxy. I wrote to Zwicky to point this out but it
was one of his assistants who replied, Harold Gates, and said that the
two photographs had probably been made from the original Palomar photograph
and it was a fault in the printing process. So Zwicky didn't actually
write.
M: I hear that he was extremely difficult to get along with.
B: Yes, I believe that it is true. Tom Cragg has told me
a number of stories about Zwicky because Tom lived in California when Zwicky
was alive.
M: He certainly did a lot of good work, but I've heard as many
stories about his abrasive personality as I have about his work.
Didn't he invent the term "supernova"?
B: Yes, with Walter Baade.
M: What telescope did you use for your first discovery?
B: The 10" telescope became functional in the late 1960s.
It didn't get used much until we moved to the Lake Macquarie and Newcastle
area, north of Sydney, because the place we lived in 1967 and 1968 was
badly light polluted. It was hopeless trying to observe from there.
The sky was not too bad around Lake Macquarie, and it became possible to
increase the number of galaxies I observed. There were a number of
false alarms of course, in the process of learning what the galaxies look
like, and also due to the fact that there were very few good reference
materials. There was only a modest range of photographs of southern
galaxies available, and it was impossible for an amateur in Australia to
get access to the Palomar Survey at the time, so the only thing to do with
a lot of the galaxies was to make a drawing, and hope that next time
you looked you didn't get the directions (north, east, etc.) wrong.
But the difficulty too was that after I got used to seeing a galaxy a number
of times I could see more details. So my knowledge of the galaxies'
appearance improved. Each time I looked, and some detail became
observable, it was possible that the new feature was a supernova.
It created quite a problem. So there were a number of false alarms.
In addition, around 1970 there was no one to check them out. There
was no verification system. It was nearly impossible to relate the
few existing photographs to what could be seen in the telescope.
M: It's still difficult for a lot of people trying to use different
media whether it's a CCD picture against film, or film against the eye,
HII regions can look star-like. All kinds of things look different
from one medium to another.
B: So, to improve my verification system, in the early 1970s I
tried to turn the 10" visual telescope into a photographic telescope.
That was like trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear and it didn't
work. So I gave up for the most part until 1980 when the news came
about the supernova in M100 found visually by Gus Johnson.
M: So that was a particularly inspirational moment? You
thought, "Ah, it can be done! I'll get back to it."
B: Yes, that's right. But also, new dimensions and new possibilities
were opening up. At that stage we lived farther up the coast
in New South Wales, closer to Brisbane, and there were several amateurs
in the Queensland organization who were starting to make charts of galaxies
for reference in supernova hunting. So I started working with them,
using the prototype versions of their charts. Also, Tom Cragg at
Coonabarabran gave me access to the survey materials at the Anglo-Australian
Observatory. Then I could make 35mm photographs of the galaxies from
the ESO and Palomar surveys.
M: Then you went in and photographed the plate prints themselves?
B: Yes, parts of the plates. I used to travel up there from
time to time and shoot off a day's worth of films.
M: So, by now you are a father, have an active ministry and you
are trying to discover supernovae when the sun is down. How did you
manage this juggling act?
B: Oh well, the family was growing up. We lived in a small
country town 400 miles up the coast from Sydney, with a very nice dark
sky. All I had to do was put the telescope together on the back lawn
and I could observe. Given that the resources for comparison were
improving, I was able to make my first discoveries.
M: Tell me about your first discovery. Did you wake all
the neighbors up by yelling in the back yard?
B: No, no, no. The first discovery was an unofficial one.
A supernova appeared in NGC 1316, which is Fornax A. There was a
photographic search being conducted in Chile at the same time. They
took a photograph of this galaxy late November, 1980, but they didn't look
at their picture. Then they took another photo in the middle of December,
and found the supernova. It was a day or so after that that I found it
as an independent discovery. By the time Tom Cragg had verified it visually
the announcement was out and there was no point in trying to claim I had
discovered it.
M: None-the-less it was a discovery.
B: Well, it was as far as I was concerned. Early in 1981
we had some long service leave for a couple of months and we went out to
one of the beach locations near where we lived and that was where the first
of my official discoveries was made in the 10" telescope, just beside the
beach. This telescope was easily portable.
M: That's all pre-internet. The world was then populated
with mainframe computers. How did you communicate the discovery to
CBA?
B: I rang Tom Cragg (chief night assistant at the Anglo-Australian
Observatory) at Coonabarabran and he checked the galaxy, NGC 1532, visually,
with his amateur telescope. But he was frightened to report it to
the Central Bureau because he didn't want a dud for the first time up.
It would put a blot on our record right from the start.
M: Something we've all had nightmares about!
B: So he waited several nights until he had some photometric observations
that one of the professionals made. Then he reported it. He
would have done it by phone because there was no e-mail system then.
M: What, if any, kind of feedback did you get?
B: It was announced promptly because there were complementary
visual observations by Cragg, and the photometric measurements.
M: Feedback from the rest of the astronomical community?
B: There were spectra taken somewhere showing that it was a type
II supernova and there was a plate taken with the UK Schmidt. I would
have to check back into the IAU circulars, but I don't think much other
observing of it was done.
M: How did you feel after making your first genuine discovery?
B: I was very moved that something had happened! But actually
there were 3 bright supernovae that appeared in fifteen days. I discovered
the first one, and made a pre-discovery observation of the second one,
but mistakenly I decided that it wasn't a supernova. So a Russian astronomer
found it the next day. I missed the one in the middle! But
there was another supernovae just a few days later in NGC 1316, the second
supernova in that galaxy. I had gone out to Tom Cragg's
place on Siding Spring Mountain and we found it there from his front driveway,
with the 10" telescope. The discovery was verified visually straight-away
and reported to the Central Bureau in a couple of hours, through our contact
with the A.A.V.S.O..
M: It must have been very exciting after such a long wait.
B: Oh well, it was a change having 2 discoveries, yes. The
team in Chile had also photographed NGC 1316 a number of times, but they
didn't look at their photographs, so they actually had a series of photographs,
using several filters, I believe, which showed this second supernova rising
from 20.5, 18.0, 16.5 and magnitude 16.0 on the way up in 4 nights.
The visual discovery was made at magnitude 12.5. It was found just
before maximum light.
M: So apparently having 2 discoveries in a relatively short amount
of time whetted your appetite.
B: Well, yes, I would have continued searching anyway, but it
helped. But I didn't find any more for 2 years following. Then,
there were 4 discoveries in 1983 and 4 in 1984. So, by the
end of 1984 I had 10 visual discoveries. The thing that set the ball
really rolling was that two of the discoveries in '83 and '84 became the
prototype examples of the newly recognized type Ib supernovae, and another
was later called Type 1c. It was the supernova in M83, found
quite a bit before maximum, which was studied in great detail, which broke
open the old classification system. It was also a radio object totally
different from anything observed in radio beforehand. This helped
create much further research in supernova studies. An identical supernova
a year later (in NGC 991, and also a visual discovery) proved that a new
class of supernova was involved.
M: It must have been a pleasure to be part of the new supernovae
classification system.
B: Yes it was. But the new advances not only depended on
these two supernovae, They also depended on the fact that digital spectrographs
were now available giving much better detail in the spectra.
Supercomputers were also coming along, which made possible the modeling
of supernova atmospheres, yielding artificial spectra. These 3 events
were important in the resurgence of supernova studies among the professionals.
M: It must have been very unusual for an amateur then to be what
on what is now called the "leading edge of research". Even today
it can be difficult to find amateurs who are interested in pure science
vs. taking pleasant looking pictures.
B: Yes. Well, there are still plenty who are simply interested
in pretty pictures. I think that there always have been a good number
of amateurswho wanted to do some proper science. And supernova work
is now a natural area for amateurs to choose, especially considering how
the researchers have related supernova work to the new cosmological theories.
It has quite a bit of appeal.
M: Now you had a total of 10 supernovae by the end of 1984 ...
B: There was 1 in 1985 and 3 in 1986. In January, 1986,
my 16" telescope came into use, as well.
M: That's pretty good production for visual work. I have
always wondered why, during that time, you didn't have a northern hemisphere
counterpart or even some competition in the southern hemisphere.
B: There were the beginnings of it. There were several Japanese
photographic discoveries in those days. Some northern visual discoveries
started to appear later in the 1980s. I think the problem was more
that success depended on people having regular access to a dark sky site.
Most amateurs live in cities. And of course they had to have
their own reference resources. The Thompson-Bryan charts didn't
come out until 1990. I was using the pre-publication versions of
those charts, as well as all my 35mm galaxy pictures from the ESO and Palomar
Survey fields.
M: Let's talk about whether or not you have super human powers
when it comes to remembering star fields. In Oliver Sachs' book,
"The Anthropologist on Mars", he said that you were a savant, being someone
who has an extraordinary ability way beyond other people to remember patterns.
B: The idea of a savant is not a measurable quantity, so it has
to be a speculative classification based on hearsay, guesses and anecdotes.
M: No modesty is allowed.
B: (laughing) It's true that such classifications are based on
anecdotes and not based on measurement. I can remember star patterns
providing that there is some repetition. That's what happened
with the galaxies. If you look at a galaxy field, say 50 times within
a reasonable time, you've got a better chance of remembering it than if
you look at it once or twice.
M: Well, I guess that's always true. Can I assume that we
will never really get to the bottom of this?
B: (laughs)
M: Certainly your ability to remember star fields did not hamper
you in your work. You also must have known how to get from one galaxy
to another very quickly.
B: That is true, yes. Another aspect of it is that many
of my supernova discoveries were recognized instantaneously, because I
knew the fields so well.
M: I assume that if you have any talent remembering star patterns
you can apply it to the entire sky therefore you didn't have to look at
setting circles to get from one galaxy to another.
B: No, no. I used a straight-through finder and could locate
most of the galaxies in a few seconds.
M: I had suspected that.
B: It was possible to observe 50 galaxies an hour when they were
scattered around the sky, and 120 galaxies an hour in Virgo.
M: Let's talk about today's telescopes. Previously I had
talked about the KAIT automated telescope, which can easily observe 1000
galaxies in a night. Under typical conditions about how many observations
would you average a night?
B: It's not a question that can be really answered because I very
seldom observed all night. I would only observe for a few hours at
a time. I have observed all night on only a few occasions. Once back
in 1984 using the 10" I observed out in the country for 10 hours, and looked
at 570 galaxies. That was an entire night near the equinox.
It was in March, so it would have included Virgo but a lot of other constellations,
too. With the experience I have now accumulated, and using a 16"
telescope, I could probably observe over 1000 galaxies in one night, perhaps
a winter night (nearly twelve hours here.) After all, 1984
was seventeen years ago.
M: So you actually can remember the one night when you had all
night to observe?
B: Yes, that was one occasion when I used the whole night.
It was much more common for me to do quick runs for shorter periods.
There was one occasion, a winter night (dark soon after six o'clock), and
the moon was going to rise at 10. It had been cloudy for a week,
and it was probable that it was going to be cloudy for another week so
I only had this one night, 4 hours really. In that time, I
observed 336 galaxies, and then I found a supernova in the 337th galaxy.
After the next week of cloudy weather I found another supernova.
So in 1984 there were 2 discoveries in 8 days with no observing time in
between.
M: Have you found that at times you violate the statistics and
it seems that supernova come in bunches?
B: I have, yes. On one hand, there have been many long periods
without any supernovae being seen at all. Other times, several appear
at once. Remember, in 1981, three bright supernovae were in
the sky at once. Two were 12th magnitude, and one was mag. 13.5,
all found in a 15 days time period. Imagine the chances of 3 such
supernovae in the sky at any time? There have even been a few
odd occasions when three of my discoveries have still been visible with
the 10" telescope on one night.
M: Let's talk about meetings with remarkable people. I'm
here to meet a remarkable person. How has your life with supernovae
brought you to meet others? How has it directed your life as an amateur
in bringing you together with people you wouldn't have met otherwise?
B: At the end of 1984 there were 10 visual discoveries with the
10" telescope. In 1985 the IAU invited me to the General Assembly
to give a talk. Because the type Ib supernovae were just being realized,
and were peculiar radio objects, there was a Joint Discussion about supernovae
at the Assembly for a whole day. So I was invited to present a short
paper. They paid part of my fare, and my hotel bill in New Delhi,
and my paper was published in the Proceedings of the General Assembly.
M: It must have been very exciting.
B: I think that was the first time I met Brian Marsden.
No, I think I met him in 1983 in Boston, but he was in India as well.
I met Geoffrey and Margaret Burbidge, Russian and South American professional
astronomers, supernova people from all over. Also I met Sidney Van
Den Bergh, who got me into some research papers about supernovae rates.
M: So you had the opportunity to not only meet remarkable people
but also to go to remarkable places. These are cases where your work
begins to pay off, not just in the excitement of solitary discovery, but
in the world of astronomy.
B: Yes. The 1986 discovery of the supernova in Centaurus
A was one that created some note with some of the professionals.
Also 1987A, although I wasn't involved in that discovery. There were
various conferences about 1987A, and I was invited to a few of them.
M: When were you given the opportunity to use the 40" telescope
at Siding Spring Observatory?
B: That was in 1995 through 1997. In 1993 we moved to Coonabarabran
for church work. While I hadn't intended to use any of the
professional telescopes, I wanted to see what could be done with a large
telescope visually, partly in competing with the Berkeley outfit.
M: You have to agree that competition does have its place.
B: Hmmm. It was a part of that, too. In the end, the
only thing I could do was apply for observing time on this (30 year old)
40" Boller & Chivens. Normally, this telescope is used almost every
night for research. It meant open competition for observing time
with professional astronomers, based on the scientific merit of the project.
The allocation committee at Australian National University were generous
with the observing time they gave us. Over a two years period, we
had about 110 nights on this telescope. A lot of them were moon affected,
but half the nights were fine and we made 10,000 observations and found
3 supernovae and missed a couple. We saw other ones we wouldn't have seen
otherwise.
M: How was that to jump visually from a 16" telescope to a 40"
telescope?
B: Of course it brought a lot more galaxies into the range of
an observing program. So I had to make a whole new set of pictures
to have a full set of photographic resources. Moving the telescope
around the sky was the time consuming thing which meant that only a couple
of hundred observations could be done in a night which was not an enormously
efficient use of my time considering I had to work during the day.
I still used the 16" telescope at the same time in order to fill in the
holes that couldn't be observed with the 40". There were a couple
of discoveries made with that, from the backyard, as well. During
this time, from 1983 to 1996, there were a number of visual amateur discoveries,
including mine, that paved the way for astronomers to refine their knowledge
of type 1a supernovae. For example, amateur visual discoveries
enabled professional astronomers to see that there are some type Ian supernovae
that are sub-luminous, and others that are over-luminous. Ways had
to be devised to separate these from the normal ones. So, these
discoveries have been very important in the practice of trying to use type
Ia supernovae as standard candles, to help get answers to basic questions
in cosmology.
M: Now we come to the time of the younger upstarts like myself
with more complex equipment, CCD cameras etc. Given that we are operating
this way, how do you see the future? Do you think that the automated
systems lose something that you gain, or vice versa?
B: It is possible, on the short term, for there to be so many
observers with automatic equipment, all searching for supernovae, that
visual amateurs will be largely out of business, so far as making discoveries
is concerned.. That could happen simply by the number of observations
being made. But there are so many galaxies, and so many variable
stars, that visual observers will still be able to perform a roll.
Increasing technology will certainly make competition more difficult for
visual observers. But, it is hard to see how all of the visual observers
will be reduced to impotence completely. Visual observers will always
be able to poke around and just look at the pretty sights Variable
star observers, comet hunters, and supernova and nova hunters will still
conduct serious searching, even in the face of overwhelming competition.
While they do all those things, there will always be the chance of finding
something, however small. After all, the chances of making
a discovery visually have always been small.
M: If I was to say, "Rev. Evans, we have funding to provide you
wit heither a complete automated system to do supernovae search in the
southern hemisphere, or sufficient monies to hire larger numbers of visual
observers, which would you choose?"
B: At this stage of my life I don't quite know. It would
depend on whether or not I was being paid. My retirement project
is writing history books, as you have seen. If I had funding for
an automatic system and was being paid to do it I probably might go along
with it, given that I had time for my historical research. There
are one or two visual searchers in this district here who would like to
get into the act as well, if there was a proper automated system.
One of the local fellows has made a couple of visual discoveries in the
last few years.
M: So you don't feel as though this is the end of an age and that
visual observing as a tool for discovery is probably coming to an end?.
B: The age has changed somewhat, certainly. But nothing
is impossible. The thing which might create another lease of life
for visual amateurs is when the funding fails for the pet projects of the
professional astronomers. These cosmological search programs at the
present time are the "flavor of the month," so there is funding for them.
But as soon as something else comes along the funding will switch and the
professionals won't be searching any longer. It may not even matter
whether the job's even finished or not, or whether the cosmological issues
have been solved. If some other program comes along with more sex
appeal to the funding agencies then the possibilities for amateur work
will change too.
M: It is true. The landscape does change according to funding.
B: It's always been a problem with professional automatic systems.
Richard Mueller had a lot of problems with funding early in the Berkeley
system so he had to invent the Nemesis Hypotheses in order to get some
money.
M: I think that the time for the automated telescope is here for
lots of reasons. Humans don't have the time, staying power or the
interest to observe all night every night.
B: Yes, they can't do what the computerized telescope can do,
although even that has only been very recent.
M: Still, virtually every amateur is doing a night's work and
then sitting down with their own comparison images, or downloaded pieces
of the Palomar Sky Survey, or whatever. I did this initially for
the first 18 supernovae I found. A couple of us have finally gained
analysis software that reduces the next day's work. Of course you
never have next day's analysis because your identification process is virtually
instantaneous. But those who must manually check last night's images
taken with an automated system are facing a task that is not humanly possible,
especially for those amateurs who are not retired and have to make the
time around work and family.
B: There is a 24" telescope at the local university campus here
and they've tried to rig that up for supernova search work. It wouldn't
be able to work fast, but they tried to build the telescope on the cheap
and the encoders were no good. So it's never yet worked as a supernova
searcher.
M: That's a problem. You do get what you pay for.
B: They will have to pay through the nose for encoders now.
Any future supernova search will probably be done as an undergraduate program,
to give the students experience in observing.
M: That comes to a point I have often considered: What is
it that makes supernova searchers different from other amateurs?
I have called them the "steppenwolves" or lone wolves of astronomy because
it takes so much stick-to-it-iveness. It is natural for human beings
to want to be paid for their efforts a lot more quickly than supernova
searchers are. I would like to know what you think is special within
supernova searchers such that they are able to bear up for an entire year
without results yet keep trying.
B: (chuckling) Bill Bradfield was a lone observer like that, but
he looked for comets. You somehow have to have it in you that you
don't quit.
M: You mean that when you were taking down your telescope, you
were tired and you realize that you have to do other things, you never
heard a voice within you that said "I quit. I'm tired of coming up
with nothing." Instead that voice said, "Next time, I'll be ready!"
B: Yes, that just depends on who you are and what you're made
of. It depends upon what things fascinate you. Everybody
is different. Some people can stick at things and other people can't,
one person will stick at one thing and another would walk away from the
same effort.
M: Right now there are 4 amateurs in the world who are extremely
active: yourself, Tim Puckett from Georgia, myself, and Mark Armstrong
out of England. I still find that it is still a big world and that
out of it there are only 4 that really wish to continue with a vengeance,
so to speak.
B: There are many others like Albert Jones in New Zealand.
He has the same qualities, although he applies them slightly differently.
He's a variable star observer. He has twice as many observations
as anyone else, and over a very long period of time.
M: Then again variable star observing does have its constant feedback
of "success". You have your numbers and have reported them.
Discovery, I believe, is a different kind of thing.
B: Yes, but an important aspect of my work has been negative observations.
Along with the positive ones these numbers have been used for supernova
rate calculations. Now that was an unintended result, of course.
But it has worked. It doesn't make me feel happier about negative
results but it has happened anyway which is something.
M: It is a very important thing. The supernova rate is very
important in theories of galaxy formation and in young galaxies where type
II supernovae are expected to occur, the rate at any time is an essential
ingredient of the evolution of that galaxy.
B: The value of it was realized many years ago by Zwicky.
But it hasn't become possible to derive numbers with reasonable accuracy
until recent times.
M: Do you have any particular words you'd like to leave for all
the would-bes and will-bes out there? Your example has been an inspiration.
I wrote to you as soon as I had the time and you were very kind enough
to answer and in detail. I still have the letter. By example,
you are ever present. Your 37 (33 visual) discoveries is like a baseball
or cricket record.
B: I don't think that the visual record will be surpassed for
a while. Not while the automated searches are going. The visual
record, I believe, will stand for quite some time. However, I believe
quite firmly that there should be four or five records, or even more.
There should be one record for visual discoveries. There should be
another for photographic discoveries. Zwicky or Charles Kowal would
hold that one at present. There should also be a record for
computer-assisted discoveries which were not fully automatic. And
there should be another discovery record for fully automatic searching.
This last, in turn, could be divided according to what gear was being used,
because in the future the gear will be a lot better than what you have
now. The demands involved in each type of searching is seriously
different. So the records should be seen differently from each other.
I believe it is a mistake to compare your tally of discoveries with mine,
or your tally of discoveries using computer-assistance with a tally made
with complete automation. The work involved in each case is very
different. How could anyone compare a discovery made by one's computer
while the so-called observer was asleep with anything made by active observation
of the sky? One is a triumph of computer technology applied to astronomy,
where the observer might not even need to know where any object in the
sky might be found (like many professional astronomers today.). The
other is the result of direct observing of objects of known place and appearance
in the sky.
M: My own opinion is that it (the visual record) will never be
surpassed because the automated search is here to stay.
B: But it may happen one day that the automatic searches won't
operate anymore for one reason or another. Maybe computers won't
work anymore for some unforeseen reason, or because they become seen as
a menace to humanity, or some hacker might wreck the whole show (laughing)
and the internet might become an impossibility. Frankly, I believe
that that is quite possible. If there is a decent sized war the first
thing that would be done by one country against another is to destroy its
internet/communication system and to wreck as many of the other's computers
as possible. And that could quite easily affect scientific research.
M: So your feeling is that we may pay in spades for leaning too
heavily on technology?
B: It's possible. In any case there will be people now who
will do visual work even if it is only done for fun. It is always
possible they will make a discovery. Type II supernovae can reach
maximum brightness quickly and it only has to be raining or be cloudy where
the automatic system is and the discovery is then made visually.
M: I do have real feelings for what the visual observer has that
I don't. I know that I am missing the sublime experience of actually
seeing those galaxies and under all kinds of conditions and the connection
you can obtain with the cosmos can be quite extraordinary when working
visually. I have consciously left that behind for this particular
kind of work.
B: Unless you did some for fun.
M: Once you begin automation it does take much of
your time in other ways. But I have seen that whenever we embrace change of
virtually any kind for the sake of gain, we inevitably lose something as well.
The example I have given is when I was in business I finally got calls for my
facsimile number three times in one day. I realized that to remain with
the times I had to buy a fax. I also knew that it was a whole new world of
having to have things done more quickly than ever. Its advantages were
also its disadvantages. So there has to be something lost through
automation. The poets and light-hearted astronomers are not made and
maintained by computers.
B: Yes, indeed.
M: It's been an interesting past. I know that it will be
a fascinating future. And I certainly hope that however you continue
your work, that you just continue your work.
B: I will keep observing. And in due course I expect that
this local 30" telescope (at Linden Observatory) will be in use for visual
observing by others if not by me. My 16" telescope is presently on
a farm out west and I hardly ever use it. I used it in the back yard
when we lived in Coonabarabran, but here, because of the layout of the
place, I have to use a telescope that I can pick up, so I have a 12" here.
M: I'd say you've made more and better use of visual observing
that anyone I have ever known, except perhaps for Percival Lowell.
But he turned out to be wrong about Mars and you were right about the supernovae.
B: (laughs)
M: I have genuinely enjoyed finally meeting you and appreciate
your willingness to share your story and ideas.
B: You're quite welcome. It has been a pleasure for me as
well.
Those of your who wish to contract Rev. Robert Evans may e-mail him
at: "Robert Owen Evans" <bobevans@pnc.com.au> |
