Rest from telescopes

Press, 10 November 1980, Page 7

Rest from telescopes

Staring at a television screen at the peak of a 41500 m volcano in Hawaii is', just part of Dr Gerry Gil-1 more’s job. Dr Gilmore, who was the first in New Zealand to gain a Ph.D. in astronomy at the University of Canterbury last year, does a lot of his work on mountain peaks. He, works with 40 other as-j tronomers at the Royal Ob-i servatory in Edinburgh, and, is in Christchurch for fouri days before returning to Scotland, where he has been for the last two years. He will be in Scotland for another four days before flying to Chile to make observations from a telescope in the Andes Mountains. He has also used telescopes in South Africa, Australia, and the Canary Islands. While in Hawaii Dr Gil-: more used the new Britishj infra-red telsecope at the top' of Mauna Kea volcano. This is the largest infra-i red wavelength telescope in: the world, being 3.8 m wide. • “We stayed at 3000' metres up the mountain because there is so little oxygen at the peak that you can stay there for only 18 hours at a time,” Dr Gilmore said.

; "We went up in mid-after-■noon and sprayed the inside ■of the telescope with liquid ioxvgen to keep it cold; it ilhad to be 200 degrees below ■ ,'zero. "We watched the sky on television screens because if i we went too close to the < telescope the warmth from i our bodies could upset it."

Astronomy was a very ex- i citing field today with rapid- i ly changing ideas and theories, Dr Gilmore said. The theories of 10 years < ago were being discredited i and proved wrong because of, rapid developments with < equipment. There was also strong competition among astrono-; mers who wanted to use the; ibig telescopes. ! ‘There are five to six times as many people wanting to use the telescopes as there are vacancies,” said Dr Gilmore. “More than 100 research projects are done at a big (telescope each year so you have to write a scientific justification before being ■ allowed to use one.” ■ New Zealanders had a high- reputation in the astronomy world, especially : the astronomy writer of I “The Press,” Dr H. M. Bateison. said Dr Gilmore. When Dr Gilmore was in Australia recently he telephoned Dr Bateson at Tauranga to find out which stars were worth observing. A network of amateur astronomers throughout New Zealand had been watching different stars and they had telephoned Dr Bateson with information about which

stars were interesting that night Dr Gilmore’s interests are the study of quasi-stellar objects, his Ph.D subject, and very small stars. He - said quasi-stellar objects Were, the brightest in the universe and most of them were just on the edge ;of the universe. ■ "It is a hard concept toj understand; they are tens of thousands of billions of light years away,” he said. “I am also studying small Jupiter-like stars, and there is a very good indication that they exist even though they are too small to be seen,” he said. The aim of proving that these small stars existed was to prove a theory which said the universe was gradually getting smaller and becoming one giant mass. This was the opposite of the big bang theory, which said the universe was becoming larger. The site of a telescope was very important, Dr Gilmore said. An observatory 200 km from Los Angeles was affected by the smog and the glow of lights from the city. The site of the Mount John observatory, near Tekapo, was ideal, he said.