A new telescope

Press, 19 May 1981, Page 22

A new telescope

In three or four years New Zealand and foreign astronomers will begin making observations through a new telescope on Mount John. The story of how this telescope was acquired provides an encouraging tale of Kiwi ingenuity and enterprise. The telescope will have been paid for ...in part by-'funds raised through voluntary subsciptions throughout the country. It was designed at a laboratory of ‘ the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research at Lower Hutt and will be built by technicians and scientist's .at the University of Canterbury, using skills acquired on the recent rebuilding of one of the smaller telescopes already at Mount John. In all this, the New Zealanders behind the scheme have also cannily drawn on the greater resources, financial and technical, of sympathetic American institutions to help the. project along.

As is so often the case for notable achievements within New Zealand, one enthusiastic individual has played a key role. The acquisition of the new telescope, and indeed earlier the setting up of an observatory at Mount John at all, owe an extraordinary arhount to Dr F. M. Bateson, the doyen of New Zealand astronomers. It would be a fitting tribute were the

installations at Mount John to be called the Bateson Observatory in recognition of his work, which comes to some sort of fulfilment now that work is actually beginning on the new telescope. The result of. the application of the typical skill of New Zealanders to do things well oil a - shoestring is . that the. country is acquiring, at a cost of about onefifth or one-quarter of what it would cost to import a similar instrument, a telescope which will keep New Zealand up with the play in world astronomy, even in an age when telescopes are to be placed in space itself by the space shuttle. The site at Mount John is recognised internationally as a key one for astronomical observations, partly because of its exceptionally clear atmosphere and partly because of its location, so far south and in the. gap between the great southern continents. The new telescope will attract overseas astronomers to work at Mount John and will enable New Zealanders to complete advanced studies here for which they would previously have had to go overseas. In its small way it will help stem the drain of skills and intelligence from New Zealand:. and enhance the country’s reputation overseas as a place where firstclass work is done in some fields at least.