Webcam gives insight in to observatory fire


Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Broadcast: 14/01/2013

Reporter: Tracy Bowden

Nobel Prize-winning astrophysicist Professor Brian Schmidt watched the Coonabarabran fire approach the Siding Spring Observatory in NSW via remote access cameras and can relate how the bushfire unfolded before him.


TRACY BOWDEN, PRESENTER: Well, astonishingly the Siding Spring Observatory - part of the Australian National University, and one of the most important sets of space telescopes in Australia - appears to have escaped the worst as the fires raged.

The outbuildings have been destroyed, but the telescopes themselves look, at this stage at least, relatively unscathed.

Watching the fires advance online thanks to some new remote access cameras installed at the observatory was the ANU's Nobel Prize-winning astrophysicist, Professor Brian Schmidt.

Famously agnostic, Professor Schmidt joked in a tweet after the fire had passed: 'perhaps there is a God after all'.

I spoke to him a little earlier before he boarded a plane for a conference overseas.

Professor Schmidt I understand you were watching live online as the fire raced through the observatory. What was that like, you must have been extremely anxious?

PROFESSOR BRIAN SCHMIDT, 2011 NOBEL PRIZE WINNER, ANU: Yeah we have this new technology where all of our telescopes on the observatory are linked up through the internet. And so we could literally watch second by second as the smoke came in and then the fires and watch the temperature rise. And so it was very anxious.

I have to admit I'm not sure if I like this kind of activity, I think I would have just preferred to wake up in the morning and just find out what was going on.

TRACY BOWDEN: Can you paint me a picture of what you were seeing as you watched online?

PROFESSOR BRIAN SCHMIDT: You know it kind of caught us by surprise because we didn't - this fire started very quickly. And I was first alerted to it, looked at our all-sky camera and we could see big black billowing clouds to the south-west. And then the sky just became very, very black, and at some point you couldn't see. And then I saw flames on the summit. I saw the temperature spike at over 100 degrees Celsius on the Anglo-Australian Telescope, so I knew the fire had come through. And then I could see the smoke clear and I was glad to see that the telescopes that were in this all-sky camera were still all there.

But then I got a little scared, because a couple of hours later, as it became dark, the camera started showing that there was spot fires across the mountain. And we could tell that one of the big buildings, and it turned out to be the lodge, was clearly completely alight and burned to the ground.

TRACY BOWDEN: So what do you know so far about the state of the telescopes as you have people on the ground there assessing the damage?

PROFESSOR BRIAN SCHMIDT: Various crews are going through and looking at the telescopes. I know the major telescopes are all OK. There will be damage, presumably to various things, especially on the outside. I know there's been a lot of smoke.

But it would appear that, in general, the telescopes have scathed on harm. But we'll be off the air for several weeks presumably as they try to get power back to the site, water, sewerage and all those things. And, of course, we don't have any place to stay up there either.

TRACY BOWDEN: Professor, tell us a bit about this observatory. How important is it?

PROFESSOR BRIAN SCHMIDT: Siding Spring Observatory is sort of the nexus for optical astronomy, I'm an optical astronomer. So it houses 12 telescopes and it's where, essentially, half the astronomers in Australia are trained.

And so it really is a huge facility that we really depend on to do our astronomical research here in Australia.

TRACY BOWDEN: Why was this particular location chosen for the observatory?

PROFESSOR BRIAN SCHMIDT: So it really goes back to the 1960s when they were looking for a place to house the telescopes. And telescopes like to be on top of mountains, away from cities. And we could have stuck it in the middle of nowhere where it would have been very expensive. They decided instead to put it here on the edge of the Warrumbungles, which was relatively close to infrastructure and so it was the most cost effective place to put an observatory.

And, you know, it has reasonably clear skies for Australia and is up at roughly 1,100 metres. And so it's a good site.

TRACY BOWDEN: In terms of the sites global significance, would scientists around the world have been watching to see what damage was being done?

PROFESSOR BRIAN SCHMIDT: Yeah those 12 telescopes are not just Australian telescopes, they're telescopes from places around the world. And so many people's facilities were put at risk. And so - and many, many people use the Australian facilities which are the largest there.

And so, yeah, it's very scary as you watch this happen, as again, especially since we saw the consequences of what happened in 2003 at Mount Stromlo.

TRACY BOWDEN: As you say, almost 10 years ago, Mount Stromlo was destroyed in the fires outside Canberra. Did you learn some lessons then that helped you protect this facility this time?

(Footage of Mount Stromlo Observatory after the fires in 2003 is shown)

TRACY BOWDEN: Absolutely. The fires in 2003 caused the observatory to undergo a huge range of activities to help prevent it from burning the ground.

And I think one of the most important ones seems relatively minor but is where I think Mount Stromlo came unstuck, was putting fire resistant screens on every single window. And those clearly have done their job.

But we also had, you know, paint that was fire resistant, getting rid of large numbers of trees that were scattered across the observatory amongst other things. And so they seem to have done a much better job of protecting the observatory in this instance.

TRACY BOWDEN: Professor Schmidt, thanks very much for speaking to us.