Golden Years of Australian Radio Astronomy

Stratospheric platform applications: reduced cognitive load for multimedia and education

“…Students in HEIs and researchers in RIs can access data relating to space data associated with wind energy at high altitudes to estimate how much electricity is derivable from aerial wind energy resources [64][65][66] Students and researchers access data via sensors hosted aboard the HVCEs and directly observe the variation in windspeed-related data. In this case, the direction of the wind can be directly observed from the HVCE environment 5 Astronomy Students and researchers observe the outer space environment via terrestrial astronomy telescopes or directly engage with data obtained from these telescopes [67,68] Students and researchers have a closer and more interactive view of the space environment, especially in relation to the low earth orbit environment…”

The Brisbane Astronomical Society (1896 to 1917), Its Six-inch Refractor, and Key Members Dudley Eglinton and James Park Thomson

“…The late Edwin Norris (1829-1892) of Townsville and J. Ewen Davidson (1841Davidson ( -1923 of Branscombe (near Mackay) also had 6-inch Cooke refractors housed in observatories (see Orchiston & Darlington, 2017). Davidson's telescope returned to England in 1900 when he retired, but the other two 6-inch telescopes were only surpassed in aperture in 1918 when Dr W. E. McFarlane (1866McFarlane ( -1919) purchased a 7-inch Cooke refractor that he installed in an observatory at Irvinebank a tinmining town on the Atherton Tableland (Orchiston, 1985(Orchiston, , 1997b. At a national level, in 1894 the only larger operational refractor owned by an Australian amateur astronomer was the 8-inch Grubb in John Tebbutt's Windsor Observatory, near Sydney (Orchiston, 2017).…”

“…This would prove the greatest challenge when the Stanley telescope was acquired by the fledgling Brisbane Astronomical Society, but a further factor would be the changing nature of astronomical research world-wide. Consequently: "With the emergence of astrophysics and the international decline of positional astronomy, refractors of extremely modest aperture -by world standards -were no longer capable of contributing to astronomy in the same way that they had done during the nineteenth century" (Orchiston, 1997b).…”

“…The resolution and light-gathering capacity of a telescope are proportional to the diameter of the main lens. For example, Francis Stanley's refractor had an objective 6 inches in diameter, which at the time was a very respectable size for a refractor owned by an amateur astronomer (Orchiston, 1997b). The most basic type of reflecting telescope -the Newtonianemploys a mirror which is located at the base of the tube, and the focus is commonly brought to the side of the upper end of the tube by a small, centrally placed diagonal mirror.…”