arXiv subjects

Wayne Orchiston

Publications and source records attributed to Wayne Orchiston.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

The comets discovered from New Zealand, and the astronomers who found them

Eleven comets were discovered by six New Zealanders from New Zealand shores. New Zealand's important geographical position south of the Equator is highlighted. This location allows observers to discover and observe comets that would be difficult to see from the Northern Hemisphere. The lives of these comet discoverers are explored, as well as the discovery circumstances and an analysis of the morphological changes of their comets. We find that numerous New Zealand observers made many observations of these comets, however, relatively few were included in international publications, this possibly being due to papers about them not being submitted to overseas journals. We also note an interesting trend in that the number of New Zealand newspaper articles relating to these comet discoveries plummeted after the 1946 discovery by Albert Jones. We speculate as to why this may have happened.

physics.hist-ph↗

arXiv2025

The Great January Comet of 1910 (C/1910 A1): A Key Opportunity Missed by New Zealand Astronomers

C/1910 A1 was one of the Great Comets of the twentieth century. Although it was widely observed from the Northern Hemisphere, it was first discovered by observers south of the Equator. The comet arrived just months before the widely anticipated apparition of Comet 1P/Halley and was significantly more spectacular. As a result, the two comets were confused, and many who, in later years, talked about how prominent Comet 1P/Halley was in 1910 were often remembering C/1910 A1. In this paper, we present the results of a detailed search through historical records and media publications in Aotearoa / New Zealand, to investigate how extensively C/1910 A1 was observed from New Zealand. We compare our results with observations reported for Comet 1P/Halley later in 1910, finding that surprisingly few observations of C/1910 A1 were made by New Zealand observers. We discuss cases where the comet was misidentified as being an early sighting of 1P/Halley and compare the observations made in New Zealand with international observations/records/accounts. We find that, although the Great January Comet of 1910 was observed from New Zealand, it was witnessed by few compared to other parts of the world, meaning that the apparition of C/1910 A1 was something of a missed opportunity for New Zealand astronomers.

physics.hist-ph↗

arXiv2010

Early Australian Optical and Radio Observations of Centaurus A

The discoveries of the radio source Centaurus A and its optical counterpart NGC 5128 were important landmarks in the history of Australian astronomy. NGC 5128 was first observed in August 1826 by James Dunlop during a survey of southern objects at the Parramatta Observatory, west of the settlement at Sydney Cove. The observatory had been founded a few years earlier by Thomas Brisbane, the new governor of the British colony of New South Wales. Just over 120 years later, John Bolton, Gordon Stanley and Bruce Slee discovered the radio source Centaurus A at the Dover Heights field station in Sydney, operated by CSIRO's Radiophysics Laboratory (the forerunner of the Australia Telescope National Facility). This paper will describe this early historical work and summarise further studies of Centaurus A by other Radiophysics groups up to 1960.

astro-ph.IM↗