In Broken Hill the night skies arch high and clear above the desert, uninterrupted by light pollution. Trevor Barry always wondered why the night sky looked the way it did, but like many young men in the 1960s, working in the local mine seemed the obvious career choice.
Barry left school at Year 10 and began an apprenticeship on the Zinc/NBHC Mine. He was employed in the mining industry for 34 years. As it has been said, ‘one day he looked up instead of down and his life changed forever’. This is a lovely description of Trevor’s introduction to Astronomy – an interest that placed Broken Hill in the International spotlight.
Trevor Barry’s observatory is now listed alongside some of the leading centres for astronomy in the world. His self-designed and personally built telescopes and mounts can observe and record images of the planets as if they were only a few feet away. He decided to take a degree in astronomy when he quit the mines. He was daunted, but no less determined, when he discovered that he was the only student without tertiary qualifications in his year. He finished his Graduate Certificate in Astronomy at Swinburne with High Distinctions and an Award for Excellence, proving that passion and hard work counts for as much as any number of academic qualifications. Trevor Barry has now co-authored and published papers in some of the most respected Scientific journals in the field.
Barry’s observations and imaging technology led to him supplying NASA with invaluable data on a seven-month electrical storm on Saturn – the longest storm recorded on the planet. He now sends data to several other organisations as well, including to the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the British Astronomical Association.
In 2008 Trevor Barry was invited to join an observing party visiting the world-famous Keck Observatory, located on top of the 14,000 feet high summit of Mt. Mauna Kea in Hawaii. He has also been a special guest at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology. He was Broken Hill Citizen of the Year in 2021.
The planetary scientist Caroline Porco, who led Nasa’s Saturn imaging team, called Trevor Barry a star. It might just be why he is so at home in the night sky.
Audio transcript available.
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