MONDAY 9 JUNE 2003

PROFESSOR PAUL MURDIN, DR HELEN WALKER, MR GUY HURST, MR BOB MIZON AND DR CHRIS BADDILEY

  Q1  Chairman: Can I welcome you. There is quite a team in front of us today, so it is going to be difficult to control, I am sure. I say that because some of your faces are very familiar to us. You gave us a great time. You showed us the stars at the Royal Observatory the other night and back again after that. Mr Guy Hurst has joined us and Professor Murdin, and I am sure they will have lots to tell us too. Can I say it was really a great trip, we learned a lot and we thank you for turning up and keeping us informed and getting us enthusiastic, so this is a good follow-up to the day. I do not know how you want to answer, but we may direct the question to one of you or two of you, but you are all very free to just say if you would like to come in. I will start off and lob something in to you here about the Government stating that most leading-edge telescopes are abroad, and the `impact of light pollution in the United Kingdom they say on professional astronomy is therefore minimal'. Do you agree with that statement? Helen, please, I can see you have got one already.

  Dr Walker: Certainly it is true that most of the professional facilities that we now use—the large facilities that the UK has funded—are abroad but, of course, a lot of the UK universities do astronomy. We have about 100 universities in the UK and about half of those offer larger or significant modules in astronomy at undergraduate level, and about 25 of them offer postgraduate courses. There are actually about 30 observatories attached to universities in the UK and they are a very valuable teaching tool. Of course, in addition to that, I think the role of the amateur astronomer cannot be underestimated in this regard. A lot of people come to science—not just astronomy—because they have seen the night sky, they have been to amateur observatories and they have been to public viewing evenings at public observatories. There is a lot of excitement there and it fuels all the way through the system, because people can actually do astronomy in the UK.

  Q2  Chairman: What about light pollution and the Government's view on it? What do you think about their attitude to it? Are they serious?

  Dr Walker: I think the issue of light pollution in the UK is serious. There are things we can do about it now, and I think it would be excellent if this Committee would take forward some of the recommendations that are being made, because we are not saying that lights should go out, we are saying that if you manage to control the lighting, you have light fit for purpose, shining in the right place, at the right time, that will not impact significantly on the astronomy that is done in the UK. You can protect certain sites by using a sort of higher grade of protection, and when local authorities come to do planning applications they can see what they are going to impact. I think often these days they do not actually know many of the observatories and the facilities there are that are being actively used. So it is a case of trying to catch up later on and saying: "Excuse me, there is an observatory just outside town which is a very valuable source of astronomy. It used to be a very dark area and we used to go there and do a lot of work". Suddenly there is an out of town sports field, shopping mall, warehouse distribution centre, and you have just suddenly lost it. To try and back-pedal and say: "Look, could you now go and redesign your whole lighting system", that is far more difficult.

  Q3  Dr Turner: An example already is the environmental impact system for any future major development.

  Dr Walker: How far does the impact consider? Bob, might I use as an example, which lighthouse, is it?

  Mr Mizon: The Farne Islands. The Longstone lighthouse has a 1,000-watts source. It is the brightest lighthouse in Britain, and yet people use half that to light up a back garden.

  Dr Walker: That can be seen from 25 miles away. So I do not think environmental impacts often consider large distances, they are very good at considering the local cases.

  Q4  Mr Harris: Dr Walker, can I bring you back to the question that the Chairman originally asked. The Government is making a statement here. It is saying that light pollution has no major effect on professional astronomy in Britain, regardless of what amateur astronomers and others have said. As far as professional astronomy is concerned, is the Government right in saying that light pollution has minimum effect on it because most of the professional astronomy work is done outside the country? Do you agree with that?

  Dr Walker: I would agree with that to some extent, but professional astronomers—unlike a lot of other sciences—rely on the work of amateurs to support them. We rely on amateur astronomers to spot comets, supernovae and gamma ray bursters. They can be followed-up by UK optical astronomers and these will not be professionals, these will be amateurs supporting us.

  Q5  Chairman: So the Government has got the wrong end of the stick, is what you are saying. Just say it, if that is what you think, please.

  Dr Walker: No, I think the issue is wider. I think the Government is strictly correct, but the issue is a lot wider. Perhaps we are unique.

  Professor Murdin: Could I add something, which might clarify the issue. It is clearly true that if you spend £100 million on a big telescope you want to get the most out of it every hour, every minute of every night that there is. It has to be in the clearest possible place and the conditions have to be the best. There are, say, a dozen such places in the world where this would be true, and we occupy some of them with UK-funded telescopes. To that extent, it is true that professional astronomy at that level needs to be in remote places outside the UK, but there is more to professional astronomy than using the very largest telescopes. There are also people who use moderate-sized telescopes from night to night, from hour to hour and from week to week. Also, there are professional astronomers who are training their students, and it is not practical to take students to Hawaii for a weekend trip to teach them how to use the telescopes. So, for professional purposes, there is also a requirement for access to smaller telescopes within the UK and those telescopes are inhibited by light pollution, particularly now when it could be equipment that is being put on such telescopes that is advancing in its technological capability and is becoming more sensitive to light pollution.

  Q6  Chairman: What would happen if you reversed the light pollution in this country, in terms of professional astronomers, would they return en masse?

  Professor Murdin: No. They would not return from their mountain top sites, because their mountain top sites are not only stable against light pollution, the atmosphere is stable and all the rest of it.

  Q7  Chairman: Right. So what are the other factors?

  Professor Murdin: It would particularly enhance the educational experience not only for undergraduates, which is one of the growth areas of physical science education in universities attracting large numbers of people who are, incidentally, learning about electronics and who are, in fact, going to go on to be electronic engineers and so on in their later careers, being attracted into science by studying astronomy.

  Q8  Chairman: Can you quantitate in British universities the increase in astronomy interest among students doing courses in it? Can you say what the policy is, for example?

  Professor Murdin: No. The typical structure for physical science degrees is that the students will, as it were, major in some mainstream topic like physics, or mathematics, or electrical engineering, or something, but they will bolt-on modules, perhaps for a term, in various astronomical subjects which are things they want to do.

  Q9  Chairman: Could that save physics?

  Professor Murdin: Yes. In fact, the physics enrolment in the universities has kind of plateaued. It has been declining for a long time, it has plateaued now, but the astronomy education in universities is rising by 10% a year.

  Dr Walker: I can actually quantify that because when I went to university back in 1971—

  Q10  Chairman: Yes, you do not have to tell us exactly, we can all guess.

  Dr Walker:—I did a BSc in astronomy at the University of St Andrews. At that time St Andrews was one of five universities which offered anything in astronomy, either single honours or joint, or a large module. As I say, now we are talking 50 universities having significant modules in astronomy, and this is a great way for students to get into physics and maths.

  Professor Murdin: In fact, when I was last interested in this topic, one university every year was adding astronomy into its physics teaching because of its attractive effect on students.

  Q11  Mr Dhanda: Can I just take you up on that particular issue, because you say there are lots of universities adding astronomy, as well as the modulisation of university courses. Has there been a significant change in degree courses in astronomy over the last 20 years? Are there more universities offering it as a course now?

  Dr Walker: There are certainly more universities offering it as a degree. Certainly when I came into astronomy, places like Leicester, as far as I was aware—speaking as a traditional astronomer—did not do astronomy. Of course, they are now a major centre. There was University College, Edinburgh, Cambridge, St Andrews and Sussex, and these were the major centres.

  Q12  Chairman: It does not sound like it is a mickey mouse subject anyway.

  Professor Murdin: Certainly not, no. It is one of a high technical content about natural phenomena at a high technical level. Of course, we are talking here not just about undergraduates, we are also talking about postgraduate students, of whom a large number come from overseas to study. We have a great assortment.

  Q13  Mr Harris: You mentioned earlier on, Dr Walker, about the importance that amateurs' work plays in the round and in support of professional astronomy. Most people are probably quite unaware of the importance of that. Can you say just a bit more about the specific work that amateurs are expected to do to contribute to the overall knowledge?

  Dr Walker: As Paul says, a professional astronomer regards himself as very fortunate if they get one night on a premier telescope at a world-class site, and so that time has to be used incredibly efficiently. Now, when I went out to Australia the stars I was studying faded and when they faded not even the Anglo-Australian telescope could observe them. So we had a group of New Zealand amateurs monitoring all the stars we might possibly want to look at, and they would tell us if one of these stars was going to fade because we would have to reorganise our programme. Variable stars are something professional astronomers cannot follow. The amateur astronomers go out every single night and they look at a whole range—sometimes a hundred—of these stars, and they monitor them night after night after night, and from that we can then apply our sophisticated models and mathematical skills to follow and understand what has been happening. There is no way we would ever get time on a telescope to go back even for five nights, or seven nights. You can do some of these things, but you have to have the amateurs to help you. Of course, it is not like a supernova, or a gamma ray burster, once the amateur has notified us that this has happened, we can then turn our major telescopes on it through the target of opportunity programme to follow it up. There is no way we are going to just scan the skies night after night on the off chance there might be a comet, a supernova, or something else, we have to rely on the amateurs to tell us there is something new.

  Mr Harris: At the risk of trespassing on the tabloid agenda and becoming a Lembit Öpik—

  Chairman: He is a colleague of ours.

  Q14  Mr Harris: Can I ask you about the work—please do not take too much time on this question because it has already been mentioned to us—what amateur astronomers do in terms of identifying these other objects, particularly in view of other objects that may or may not be heading towards us? Would light pollution, in any circumstances, prevent amateur astronomers—who have time to look for these things—from finding any other object? Do you see where I am going here?

  Dr Walker: Yes.

  Q15  Chairman: Let Guy Hurst answer that.

  Mr Hurst: Yes. Just to put it in perspective. Active amateur astronomers are probably observing on about 100-120 nights from the UK, which astonishes our overseas' colleagues, who have better conditions but do not observe anywhere near as much as in this country. On asteroids, we have a number of people who are taking images and trying to measure the positions to determine orbits, which will decide whether or not they are likely to hit us and, increasingly, because they are very faint objects, the light pollution is beginning to make life very difficult.

  Q16  Mr Harris: Okay. Thank you. You mentioned the links, but you did not mention them specifically. What are the links between amateur astronomers and professional astronomy organisations? Are they formal or informal? How do you co-ordinate that transfer of information from amateur scientists to professional?

  Dr Walker: Guy is probably a better person to answer than I am because the BAA has a good many sections that focus on this, and we trawl their websites and get notified of specific incidents.

  Mr Hurst: Yes. I maintain strong contacts with the professions and have done for about 30 years since I was seriously interested in the subject as an amateur. I would say astronomy, of all subjects, has one of the strongest connections between professionals and amateurs. Often professionals ask me to get a group of people together to observe a particular variable star, as Helen says, for a week, maybe just to run it concurrently with a satellite programme that the professionals are running, and virtually every week there is a PROAM project in progress.

  Professor Murdin: Just to embroider on that. The Royal Astronomical Society, which is the senior astronomical society in the UK, counts about 30% of its members as amateurs. It runs an organisation called PROAM, which is a collaboration between professional and amateur astronomers, organising themselves on programmes at work and recording meetings. I was at one three or four weeks ago at the Open University, for example, on meteoroids and so on, and the one before was on exploding stars in the middle of galaxies. So it is regarded by the Royal Astronomical Society as a part of its function to help organise and support such things.

  Q17  Mr Harris: Would your average amateur astronomer, by definition, use a home-based telescope rather than travel to an observatory to do the work?

  Professor Murdin: Yes, that is right.

  Q18  Mr Harris: Have you any idea of numbers in terms of have you measured the number of nights per year that amateurs have gone out doing field work? Have you any idea of the numbers on the ground actually doing that work compared with professional astronomers?

  Mr Hurst: I think an amateur to be observing 100 nights-plus, you are talking of 200 or 300 people in the UK. More casual observations once a week or less, maybe you are into 2,000 or 3,000 from my own research. Also, I think we could widen that and say that the popular astronomy magazines, which are sold on the bookstands, have circulations of 30,000-40,000, so there is another layer of very casual astronomers.

  Q19  Mr Harris: That is strong for reading matter, is it not?

  Mr Hurst: Yes. I know some people read them and do not observe, but there are potentially a lot of people interested.