After the War

With the end of the Second World War in 1945, optical munitions work ceased at Stromlo and Director Richard van der Riet Woolley focused on pivoting operations at Stromlo to stellar astronomy. At this time, the word ‘Solar’ was dropped from the Observatory’s name, and it became simply the Commonwealth Observatory. Stromlo researchers began stellar optical astronomy research using the Sun Telescope (Heliostat), Farnham Telescope, Oddie Telescope, and 76cm Reynolds Telescope.

Important work undertaken at this time included Arthur Hogg’s research using a photoelectric 1P21 detector to study eclipsing binaries, making him an early pioneer of southern hemisphere photomultiplier photometry. Walter Stibbs used the Oddie Telescope to conduct research on the properties of the variable magnetic star. Richard Woolley and Cla Allen researched corona and the chromosphere. Physicist David Martyn, a driving force behind the establishment of the Australian Academy of Science, joined the Observatory in 1944 and undertook groundbreaking studies of the ionosphere. Colin Gum, who joined the Observatory in 1951, and Cla Allen undertook work in radio astronomy and produced the first map of the southern part of the galaxy at 200 MHz. Gerard de Vaucouleurs joined the Observatory in 1951 to undertake extragalactic research and used the Reynolds Telescope to conduct the first systematic survey of galaxies in the southern sky. 1951 also saw the first visit of two American astronomers, Gerald Kron and Olin Eggen, both experts in photoelectric photometry. Kron and Ben Gascoigne undertook important research into red dwarfs and Magellanic Clouds. 

In 1944 Richard Woolley acquired the Great Melbourne Telescope (50-inch Telescope) from the recently closed Melbourne Observatory as well as its Time Service. The Telescope was extensively modified and used initially by Ben Gascoigne for photoelectric research on Magellanic Clouds. 

The summer of 1951-52 was extremely hot and dry across the Canberra region. Given the conditions, on the morning of 5 February 1952 Stromlo Director Richard van der Riet Woolley called a meeting to discuss fire precautions at the Observatory. However, by the time this meeting was held, the Observatory was already under threat from a bushfire that had started in a valley around 12km northwest. 

The Observatory was not well positioned to defend against bushfire, particularly as the four hydrants that served the area depended on electrical pumps to supply sufficient water pressure but there was no generator to provide back-up power in the event of power being cut. 

At around 1.45pm a change in wind direction pushed a 3km fire front towards the Observatory. While many evacuated, 32 men and women stayed at the Observatory to defend it from fire. With the fire cutting the electricity supply to the water pumps, those present formed a bucket brigade to fight the fire. Miraculously most of the Observatory was saved, with just the workshop and two storage buildings destroyed, although also lost in the blaze were records of the observations from the Great Melbourne Telescope. 

Legend has it that the first vehicle to make it up the hill to Stromlo after the fire was a truck from Hotel Canberra carrying beer for those that had stayed to fight the fire. 

Director Richard Woolley used his contacts, primarily Astronomer Royal Sir Harold Spencer, to lobby the Federal Government to fund a new 74-inch telescope to complement work being undertaken in the northern hemisphere. Prime Minister Ben Chifley agreed and the new telescope, the largest in the southern hemisphere and the Observatory’s primary research telescope for many years, was completed in 1955. 

Woolley was also successful in negotiating the relocation of the 66cm astrometric telescope from South Africa to Stromlo, known as the Yale-Columbia Telescope as it was managed by Yale and Columbia Universities. It was used to measure the parallaxes and space motions of nearby stars and derived orbits of Saturn’s moons for NASA (Bhathal, Sutherland & Butcher, 2014). 

Additionally, Woolley negotiated with the University of Uppsala to locate its new Schmidt Telescope at Stromlo and from 1957, this telescope, known as the Uppsala-Schmidt Telescope was used to undertake photographic surveys of the Southern Milky Way and Magellanic Clouds (Bhathal, Sutherland & Butcher, 2014). 

After 16 years at Mount Stromlo Observatory, Director Richard Woolley resigned from his role in December 1955, having transformed the direction of the Observatory and astronomy in Australia. Perhaps his most significant achievement in his time at Stromlo was his negotiation to have management of the Observatory transferred from the Commonwealth Department of the Interior to the Australian National University. Woolley was aided in no small part by H.C. ‘Nugget’ Coombs, one of the men behind the establishment of the University and the Commonwealth Director of Post-War Reconstruction. Although initially rejected, further lobbying saw Prime Minister Robert Menzies direct the ANU to appoint a Professor of Astronomy in 1955 and transfer the Observatory to the University, with the transfer completed on 3 January 1957. The Commonwealth Observatory was now Mount Stromlo Observatory.