Daniel Tran, a year ten student at PAL College in Cabramatta, a suburb in southwestern Sydney, has photographed the Glowing Eye Nebula, a ghostly cloud of gas that has lasted at least 3,000 years and surrounds a dying star some 7,000 light years from Earth.
Daniel took the photograph using one of the world’s biggest telescopes—the giant 8.1metre Gemini South telescope in Chile, in which Australia has a 6.2 per cent share. His precious hour’s worth of observing time on the telescope was the 2009 prize for winning the Australian Gemini School Astronomy Contest, which aims to inspire the next generation of Australian astronomers by involving students in the process of real astronomy at a major professional facility.
“I thought they were pulling my leg,” says Daniel about his initial reaction to hearing that he’d won the contest. The unique colour and structure of the Glowing Eye Nebula, as well as its name, all made him want to know more about it.
Students are encouraged to submit entries for targets to digitally photograph in the southern sky that are both scientifically interesting and aesthetically pleasing, explains Christopher Onken from the Australian Gemini Office. Christopher presented a framed portrait of the nebula to Daniel at his school. The prize for winning the contest also involved a live hook-up to the Gemini Observatory.