One of Discover Science & Engineering’s Science Ambassadors has just written himself into the history books. Amateur astronomer Dave McDonald has discovered an asteroid, using a telescope in his back garden in Celbridge, Co Kildare.
It’s the first asteroid discovered from Ireland for 160 years. The last one was named Metis and was spotted by Andrew Graham at Markree Castle, Co Sligo, in 1848 (it is about 366 kilometres in diameter, making it one of the larger asteroids).
“I’ve been doing asteroid work for a good few years but I can’t think of anything better than discovering one, particularly as an amateur,” Dave told reporters.
“That’s probably the key thing – an amateur discovery – as the professionals do this regularly in the US in government-funded observatories.”
Confirmation
“What is interesting about this discovery is how this particular type of backyard astronomy has become so accessible,” says Leo Enright, science journalist and Chairman of Discover Science & Engineering.
To put Dave’s feat in some context, the object is about 400,000 times fainter than the faintest stars usually visible to the unaided eye. And he made his discovery in Ireland – not exactly famous for its dark skies or good weather.
He discovered the asteroid, which is several kilometres in diameter and part of an asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, on Tuesday 10 October. But he needed to observe it with colleagues a second night.
They had to do various scientific checks, to see for example if it was a satellite, or a piece of space junk or a defect in Dave’s camera. But after all the tests they confirmed that it was, indeed, an asteroid.
The name
The asteroid has been temporarily named the “2008 TM9″, though it may soon be called “Fiona”, after his wife.
“It’s a fairly convoluted process but, as far as I know, I do get to name it,” Dave says.
“They are quite particular – you can’t name it after your dog or cat, for example. I was thinking maybe an Irish goddess but there are rules about that as well, as they usually only like larger objects to be called after gods and goddesses.
“But if they let me and after all the stuff she’s put up with, I would probably go for my wife’s name, Fiona. This discovery is hopefully the first of many new finds from Ireland.”
Science passion
Dave already has an asteroid named after himself: asteroid “Davemcdonald”. In recognition of his work promoting amateur astronomy throughout Ireland, a colleague put his name forward to the International Astronomical Union, which named asteroid number 21782 after him.
Dave is a health and safety consultant by day and an amateur astronomer by night. He talks about his main career decisions, his passion for science and astronomy in the Science Ambassadors section of MyScienceCareer.ie.
Learn more
Read Dave McDonald’s Science Ambassadors profile on My Science Career
See how the news broke in one astronomy forum
