Robert H. McNaught

McNaught is a prolific discoverer of asteroids and comets, described as "the world's greatest comet discoverer"[3] and he participated in the Siding Spring Survey (SSS) using the ANU's Uppsala Southern Schmidt Telescope.[4] He discovered the Great Comet C/2006 P1 on 7 August 2006, the brightest comet in several decades, which became easily visible to the naked eye for observers in the Southern Hemisphere.[5] The SSS was the only active professional Near Earth Object survey in the Southern Hemisphere. The survey ended in 2013 after funding dried up.[6]

McNaught previously worked on the Anglo-Australian Near-Earth Asteroid Survey from 1990 to 1996.[7]

McNaught worked at the University of Aston's satellite-tracking camera originally outside Evesham in 1982, thereafter at Herstmonceux and more recently at Siding Spring. In his spare time he successfully conducts patrols for novae, identifies images of prenovae and unusual variable stars on survey plates, measures their positions, makes astrometric observations of comets and minor planets and photometric observations of comets and novae. He also carries out extensive observational and computational work on meteors, as well as on occultations by minor planets.

In October 2011, partly due to changes in the exchange rate between the Australian and US dollars, Catalina Sky Survey of NASA had to end funding McNaught's southern survey,[8] which used to cost $110,000 per year,[9] ending the international cooperation in July 2012. The astronomer estimated that the survey needs $180,000 annually, plus a small one-time sum to fix the observatory dome.[8] For several months the project was temporarily funded from the ANU, but in late 2012, the ANU advised that it could no longer support the program and that funds would not be available from January 2013.[10]

• List of minor planet discoverers § R. H. McNaught

• Siding Spring Survey