Mr McNaught's record working in the Uppsala Schmidt Telescope at Siding Spring Observatory, near Coonabarabran, NSW, is formidable. Hollywood knew how to end the Earth in Deep Impact. Since 1987, he has discovered 70 comets, more than twice as many as any other astronomer in history. According to Mr McNaught, the Siding Spring Survey - the only project observing near Earth objects in the southern hemisphere - ''gets a chance to see objects that the northern hemisphere surveys can't research''. Since 2004, the survey has discovered 412 near Earth objects, including 80 classified as a potential hazard because they have a diameter of between 100 and 150 metres and an orbit that comes within 7.5 million kilometres of the Earth's orbit. A fellow astronomer and colleague at Siding Spring, Peter Poulos, describes his friend as ''the guardian of all of us, in many ways''. ''He doesn't wear a uniform or a cape, but in the end he's the hero in the movie. He's the scientist that will discover the bad thing heading our way, and let us know.''

Mr McNaught has been extraordinarily successful, according to the head of ANU's School of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Professor Harvey Butcher. Astronomer Rob McNaught. ''We think he's just wonderful … one of the best in the world. This is work that very much needs to be done,'' Professor Butcher said. But he believes without a new, more powerful telescope and better facilities likely to cost ''a couple of million dollars'', there is ''no clear channel of finance'' to continue the work. Mr McNaught said he had appealed to the Minister for Science and Research, Chris Evans, and the Minister for Industry and Innovation, Greg Combet. ''There is no reason why NASA should fund every space program in the world,'' he said. Rob McNaught's Telescope near Coonabarabran.

A spokesman from Mr Combet's office said the government had been approached for funding and would consider the matter. While asteroids that collide with Earth and cause serious damage or loss of life occur once every few centuries, it is possible to accurately predict where they will land or alter the object's orbit to avoid a collision, according to Mr McNaught. In 2008 the survey's parent program, the Catalina Sky Survey, which is run by the University of Arizona and indirectly funded by NASA, located a three-metre wide asteroid hurtling towards Earth. Within 24 hours the team had predicted, to within a kilometre, the point the object would reach Earth's atmosphere, over Sudan. Since 2004, the survey has discovered 412 near Earth objects, including 80 classified as a potential hazard because they have a diameter of between 100 and 150 metres and an orbit that comes within 7.5 million kilometres of the Earth's orbit.