Fraser Gunn supplied The Church of the Good Shepherd at Tekapo is seen with the Milky Way as a backdrop. The clear skies of the are protected from light pollution. Photo: Fraser Gunn

Mt John Observatory celebrates 50 successful but sometimes turbulent years this week. It now needs investment to focus on a bright future, writes Dr John Hearnshaw.

This year, one of New Zealand's best known scientific institutions is a half century old. Mt John University Observatory was founded as an astronomical research observatory at Lake Tekapo in 1965, but today faces an uncertain future as retiring staff are not replaced, funding dries up and other nations race ahead.

This is unfortunate because Mt John has a bright past. Mt John was chosen by Frank Bateson, the first astronomer-in-charge, after an extensive survey for the best site on behalf of the universities of Canterbury and Pennsylvania, the two founding partner institutions.

Fraser Gunn supplied Mt John observatory in Tekapo The 1-m McLellan telescope building and dome, looking south over the Mackenzie Basin. The Mt John facility needs investment. Photo: Fraser Gunn

Its clear dark skies, ease of access and community support were all factors that led to the decision. Pennsylvania's involvement waned after about 10 years, but Canterbury's involvement strengthened as it became a wholly New Zealand-run institution. New telescopes were installed, and in the 1980s Canterbury's Department of Physics and Astronomy designed and built the 1 metre McLellan telescope, the largest in the country. It has been a workhorse for Mt John for more than 25 years.

Another milestone was the design and construction of a large spectrograph used for observing the spectra of stars at high resolution. The instrument is known as Hercules, and was one of the most powerful instruments of its type when it went into operation in 2001. Hercules is used for measuring the chemical composition of stars, their velocities and oscillations, and for searching for planets orbiting other stars.

In 2004 a new 1.8m MOA telescope was installed in collaboration with Nagoya University in Japan. This instrument is dedicated to a project to find planets orbiting other stars using a technique called microlensing, and has been highly successful in this goal.

Also in 2004 an agreement between the University of Canterbury and Earth & Sky Ltd has led to a flourishing astro-tourism industry at Mt John. In its first decade of operation, well over a million visitors set foot on Mt John, to admire the stunning landscape scenery, to dine in the cafe on Mt John or to go on a guided night tour of the observatory. The result is that Mt John is now by far the university's best known and most visited research facility.

As a result of flourishing astro-tourism, the Aoraki Mackenzie International Dark Sky Reserve was established in 2012, with the mission to protect the night sky from light pollution for the benefit of astronomers and stargazers. The reserve is recognised by the International Dark Sky Association, which accorded it gold status, the first such reserve with this accreditation in the world.

Mt John has been an outstandingly successful research institution. In total 175 graduate students have prepared their theses using data from Mt John; 82 of these have been Canterbury students, and the rest have come from other New Zealand universities, or universities overseas. Over 1000 papers have been published in refereed scientific literature using Mt John data.

In spite of this success, the history of the observatory has often been turbulent. It was rocked by personality battles, funding short-falls, a student demonstration (against an American satellite-tracking station established for 15 years on university land) and a destructive fire. It is perhaps surprising that the observatory has survived all these hurdles. That's really a tribute to its scientific staff and students, whose work has become known and respected around the world.

The story of Mt John has just been published in a new book Mt John – the first 50 years; a celebration of half a century of optical astronomy at the University of Canterbury, authored John Hearnshaw and Alan Gilmore, who between them have spent over seven decades of their careers working at Mt John. The book is published by Canterbury University Press, and is illustrated with nearly 200 photographs, many of them by Tekapo photographer, Fraser Gunn, who has worked as an observer at Mt John in recent years.

With a successful half century of research now in the past and more than a decade of flourishing astro-tourism at Mt John, one should imagine that the observatory should continue to have a bright future. That is not necessarily the case. Owing to recent retirements of academic and technical staff, the observatory is no longer performing to its full capacity. Understandably the Canterbury earthquakes put the university under financial stress, so staff replacements are on hold.

Nevertheless, there are some amazing opportunities now waiting to be grasped, using the good publicity coming from Mt John, for the university to grow its base in science and attract more international students ̶ the lifeblood for a modern university.

New staff members would lead to a much-needed reinvigoration of the research being undertaken at Mt John and help Canterbury retain its predominant position in astronomy among New Zealand universities. In addition, there are opportunities for the university to work more closely with Earth & Sky in public outreach, so that the successful development of astro-tourism also tangibly benefits the university.

A new astronomy centre on the Tekapo lakeshore, planned for the next few years, should provide some great opportunities for Earth & Sky and the university to support each other.

Mt John has relied on developing innovative state-of-the-art instrumentation to make an impact on the world scene. Part of the rebuilding of Mt John in the next few years should focus on developing new instruments, to enhance Mt John's reputation for innovation in the design and construction of astronomical instruments that will unlock exciting new discoveries about stars and planets.

Mt John has operated in the past as a de facto national observatory, as astronomers frequently came from other New Zealand universities as well as from overseas to take advantage of the observatory's facilities and unique location. The present funding model of an observatory operating as if it were a national facility, but being owned by a university and run from a university department, is probably no longer a viable or sustainable model.

In 2004, the Ministry of Research, Science and Technology (as it then was) commissioned well-known Australian astronomer Professor Michael Bessell, from the Australian National University, to write a report on NZ's national observatory needs. Bessell toured the country, talking to all stakeholders. His 2005 report recommended that Mt John be incorporated into a national facility based at the University of Canterbury and funded to operate as a national observatory to benefit astronomers in all our universities. What he called a "modest level of government funding", about $1m annually, was recommended to support this national facility.

Sadly this recommendation of the Bessell report was never implemented, the report was ignored by the government of the day, and Mt John has suffered as a result. Now with an improving economy, it would be a good moment to relook at the Bessell report. That may be the only way to ensure the scientific renaissance of the observatory's fortunes.

Now, with Mt John in its 50th year, the Department of Physics and Astronomy is organising the Mt John 50th Anniversary Symposium at Tekapo to celebrate half a century of successful research in observational astronomy. Many past graduate students, who are now based at astronomical institutions around the world, will be returning to Tekapo to mark this event in early May. See mjuo50.org.nz.

Professor Bessell from Canberra will also be coming, and will give a talk on his report of a decade ago. This will be a key moment in Mt John's often tortuous history of underfunding and struggling to survive in an adverse financial climate.

In the OECD, a club of the world's rich nations, there are 34 developed countries. Of these 34, only New Zealand, Iceland and Slovenia have no government-funded national facilities for optical astronomy. The argument for supporting astronomy at government level is that astronomy, of all sciences, brings students into science. Young people love astronomy, and they are inspired by it.

Even if they don't continue in astronomy, they will enter the workforce as scientists or engineers having been enriched by taking astronomy, either as undergraduates or graduate students, or by having done research projects in astronomy.

Moreover, there is worldwide a flourishing billion-dollar astronomical instrument fabrication industry, and New Zealand has a small part of that work at KiwiStar Optics, a unit of Callaghan Innovation in Lower Hutt. A collaboration involving KiwiStar and the University of Canterbury has resulted in a thriving multi-million dollar industry making high-tech instruments for observatories overseas.

These are enough reasons for New Zealand to support optical astronomy, like almost every other developed country. Even many developing countries have flourishing national observatories. Thailand established a National Astronomical Research Institute just five years ago, and which now employs about 100 staff. Why? Because astronomy is good for attracting students to science, and they go on into high-tech jobs in computing, electronics, optics, software, image processing and data analysis.

New Zealand should follow the lead of other countries, and support astronomy and establish Mt John as part of a national observatory facility, still based at the University of Canterbury, but funded jointly by universities and government for the benefit of all NZ universities.

* John Hearnshaw is a Professor Emeritus, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Canterbury.