Jake Clark, researcher at Toowoomba's University of Southern Qld, has kindly written an article for us, explaining some of the very exciting research happening right here in Toowoomba. This includes assisting NASA with exoplanet discoveries:

"We here at USQ's Centre for Astrophysics have had a busy few months, culminating in the official opening of the Mount Kent Observatory's Expansion a few weeks ago, attended by the Federal Minister for Industry, Science and Technology, Hon Karen Andrews MP.

But what's in the expansion?
Well, there are several exciting projects either under way or currently being commissioned up at the Mount Kent Observatory (approximately a thirty-minute drive SW of Toowoomba) worth celebrating. There are a few I can't name right now, but trust me when I say this, they are going to be AMAZING! The two larger projects I can talk about right now however are Minerva-Australis and SONG.

Minerva-Australis is a multi-telescope, semi-autonomous array that's assisting NASA's TESS mission, confirming exoplanets orbiting around nearby bright stars. The five CDK-700s can either work in unison, or observe independent targets, watching for a periodic shift in a star's stellar spectrum that would indicate an exoplanet in-orbit around it. One of the five telescopes is capable of simultaneous photometry, helping us characterise these newly discovered worlds like never before. This simultaneous follow-up could potentially measure an exoplanet’s Rossiter-McLaughlin effect, helping researchers like myself understand how planets form and migrate throughout their lifetimes. Minerva-Australis has only been on sky for the last four months and we have already contributed to numerous exoplanetary discoveries thus far, with a wealth of other discoveries being written up as I write this article. One discovery in particular was assisting in the discovery of a Jupiter-sized world orbiting the star HD1397, which you can read more about here: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1811.01882.pdf

The other major project that's currently underway up at Mount Kent is the Australian arm of the SONG network. Currently with the network having two nodes so far (One in Tenerife and another at the Delingha Observatory, China) this will the third of eight telescopes scattered across the world observing stellar targets 24/7! The Stellar Oscillations Network Group (SONG) measure acoustic oscillations and seismic activity in other stars to determine their internal structures and basic physical properties. Bit of an aside, it's FREAKING hard to determine even the basic properties of a star (size, mass, age etc.) but SONG will make that a breeze! If you’d like more info on SONG, their website is enriched with a lot of material about the project: http://phys.au.dk/song/

We’re currently developing a public website for Minerva-Australis, so in the meantime, make sure you follow us on your desired social media platform to keep up to date with our latest progress.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/minervaaustralis/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/minervasouth
As always, keep your eyes on the sky! 🙂"

(1st photo: USQ's Mt Kent observatory near Toowoomba. 2nd photo: one of the SONG telescopes, in Tenerif).

Here's an image by Rodger Macqueen, through his Dobsonian telescope without any motorised tracking: "Here's one I did last night at the Winter Solstice Stargazing night. Canon 600D attached to my 12" Dob - no goto, not computer controlled, not motorised. @ 1/400th sec."