Broken Hill mine worker Trevor Barry had no idea where his passion for the stars would take him when he swapped underground machinery for a homemade astronomy telescope.<\/p>\n
Decades later, the 73-year-old’s unique journey from his humble outback beginnings to collaborations with NASA and globally recognised awards has been recorded in a new book.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Trevor Barry worked in the Broken Hill mines for decades. (Supplied: Ali Smith)<\/p>\n
The book, Outback Astronomer, has been a passion project for award-winning journalists Liz Hayes and Ali Smith, who co-authored it with Mr Barry.<\/p>\n
A story that resonates<\/p>\n
Ms Hayes said she and Ms Smith first met Mr Barry when they documented his story for Channel Nine’s 60 Minutes program in 2018, which included taking him to NASA’s headquarters in California.<\/p>\n
She said they knew they wanted to take it a step further and introduce the world to an individual who did not let age and remote living stop him from achieving his dreams.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Ms Hayes and Ms Smith stayed in contact with Mr Barry and his wife, Cheryl. (Supplied: Ali Smith)<\/p>\n
“We meet a lot of people in our business and [came] away thinking and feeling that Trevor’s story really would resonate not just with us [but] around the world as well,” Ms Hayes said.<\/p>\n
“I defy anyone who meets Trevor not to feel his passion and suddenly find that you’ve found your passion.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Ms Hayes and Mr Barry share a laugh at the book’s launch in Broken Hill this week. (ABC Broken Hill: Oliver Brown)<\/p>\n
Mr Barry is no stranger to the Australian and even global astronomy community, having received the most prestigious awards an amateur can receive on the national<\/a> and international stage<\/a> for his data and imaging of gas giant Saturn.<\/p>\n Mr Barry dedicated the book to his wife Cheryl. (ABC Broken Hill: Oliver Brown)<\/p>\n But the new book, written from his own perspective with occasional asides from his “gorgeous and adorable” wife Cheryl, aims to show the man behind the pictures as well as his better half.<\/p>\n “It’s a real privilege to have both Trev and Cheryl open up and share their story \u2026 there’s something in it for everyone,” Ms Smith said.<\/p>\n “There’s plenty of dark and light, and ups and downs but overall, I hope it’s a feel-good yarn that inspires people to step out of their comfort zone.”<\/p>\n An ‘ordinary Broken Hill miner’<\/p>\n Mr Barry, who has remained an eager but humble participant, said he was very proud to launch the book at the Zinc Broken Hill Bowling Club, where he could often be found busy tending to the greens when not watching the sky.<\/p>\n “I’m still coming to terms with that it’s actually happening, honestly,” Mr Barry said.<\/p>\n “Such an ordinary person, a Broken Hill mine worker, who would have thought, everything that’s happened to get to this point, so many serendipitous things.”<\/p>\n Mr Barry’s young neighbour Audrey Peetz receives a special mention. (ABC Broken Hill: Josh Mercer)<\/p>\n Australian government astronomer-at-large Professor Fred Watson AM was not surprised to see Mr Barry’s story appeal to such a wide audience.<\/p>\n Professor Fred Watson AM (right) says he and Mr Barry share a mutual admiration. (Supplied: Ali Smith)<\/p>\n Professor Watson met Mr Barry in 1999 while heading up the Siding Spring Observatory near Coonabarabran in NSW.<\/p>\n He said the two were part of a “mutual admiration society”.<\/p>\n He said after seeing Mr Barry’s work contribute so much to the field of astronomy, particularly at an amateur level, he was honoured to be asked to write the book’s foreword.<\/p>\n “To me, in a way, [the book] is just a natural evolution of Trevor Barry’s progress in terms of his eminence in the world of astronomy,” Professor Watson said.<\/p>\n “He’s such a modest man, he’s very unassuming, you’d never know he was such a famous astronomer, but his rise I’m sure will continue.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Broken Hill mine worker Trevor Barry had no idea where his passion for the stars would take him…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":101245,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[73622,305,64,63,13362,73620,73619,9087,73623,2569,73621,128,285,73618],"class_list":["post-101244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-amateur-astronomer","tag-astronomy","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-biography","tag-interesting-story","tag-liz-hayes","tag-outback","tag-outback-astronomer","tag-planets","tag-saturn","tag-science","tag-space","tag-trevor-barry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101244\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/101245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n
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