A Cebuano of Chinese descent, he got married early and got more practical putting up a furniture manufacturing and exporting business, one of the city's sunshine industries. But he didn't give up on his astronomical studies. His discovery of a red spot in Jupiter otherwise known as Red Spot Jr. made him a household name in American and European Astronomical circles. Here in an interview with Europlanet Christopher Go talks about his life as an amateur astronomer, furniture exporter, family man and physics teacher:
Leading amateur astronomer, Christopher Go, talked to Europlanet's Anita Heward about using the Hubble Space Telescope, discovering impacts on Jupiter and starting a whole new field of astronomy.
AH: How long have you been doing amateur astronomy?
CG: I got interested in November 1986, during the last apparition of Halley’s Comet. I was still in high school then, and I was just using a pair of binoculars. I was also fortunate to get a copy of the August 1996 issue of Astronomy Magazine. The rest I learned from books from our school library.
AH: Was anyone in your family interested in astronomy?
CG: No. There were hardly any amateur astronomers in my city. During 1986, there was no Internet, so it wasn’t easy to communicate with other people. I had to work things out by myself. What really helped a lot were the magazines particularly Astronomy and Sky & Telescope. These periodicals give me connections with other amateur astronomers and what they are doing.
I started planetary imaging in 2003. That was during the great Mars opposition. I started imaging Jupiter and Saturn in 2004. In 2006 I discovered that Oval BA had turned red. This spot was later nicknamed the Red Spot Junior. Because of this, I was invited by Imke de Pater, of UC Berkeley, to join her team in doing Jupiter research and we’ve used the Hubble Space Telescope and the Keck Observatory. It was also during that time period that I got to know and collaborate with Glenn Orton of JPL, Amy Simon Miller of NASA GSFC, Agustin Sanchez-Lavega of IOPW and other planetary astronomers. It’s been an exciting for an amateur astronomer to link up with the professionals.
Last year in 2009, there was a quad-transit of Saturn where four moons crossed the face of Saturn. I teamed up with the Hubble Heritage Team and Mike Wong to image this event using the Hubble Space Telescope.
AH: Talk me through the last year.
CG: Early morning of June 3 (June 4 local time) last year, Australian amateur astronomer Anthony Wesley sent an e-mail that he had detected an impact in Jupiter. As I went through my own data which I got earlier that morning, I found that I too had imaged the impact. It was just great timing that we were imaging at exactly the same time.
This would turn out to be the first time an extraterrestrial fireball was observed here on earth. One thing interesting is that this probably is one of the few times that amateur astronomers have created a new field in astronomy – which is ‘small impacts on other planets’. So right now we amateurs are basically trying to build a network constantly monitoring the planets to see if there are more impacts. This is quite important because we don’t have any statistics on many small objects orbiting the Solar System.
AH: That must have been exciting.
CG: Yes indeed. We are now able to collaborate with professionals in using the Hubble Space Telescope and other earth based observatories like Keck, Gemini, IRTF and VLT. In my case, our group (with Dr Imke de Pater) have used the Hubble Space Telescope every year since 2006 with a total of probably around 40 orbits.
AH: That must put you ahead of a lot of professional astronomers in terms of the amount of time you’ve had on Hubble.
CG: The collaboration between amateur and professional astronomers is really very strong in Planetary Science. In our study of the outer planets, we already have an excellent system where observations by amateurs are accessible to professionals.
Unfortunately, the use of the Hubble Space Telescope and the large observatories around the world are not infinite. Professionals need to fight to get time in using these instruments. And observing planets isn’t really top priority. This is where hundreds of amateurs around the world imaging on a nightly basis can provide data. The resolution of amateur images is already approaching that of professional imaging.
There is a structure wherein professionals and amateurs collaborate and, if there’s a new phenomenon, our reaction time is very fast. For example during the impact, we were able to get Hubble in two days. It was something unbelievable, because the whole process on how to use Hubble can take weeks.
AH: In the Philippines, is there a thriving astronomy community?
CG: There are two major astronomical societies in the Philippines but these are based in Manila. Right now we are starting one here in Cebu, called the Cebu Amateur Astronomers Association.
I am fortunate to have a fellow planetary imager here in Cebu. Tomio Akutsu is a renowned Japanese planetary imager who now works here. He also co-discovered a third red spot in Jupiter in 2008.
One thing nice about Cebu island is that we are very close to the equator where the planets are very high up and we have very stable atmosphere because of its proximity to the sea. We get very high resolution up to 0.2 arcseconds per pixel. Tropical islands are ideal places to do planetary imaging.
AH: What do you do in your day job?
CG: I run a furniture factory. I sell tables, chairs and accessories to the USA and Europe.
But my background is physics. I’m a lecturer in our university part-time. When I started the furniture business, I used to teach about three units per semester. But once I got busy, I had to stop. But right now I still do some lectures for the Physics Department of the University of San Carlos.
AH: You make time to come to conferences?
CG: I try to make time. This is the first time I’ve been to Europlanet, but normally I frequent the DPS meeting. This is where our group present our work , our group with Imke de Pater , and it’s also the time where we can meet. Conferences are also good time to get to know other planetary astronomers and meet those that I collaborate with. It’s good timing because the week after the DPS is a furniture show in North Carolina, so it hits two birds with one stone. These are usually scheduled during the same time period, so it’s cost convenient.
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