Amateur astronomers in Central
Queensland's Gemfields, Anthony
Wesley and Phil Miles, are two
of about 50 in the world doing
the work they do.
Every night, they're in their
own backyard observatories,
taking photos and tracking
changes on the planets.
I'm an amateur astronomer, and
this beast beside me here is my
pride and joy.
So, I spent a lot of time after
dark, looking up at the sky,
mostly looking at the planets
like Jupiter and Saturn.
It's got it's own name.
When they're that big, as an
amateur telescope, you're
allowed to give them a name so
I've called it the Gemeye
because we're in the Gemfields.
Anthony Wesley moved to the
small town of Rubyvale from
Canberra three years ago, for
its pleasant weather and clear
skies.
Rubyvale is on the Tropic of
Capricorn.
We have the planets directly
overhead in winter.
And the higher up the planets
are in the sky, and preferebly
straight up overhead, the
clearer the view that you get.
The former computer programmer
received high praise from
professionals for his
astrophotography last year, when
he captured a historic planetary
event through his homemade
telescope.
A change in Jupiter's
centuries-old storm, the Great
Red Spot.
It went through this phase,
which nobody ever seen before,
where it suddenly started
misbehaving, I guess is the way
you'd say it.
Instead of it being a nice
compact storm, it started
changing shape and there was
some material that came off and
came back in and it really
looked like it was unstable last
year.
So there was a period of time
when everybody was wondering
what was going to happen, is it
is it going to break up and
disperse?
Is going to shrink or get
bigger?
After a few months of watching
it, it did get smaller, by quite
a noticeable amount, and then
it's just settled down again.
But even so, this last year
through to this year, it's still
showing signs of not being, you
know, a hundred percent back to
it's old self.
So, amateur astronomers and
professional astronomers are
watching very closely to see
what it might do next.
Just this week, amateur
astronomers and professionals
across the globe noticed another
change on Jupiter.
One of the amateurs and a
professional found a new storm.
And you can see on there that
there's a bright spot which is a
new storm, which has occurred in
the northern area of Jupiter.
So we're all madly trying to
image it.
As you can see, it's showing up
there and it's quite possible
that it will get bigger and it
will move across Jupiter at
quite a speed.
There may be more behind it.
So yes, we're all very excited.
When something like that happens
on a major planet we're all
jumping around for joy.
These things don't happen very
often.
This sort of storm has happened
in 2012 and I think in 2016.
So it just shows how dynamic the
planets are.
This is a  gass planet and it
just shows you that storm is
probably the size of Australia.
So it's very significant.
This storm is brand new, and
combined with the amateurs and
professionals, we'll understand
in a week or two, we'll
understand quite a lot about
what's going on with it.
To Australian astronomers,
August is the best month of the
year to look up the sky, when
the solar system's largest
planets, Jupiter and Saturn, are
clearly on display.
It's very accessible for anyone
who's interested in the night
sky, interested in the planets,
its as easy as going outside.
You don't even need to go to a
dark sky, a dark site, you can
just do it in your backyard.
If they just go out at about
nine o'clock at night and look
up in the sky, you can't miss
them.
Jupiter and Saturn are too
bright.
They look like two bright stars.
The planets are the things that
I look at the most and they're
so rewarding because they, with
a large telescope, you can see
the atmospheres and the planets,
you can see how they changed
from one night to the next.
You can see lots of detail on
the planets and every night you
see something different.
I've done lots of exciting
things, as most people have in
their lives, and I find that
this is probably the most
exciting thing I've ever done in
my life.
Because you can sit there and be
looking at a planet and all of a
sudden something will happen.
