Jonathan Nally
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Articles by Jonathan Nally
Another wishy-washy government space statement
Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/immimagery By Jonathan Nally For anyone who has been observing the Australian space sector for a while, it seems to me that it’s a little hard to avoid becoming a bit of a cynic… at least, when it comes to government sincerity about supporting and boosting the sector. The federal government’s latest ‘Statement on Space’ just reinforces that cynicism, in my opinion.
Interview, Part 2: Pascal Perez, Director, AURIN
By Jonathan Nally In Part 1 of our interview with Pascal Perez, Director of the Australian Urban Research Infrastructure Network (AURIN), we learned about the organisation’s origin, the kind of research it supports and the growing influence of AI. In this second and final part of the interview, we learn more about who has access to AURIN’s services, which kinds of high-value datasets are available, where urban digital twins are going, and the importance of collaborating with the private sector.
Interview: Melissa Harris, CEO, Geoscience Australia
Melissa Harris, CEO of Geoscience Australia By Jonathan Nally Exactly one year ago today, Melissa Harris became the CEO of Geoscience Australia (GA), the nation’s peak government agency for geoscientific research and services. We felt that this occasion called for a celebratory interview! Harris began her career almost 35 years ago as a town planner, working her way up in the land management, planning and spatial fields within government.
Best of 2025: The need for a Resilient PNT CRC
The geospatial/PNT experts involved in the kick-off meeting for the SHIELD PNT CRC proposal: Safoora Zaminpardaz (RMIT), Amir Khodabandeh (UMelb), Suelynn Choy (RMIT), Ryan Keenan (Positioning Insights), Jeff Kasparian (KasComm), Graeme Kernich (FrontierSI), Allison Kealy (Swinburne), Andrew Dempster (UNSW) and Eldar Rubinov (FrontierSI).
Best of 2025: Victoria’s modern cadastral vision
©stock.adobe.com/au/south west images First published on 24 March 2025 By Jonathan Nally What should Victoria’s cadastral system look like in ten years’ time? To answer this question, Land Use Victoria (LUV) launched a 10-year strategy for advancing Victoria’s cadastral system in March 2024.
NT passes legislation to boost political integrity
The Northern Territory Government has passed legislation which, it says, will modernise and improve the Northern Territory’s political integrity framework. The move follows the release of a report from the NT Auditor-General, who investigated social media posts made by members of parliament. The key change is that oversight of the Public Information Act regarding public information referrals will henceforth rest with the Ombudsman rather than the Auditor-General.
NSW to fund 549 more kerbside EV chargers
The NSW Government will contribute $2.8 million in grants to roll out new pole-mounted and pedestal electric vehicle chargers across suburban areas in Sydney, Newcastle and the Wollongong region. A further $2.2 million will be contributed by the five organisations chosen to supply the units — Charge Post, Connected Kerb, EVX, Plus ES and EF Asset Management.
WA mulls changing some public holiday dates
The Western Australian Government is seeking to harmonise the dates on which the state’s public holidays are observed, with those of other states and territories. It has opened a four week-long consultation period and is asking for feedback from the public, businesses and peak associations. “Western Australia is the engine room of the national economy, and I want to keep it that way,” said the Premier, Roger Cook.
Elevating geospatial to the next level
By Jonathan Nally The biggest geospatial conference to be held in Australia in more than a decade is now just days away, as approximately 1,500 people from around the nation and across the globe prepare to descend upon Brisbane for the combined FIG Working Week 2025 / Locate25 event. Locate is well known to Australasian audiences as the annual conference for the geospatial community, but the FIG Working Week might not be as familiar.
Victoria’s vision for a modern cadastral system
By Jonathan Nally What should Victoria’s cadastral system look like in ten years’ time? To answer this question, Land Use Victoria (LUV) launched a 10-year strategy for advancing Victoria’s cadastral system in March 2024. Co-developed with key stakeholders, the strategy outlines a vision and approach for delivering a future-ready land administration system to meet the needs of Government, industry and the wider community for generations to come.
Terria targets the digital twin universe
By Jonathan Nally Terria, the latest tech company to be spun out of the CSIRO, is aiming to grab its share of the expected $50 billion growth in the geospatial market over the next few years. The company was established last year following a funding round led Main Sequence Ventures, a venture capital investor with $1 billion under management and which itself was spun out of the CSIRO in 2017.
Gathering the global geospatial community
By Jonathan Nally The eyes of the geospatial world will be on Brisbane in April this year, as thousands of local and international professionals take part in the combined Locate25 and International Federation of Surveyors (FIG) Working Week 2025 conference and exhibition. While the Geospatial Council of Australia’s Locate conference is well known to those in the Australasian region, FIG and its annual event perhaps are a little less familiar.
Australia’s need for a Resilient PNT CRC
By Jonathan Nally Positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) vulnerabilities have been the most critical challenge facing many geospatial professionals for some time now. With our modern world daily becoming more reliant on PNT for the provision of essential services, the need for ensured, reliable and resilient PNT is growing ever stronger.
Microcredentials help fill the skills gap
By Jonathan Nally In June last year, the federal government announced $18.5 million in funding to support the design and delivery of up to 28 microcredential courses from 18 universities across the country, to help fill the skills gap in crucial industry sectors. A group of successful courses were selected from more than 90 submitted in the first round of the Microcredentials Pilot in Higher Education program.
Tour the Southern Constellation Pavo, the Peacock
The constellation of the Peacock is home to some splendid stellar and deep sky sights. Pavo, the Peacock, is one of four constellations known collectively as the Southern Birds, the others being Grus (the Crane), Phoenix (the Phoenix), and Tucana (the Toucan). Like many constellations, Pavo goes a long way back, to 1598 in fact, when it was included on a celestial globe produced by Dutch-Flemish cartographers Petrus Plancius and Jodocus Hondius.
Visit Ara, the Celestial Altar
This far-southern constellation contains some delightful sights for small telescopes. Just below the tail of mighty Scorpius and solidly wedged between Telescopium and Norma lies the constellation Ara, the Altar. Spanning from declination –45° to –67°, it’s an easy target for Southern Hemisphere observers but not quite so straightforward for those north of the equator — you have to be at fairly low northern latitudes to see its whole extent.
Maritime mystery solved after more than 50 years
By Jonathan Nally Six hours. That’s all the time that members of CSIRO’s Geophysical Survey and Mapping (GSM) team aboard the research vessel RV Investigator had available to attempt to map the location of one of Australia’s worst post-WWII maritime disasters.
Could PNT have its own ‘CrowdStrike’ moment?
By Jonathan Nally Last week’s global IT outage caused by a routine but errant software update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, has had people questioning the vulnerablility of ICT systems. One specific technological system that remains a growing source of concern is the global positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) system, which is almost entirely reliant on space-based global navigation satellite systems (GNSS).
Explore Norma: The right (angle) constellation for July
Welcome to NewsBreak, an open platform where diverse perspectives converge. Most of our content comes from established publications and journalists, as well as from our extensive network of tens of thousands of creators who contribute to our platform. We empower individuals to share insightful viewpoints through short posts and comments.
Explore Norma: The right (angle) constellation for July
Little-known Norma, a small constellation in the southern sky, contains several stellar and deep-sky delights. Our target constellation this month is Norma, which extends from declination –42° to –61° and spans about an hour of right ascension — one of the smallest of the 88 constellations. Yet, positioned as it is on the Milky Way, it holds several starry sights. Norma is one of 14 constellations created by French astronomer Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille in the mid-1750s.
Spatial WA: The plan to digitise an entire state
By on 1 July, 2024 By Jonathan Nally The Government of Western Australia made headlines a couple of months ago when it announced the establishment of the $140 million Spatial WA program and its aim to deliver for Western Australia an Advanced Spatial Digital Twin (ASDT). The ASDT will be a spatially accurate 4D virtual representation of the built and natural environment. Think about that. That’s the entire western third of Australia turned into a spatial digital twin.
Interview: Mell Greenall, CEO of BYDA
By Jonathan Nally Generations of Australians have known of an organisation called Dial Before You Dig, a group of six state-based not-for-profit organisations that enabled anyone from homeowners to infrastructure companies to phone up and find out what was underground before lifting a shovel or firing up a backhoe.
Centaurus Constellation: Glimpse the Greatest Globular
The Centaurus constellation holds some of the best southern targets, including the Omega Centauri globular cluster and the Centaurus A galaxy. In last month’s article we looked at some of the many star clusters in Centaurus. This month, while the giant southern constellation is still high in the sky, we’ll search out some more of its marvels, including two of the celestial sphere’s masterpieces — the globular star cluster Omega Centauri and the galaxy Centaurus A (NGC 5128).
Explore the Star Clusters of Centaurus
Welcome to NewsBreak, an open platform where diverse perspectives converge. Most of our content comes from established publications and journalists, as well as from our extensive network of tens of thousands of creators who contribute to our platform. We empower individuals to share insightful viewpoints through short posts and comments.
Explore the Star Clusters of Centaurus
The large constellation Centaurus abounds in deep-sky delights, including many fine open star clusters. This month, let’s take a look at a few of the many sights of Centaurus, the ninth-largest constellation by area (1,060 square degrees). Located deep in the south, Centaurus represents the centaur Chiron of classical Greek mythology, a creature with the body and legs of a horse and the upper half of a man. Centaurus is often portrayed on star maps as wielding a spear upon which a wolf is impaled.
Interview: Chris Rizos on the role of geodesy
By Jonathan Nally Chris Rizos is an Emeritus Professor at the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of NSW. His research interests are geodesy, surveying and navigation, and he’s currently serving as President of the International Union of Geodesy & Geophysics (IUGG) for the term 2023 to 2027.
Sail into the Southern Skies with Vela
The large constellation Vela contains many hidden treasures. There once was a mighty constellation deep in the south called Argo Navis, named after Jason’s ship in Greek mythology. In the mid-18th century it was split into several smaller constellations: Vela (the Sails), Puppis (the Stern) and Carina (the Keel). All three ride high on April evenings, but in this column we’ll focus on Vela. The splitting of Argo Navis resulted in a few oddities.
The Stars of the Carina Constellation
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The Stars of the Carina Constellation
Get to know the stars of Carina — and learn how to spot the False Cross instead of being fooled by it. Continuing our tour of southern sky, we pick up where we ended last month in Carina and spend a bit more time there. We’ve already had a look at some of its best nebulae and clusters, but now let’s get to know some of the constellation’s stars. Carina has three of the 50 brightest stars in the sky — Canopus (α Car), Miaplacidus (β Car) and Avior (ε Car).
Geospatial in the age of the metaverse
By Jonathan Nally It’s a buzzword that has been around for quite a few years, but for many people the ‘metaverse’ is still either a complete unknown or is something that applies only to gaming and entertainment. Yet whether we like it or not, and whether we understand it or not, the metaverse appears to be a concept that is here to stay and is growing in leaps and bounds. So what is the metaverse and what will it do? It sort of depends on who you ask.
Get to Know the Carina Constellation
The southern constellation Carina contains arguably the best nebula in the sky, along with a host of other fascinating stars and clusters. High in the south at this time of year is one of the brightest stellar beacons in the whole sky — Canopus, or Alpha (α) Carinae. Impossible to see from most of North America due to its far southerly declination (−52° 42′), the brightest star of the constellation Carina, the Keel, is nonetheless a friendly sight for south-of-the-equator stargazers.
Clouds, Large and Small, of the Southern Sky
Jonathan Nally sets out to explore the Southern Hemisphere sky, starting with two uniquely southern sights: the Small and Large Magellanic Clouds. Welcome to Sky & Telescope’s new Southern Hemisphere stargazing column, in which month by month I’ll introduce you to some of the wonders to be found south of the celestial equator. I’ll be focusing mostly on sights that can be seen just with the naked eye — stars, constellations and the brighter (and sometimes darker!) deep sky objects.
Southern Stargazing with Jonathan Nally Archives
Southern Stargazing with Jonathan Nally Month by month, I’ll introduce you to some of the wonders to be found south of the celestial equator. I’ll be focusing mostly on sights that can be seen with the naked eye — stars, constellations, and the brighter (and sometimes darker!) deep sky objects. If you haven’t yet experienced the southern skies but hope to one day, let this column be your inspiration and guide.
$2 million for 13 projects to reduce waste
Thirteen council projects across Victoria have been selected to share in $2 million in state government funding in an effort to reduce waste and boost recycling. The money comes from the third round of the Circular Economy Councils Fund, with the projects aiming to divert more than 22,000 tonnes of waste from landfill and repurpose more than 27,000 tonnes of recyclable goods and material.
Women a slim majority on Qld govt business boards
Women now make up 52% of the members of the boards of a wide range of Queensland Government-owned businesses. The milestone follows the appointment of 56 new and reappointed directors across a diverse range of boards, covering service deliveries such as energy and water supply, passenger and freight rail, trade via key ports and management of invested funds.
South Australia tops planning system rankings
South Australia’s property planning system has come out on top in the Business Council of Australia’s (BCA) new ranking of regulation across the states and territories. The Regulation Rumble report presents a scorecard of regulation and red tape. According to the BCA, “Businesses face duplication and inconsistency across the Federation.
Councils collaborate to help deliver new city
Three Melbourne councils — Hume City Council, the City of Whittlesea and Mitchell Shire Council — have signed a Regional Partnership agreement that will see them collaborate on the planning and delivery of a proposed new city, Cloverton, in Melbourne’s north. Cloverton’s catchment area will be the major employment and service centre for the growing suburbs of Mickleham, Kalkallo, Donnybrook, Beveridge and Wallan, with an estimated 380,000 residents and 50,000 jobs once complete.
Peter Costello to leave Future Fund
Chair of the Future Fund and former federal treasurer, Peter Costello, has advised the federal government that he will not be seeking a third term as the Fund’s Chair. Costello told the government of his decision a fortnight ago. “We thank Mr Costello for his significant contribution as a board member and then Chair over the past 14 years. He leaves with the Government’s appreciation and respect,” said federal treasurer, Jim Chalmers.
Saturn's Secrets, Milky Way's Curves, and Orbit Milestones: SpaceTime S26E120
This episode of SpaceTime is brought to you with the support of NordVPN...when it comes to online security, you're in good hands. To check out our special offer, please visit www.nordvpn.com/stuartgary or use the checkout code DTUARTGARY SpaceTime Series 26 Episode 120 Show Notes: 1. **Saturn's Rings and Icy Moons Origins Unveiled**: Recent supercomputer simulations have unveiled new insights into the origins of Saturn's rings and icy moons.
Geospatial professionals recognised in Honours List
By Jonathan Nally Members of Australia’s geospatial community have received some of the nation’s highest accolades in the 2023 King’s Birthday Honours list. Melissa Harris (Chief Executive of Land Use Victoria, Victorian Registrar of Titles and Chair of ANZLIC) has been awarded the Public Service Medal in recognition of outstanding public service to state and local government, and for transformation in the areas of geospatial, planning and land administration in Victoria.
Drone mapping, GIS and BIM microcredentials pilot
By Jonathan Nally The federal government has announced $18.5 million in funding to support the design and delivery of up to 28 microcredential courses from 18 universities across the country, to help fill the skills gap in crucial industry sectors. The successful courses were selected from more than 90 submitted in the first round of the Microcredentials Pilot in Higher Education program.
Here’s what’s in our July 2023 issue
As of the current issue, July 2023, Australian Sky & Telescope will be published only as a digital edition and the paper edition will no longer be printed. Why the change? The rise of digital subscriptions — particularly during the COVID lockdown period, when a lot of newsagencies were closed — and a consequent drop in sales of the printed edition, means the time has come to go fully digital.
New Zealand launches new National Space Policy
By Jonathan Nally The New Zealand Government has launched a new National Space Policy, as the country looks to capitalise on its strengths and opportunities in the global space sector. A 2019 report from Deloitte showed that the New Zealand space sector contributed NZ$1.69 billion to the nation’s economy and supported 12,000 jobs in 2018–19. “Our space sector is growing rapidly.
The critical nature of Australia’s PNT sector
By Jonathan Nally The federal government has updated the list of critical technologies that it says are vital for securing Australia’s future prosperity and security. The List of Critical Technologies covers seven fields of technology, included amongst which are satellite, positioning and timing technologies. Other technologies covered include AI, quantum, autonomous systems, clean energy and advanced manufacturing.
Space and spatial combine at Locate23
By jnally on 30 May, 2023 The convergence of the space and spatial sectors was on full display at the Locate conference in Adelaide. By Jonathan Nally The Locate23 conference was held at the Adelaide Convention Centre in early May, and it was a great success, attracting approximately 750 delegates from across Australia and from around the world. This was my second opportunity to attend a Locate conference, and I was not disappointed.
Q&A: Craig Sandy, Surveyor-General of Victoria
It’s going to be a busy year for the Surveyor-General of Victoria and his expert team. By Jonathan Nally Craig Sandy LS GAICD is the Surveyor-General of Victoria and the primary government authority on surveying and the cadastre; his role includes being the Chair of the Surveyors Registration Board of Victoria (SRBV). He is also the chair of the Intergovernmental Committee on Surveying Mapping (ICSM). What is the focus for Surveyor-General Victoria in 2023?
Watch this amazing video of last week’s eclipse
Seasoned eclipse chaser Joerg Schoppmeyer took the photo above and the video below of the April 20 solar eclipse, visible from Western Australia. For the video, Joerg used a Baader Travel Companion Telescope (560mm focal length) and a Canon EOS250D camera in 4K mode, taking exposures at 1/1000s (ISO 100). Joerg has seen more than 60 solar eclipses from more than 30 countries.
A ‘hybrid’ solar eclipse is about to be visible in Australia
ABOVE: Solar eclipse photo courtesy NASA/Carla Thomas By Tanya Hill On Thursday 20 April, the Ningaloo region of Western Australia will experience a total solar eclipse. Eclipse chasers from around the world are converging on the town of Exmouth in hopes of experiencing the profound awe of standing in the Moon’s shadow as it quickly races by.
Astro activities for Australasian amateur astronomers
ABOVE: One of the winning images in last year’s David Malin Awards: The Blue Horsehead Nebula, by Jarrod Koh. The 2023 Central West Astronomical Society (CWAS) AstroFest will be held over the weekend of July 22–23, comprising a one-day conference and a program of associated activities.
Locate23: From lands to seas to stars
Spatial and space industry delegates will gather in Adelaide in May for Australia’s leading geospatial event. By Jonathan Nally The Australian geospatial industry’s most important annual event, Locate, is on once again, this time in Adelaide from 10-12 May 2023 and with a distinctly spacey feel.
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