ANU lost one of its great supporters in November when Joan Duffield died at the age of 104. Joan was a long-time supporter of science and astronomy and established two ANU endowments – the Joan Duffield Postgraduate Scholarship and the Duffield Chair in Astronomy. In 2003, after the Canberra bushfires damaged the observatory’s heliostat dome, Joan funded the precision re-engineering of the heliostat.

In the new ANU Reporter, read an edited extract of her unpublished account of her ties to astronomy, Recollections of an astronomer's daughter, in which Joan shares her stories about to life in the early days of Canberra and the beginnings of the Mount Stromlo Observatory.

"The Mount Stromlo Observatory was a young man's dream. In 1905, my father, Professor Walter Geoffrey Duffield, approached the Government with a proposal that a Commonwealth Observatory be built in Australia.

"Australia was the only country in the world lacking such an institution. The government was not interested and the matter was shelved. Undaunted, he decided to write to other observatories and scientific institutions asking for support and advice. Each supported, some offered to provide instruments and others financial assistance."