Ruby Payne-Scott was a pioneer in radio astronomy and an early advocate for women’s rights in the workplace. She worked at CSIRO (then known as CSIR) from 1941 to 1951. In 1946, Payne-Scott, Lindsay McCready, and Joe Pawsey used a sea-cliff former radar antenna to carry out the first “Lloyd’s mirror” radio interferometry for astronomical observations. Their observations of the sun confirmed that intense radio bursts originated from sunspots. Their subsequent paper was also the first to suggest the use of Fourier synthesis in radio astronomy, which became the foundation of radioastronomical aperture synthesis.

Transport for NSW has been replacing its fleet of 30 year old RiverCat and SuperCat vessels with a fleet of ferries named after notable Sydney scientists and engineers. One of these is the Ruby Payne-Scott, which was officially launched yesterday. The launch event featured a number of speeches, including recollections from Ruby Payne-Scott’s daughter, Fiona Hall, and a summary of Ruby’s career from the Payne-Scott Professor of Mathematics at the University of Sydney, Nalini Joshi. The picture above shows Ron Ekers, Fiona Hall, Vanessa Moss, Elizabeth Mahony and Director of CSIRO Space and Astronomy Dr Douglas Bock at the launch. (Image credit: Rachel Rayner)