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What Are Astronomers Doing?
Tom Barnes
"Coffee. Lots and lots of coffee." 
Tom Barnes
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Tom Barnes, a Senior Research Scientist at the University of Texas at Austin, grew up in Ohio, and considers his hometown to be Marion, Ohio. His father was an auditor, and the family moved a lot to accommodate the elder Barnes' job. They moved 13 times before settling in Marion, where Tom graduated from high school.
Tom's son Eric and his wife Kari are the parents of Tom's first grandchild, Logan, who Tom says is "likely to be one spoiled son of a gun." Tom's other son JB and his wife Nichole had grandchild number two in September, 2003 - a girl named Mollie. Tom also has two stepdaughters, Jennifer and Jessica, and is married to Cyndee.
"Coffee. Lots and lots of coffee."
While some astronomers may like to focus the telescope on a single astronomical object for several hours, playing video games or listening to music to pass the time, "That's not my style of observing," Tom says. He says he might change targets and adjust his observations every fifteen minutes. The key ingredient that keeps him awake while observing at night, he says, is "coffee. Lots and lots of coffee." He prefers Starbucks when he is at home in Austin, but straight, strong, black coffee gets the job done when he is at McDonald Observatory.
"If you can't communicate, you can't do this field."
The foundation in language Tom says he received from a favorite teacher helps him tremendously in his career. "Writing is extremely important, " he states. "If you can't communicate, you can't do this field." He recalls that his high school English teacher, Mary Calhoun, often gave students just one word on the board and asked them to write an essay on that word during the class period.
"Raise money."
One thing that Tom thinks the general public doesn’t realize about astronomers is how much time they have to spend to "raise money." According to him, a lot of money is required for each observing run to cover travel, lodging, equipment, and time. While some people may think all these expenditures are magically covered, the truth is that astronomers are constantly selling their projects to various funding organizations to raise money to do the research. The writing skills Tom learned from Ms. Calhoun often come into play when he is writing grants or proposals to get time on telescopes.
"It just came to me."
Tom says one of the memorable events of his career was a time when he was reading about some observations of a star that showed a strange shift in its behavior. The researchers couldn’t explain what happened. Tom says that while reading this article, the reason "just came to me. I just knew it." He sat down, wrote a paper explaining the behavior, and made a prediction as to what the star might do in the future. Sure enough, another astronomer later confirmed his prediction.
Hopefully, more enlightenment will come to Tom as he embarks on his study of Cepheid variable stars in the galaxies M33 (the Triangulum Galaxy) and M31 (the Andromeda Galaxy) while at McDonald Observatory. Astronomers use a relationship between how often a Cepheid variable star pulses and how much energy it puts out to determine how far away the star is. Tom is looking to see how accurate this method is, and if it needs to be fine tuned.
Thomas G. Barnes III
Senior Research Scientist, University of Texas at Austin
Ph.D., Astronomy, The University of Toronto
M.A., Astronomy, The University of Toronto
B.S. (with distinction), Astrophysics, The University of Rochester
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