Brian Skiff giving a presentation to visitors at the 2022 Flagstaff Star Party. Credit: Abe Snider
Brian Skiff: Looking at Every Star
Having worked at Lowell Observatory for nearly 50 years, researcher Brian Skiff has seen a lot of change happen on Mars Hill. In fact, he’s the second longest-tenured employee at Lowell, 2 years behind astronomer Dr. Larry Wasserman. This makes him something of a piece of Lowell history himself, having witnessed so many of the events that make the observatory what it is today firsthand.
Brian met me in what Lowell staff refers to as the “White House,” a charming little two-story building perched on the edge of the Hill next to Percival Lowell’s mausoleum. The White House is painted red — a fact that confused me until I learned that Emeritus Astronomer Nat White and his family lived in the house for over 30 years before it was eventually converted into an office building.
The Beginning
Brian grew up in Florida, where his interest in astronomy began as a teenager.
“A buddy of mine down the street had a little telescope, and he showed me a star cluster through it,” he says. “That’s why I’m sitting here right now.”
Brian moved to Arizona in 1973 to study astronomy at Northern Arizona University (NAU). “For me, NAU had two advantages: it was cheap and far away from home,” he says. However, Brian found that NAU didn’t have much available in the way of astronomy courses at the time, and chose to major in physics instead.
“Two other people came to NAU to study astronomy that same year, and I think that inspired the faculty to do things that they wouldn’t otherwise do as far as astronomy courses go.”
One of those other two students was Chris Luginbuhl, the man who would go on to spearhead a dark sky preservation movement in Flagstaff. He and Brian became friends soon after meeting.
“I’ve known Chris for 50 years, and he’s the wizard of dark skies and lighting. That’s his thing,” says Brian. “It requires too much politics for me, but he taught himself how to navigate that world and took the time to educate people. I would just go around shooting out lights.” He adds that last detail with a mischievous grin that I can’t help but share.
Both Brian and Luginbuhl were hired onto Lowell’s staff by Nat White in 1976, when they were in their junior year at NAU. They began working on a project studying lunar occultations of bright stars using the Hall 42” telescope at Anderson Mesa — a telescope that Brian still uses in his research today.
“I’ve spent more than 1,000 nights on that telescope,” he says.
Once Brian began work at Lowell, he never left. He continued working under Nat White after graduating from NAU with a bachelor’s degree in physics.
“I’m not a PhD astronomer, so I actually have no formal training in astronomy,” he says. “People find that pretty amazing—everything I know, I’ve learned on the job.”
Past Research
Over the course of his impressive career at Lowell Observatory, Brian has worked on an impressive number of research projects and has used nearly nearly every telescope at both the Mars Hill and Anderson Mesa campuses. He was the last regular user of the Pluto Astrograph, which Clyde Tombaugh used to discover Pluto, before it was retired in 1989.
“One thing I tell people is that Clyde Tombaugh took about a thousand 1-hour exposures on photographic plates when he was here,” says Brian. “I took about three-thousand 20-minute exposures, so he and I spent about the same amount of time using the telescope.”
This isn’t the only connection he and Clyde had—Brian actually knew him toward the end of his life and was able to chat with him about their experience running the astrograph and using it for research. He once went to visit Clyde at his house in Las Cruces, New Mexico.
Another memorable experience Brian had at Lowell was working with the 21-inch telescope housed in a roll-off-roof structure located near the Lampland Dome, referred to as the “Jiffy Pop Dome” by staff because of its resemblance to an inflated bag of stovetop popcorn. This project, which spanned 20 years, involved using photometry to measure the brightness of “old” Sun-like stars to see if they have activity cycles similar to our Sun’s eleven-year sunspot cycle.
“I spent something like twelve-hundred nights at that telescope, taking data of the most boring stars imaginable,” Brian laughs, “But now we know exactly how boring they are.”
After this initial project was concluded, a second, 25-year follow-up project using different telescopes was started to continue looking for sunspot cycle variations, with Brian continuing his research on the team. The 21-inch hasn’t been used since the first leg of the project was concluded, but, according to Brian, “could be refurbished in a pinch.”
Current Research
Right now, Brian is supporting Dr. Lisa Prato and her team as they study very young stars in regions where stars are still forming. This team includes Dr. Taylor Kutra, whose research was covered in a previous blog post. Brian uses sensitive photon detectors called charge coupled devices, or CCDs, to gather images of the young stars so the team can study the amount of light they emit over time and track any variations or anomalies.
“The pictures aren’t very interesting to see, they’re black and white,” Brian explains. “You can measure the brightness of the stars with respect to other stars in the same images. Variations in that brightness imply that the stars are accreting dust and gas as they’re forming.”
As the young stars spin, accumulating more dust and gas over time, they can eventually form new planets. Brian’s research aims to track this process and estimate how long planet formation takes.
Zoozve Discovery
The poster that started it all. Credit: Latif Nasser via X.com
In January of 2023, Canadian-American researcher, writer, WNYC (New York Public Radio)presenter, and father Dr. Latif Nasser noticed that a poster on his two-year-old son’s wall had an unusual feature: a moon of Venus he had never seen before, which appeared to be labeled “Zoozve.” Nasser recounted his search for answers on an X (formerly Twitter) thread posted at the beginning of this year, which quickly gained massive media attention.
Throughout the year-long journey leading to Zoozve’s naming, Nasser reached out to many of the scientists responsible for the quasi-moon’s recognition. Among them was Brian Skiff, who had discovered Zoozve after spending more than 15 years surveying and studying hundreds of asteroids.
“When the folks behind the scenes at WNYC got a hold of me, I had to look up which asteroid it was,” he says. “It was one of the couple hundred near-Earth asteroids that we discovered in that survey, but I noticed on the discovery announcement that was released (about Zoozve) that I had actually observed it twice. It was moving fast enough that it could potentially pose a danger to us, so observing it more than once was kind of due diligence.”
At the time of its discovery, the unusual object was given the unremarkable name of ‘2002VE86’—which coincidentally appeared to spell out the word “Zoozve” in the font used on Dr. Nasser’s poster. In October of 2023, Nasser submitted a proposal to the International Astronomical Union (IAU) to have 2002VE86 officially renamed “Zoozve” (pronounced “Zeus-vay,” not “Zooze-vee,” as I had originally assumed). The proposal was accepted, and Nasser’s quest came to a close.
Yes, Brian Does Have a Life Outside of Work
Outside of work, Brian is involved in an experimental music organization called the Interference Series.
“It’s not a band,” Brian explains, “but a group that brings in musicians to do experimental, improvised, far-out music.” The performances range widely, so each concert is completely different from the last one. “You never know what’s going to happen–-the performers don’t necessarily know what’s going to happen either. So, leave your expectations at the door and just hear whatever’s happening. Sometimes you like it, sometimes you don’t. If you don’t like it, come to the next one.”
The series presents two or three shows each month at various locations around Flagstaff, with the 10th season set to begin in September.
Looking Ahead
Brian has enjoyed a very rich and eventful career at Lowell thus far, and he has no plans of stopping anytime soon. The fate of his retirement rests with the orbit of planet Uranus.
Uranus and Neptune have been studied for their changes in brightness since 1950. This was started by astronomer Henry Giclas using the 42-inch telescope that was formerly housed in the Lampland Dome (the frame of which is currently on display outside of the Steele Visitor Center), and ultimately followed by several other observers at the 21-inch telescope. Observation continued until 2016, when astronomers Wes Lockwood and Don Thompson brought the project to a close.
“In anticipation of Wes and Don stopping, I started getting the data with some overlap using the 31-inch robotic telescope, and continued with the 42-inch Hall telescope at Anderson Mesa,” explains Brian, “so my idea is to keep going, my health and Lowell’s administration permitting, until the full orbit of Uranus is completed, reckoning from the 1950 star of the project and the 85-year Uranus orbit.”
This means that Brian doesn’t plan to retire until the year 2035, when he is 80 years old.
“Hopefully the data-taking on Uranus can start up again soon with the new 1-meter telescope so I don’t have to be up late observing, which I’m definitely getting too old for,” he says. “It looks as though having the new telescope running properly is still a year away, if we’re lucky.”