Betty Louise Turtle (née Webster [also Webster in published works]) (20 May 1941 - 29 September 1990) was an Australianastronomer andphysicist. In 1971, with her colleaguePaul Murdin, she identified the powerful X-ray sourceCygnus X-1 as the first clear candidate for ablack hole.
Turtle attended theUniversity of Adelaide and continued studies as one of the first students at the graduate school ofMount Stromlo Observatory, outsideCanberra where she was strongly influenced by the American astronomersBart Bok andPriscilla Fairfield Bok. She gained a Ph.D. in 1967 on the subject of southernplanetary nebulae while working with the Swedish astronomerBengt Westerlund. She moved to theUniversity of Wisconsin before taking up a position at theRoyal Greenwich Observatory atHerstmonceux Castle, firstly as a Scientific Officer then Principal Scientific Officer. She worked withRichard Woolley, theAstronomer Royal, and then Paul Murdin, with whom she had been elected to theRoyal Astronomical Society at the same time in 1963.[1][2]
Turtle and Murdin were careful about the language of the paper they submitted to the journalNature describing their discovery, titledCygnus X-1 — a Spectroscopic Binary with a Heavy Companion? with the final words, "...it might be a black hole."[3] Their boss, Woolley, was more conservative as an astronomer and their cautiousness was mirrored by colleagues, though other astronomers (notablyCharles Thomas Bolton) agreed with them.[4]
Her work inSussex led directly to a posting at theSouth African Astronomical Observatory, where Woolley became director from 1972, and then the new 3.9-metreAnglo-Australian Telescope in a commissioning role before becoming staff astronomer there.[1]
In 1978, she found her final employment at theUniversity of New South Wales in the physics faculty; in November that year she married Tony Turtle. While at the university, she was the driving force for theAutomated Patrol Telescope at theSiding Spring Observatory, introduced a fourth-year course for astronomers, served on or chaired many committees and promoted astronomy very actively through theInternational Astronomical Union and theAstronomical Society of Australia.[1]
She died after a long illness at her home inPaddington,Sydney.[1]
TheBok Prize, awarded annually to undergraduates for excellence in research, was introduced largely at Turtle's instigation, and is sponsored by Astronomical Society of Australia and theAustralian Academy of Science. In honour of her contribution to astronomy, the Louise Webster Prize has been awarded annually since 2009 by the Astronomical Society of Australia to reward outstanding postdoctoral research early in a scientist's career.[5]
In October 2024, the ABC Science Show carried an interview byRobyn Williams with authorMarcus Chown discussing Louise Webster's contribution to the discovery of black holes.[6] Her andPaul Murdin's paper theorizing that the x-ray sourceCygnus X-1 may be a black hole was discussed in theNOVA episodeBlack Hole Apocalypse.[7]
