Alfred Deakin High School student behind university's image of Jupiter

The image held their gaze not only for the novelty of astronomical wonder or Jack's detail about how the telescope captured it, but also because their classmate was the brains behind the photograph.

The Alfred Deakin High School student won the University of NSW First Light Project, an international competition inviting students to nominate the first official images a series of telescopes should capture.

His suggestion to capture Jupiter and four of its moons – Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto – was put into practice, appearing as one of the machines in the Falcon Telescope Network's "first light", the astronomical equivalent of a ribbon-cutting ceremony.

Jack researched the objects that would appear in the southern hemisphere's night sky in the early half of the year, settling on Jupiter for several reasons.

"Jupiter was one of the things that was visible, and at the moment its closeness to the Earth's orbit means it's probably at its largest and quite bright," he said.

After deciding on the planet, Jack sent his pitch through to the Falcon Telescope Network, including the best date, time of night, position in the sky and magnification needed to get the best photo of Jupiter and its moons aligned.

The results impressed his teacher, Tim Jones, who said Jack worked almost autonomously through the competition.

"Jack said 'I'll have a go at that' and next time I spoke to him about it he'd already done half the work within a week," he said.

"What he did to identify that location, the timing and the thinking behind it is probably beyond what I could have done."

The Falcon Telescope Network, created by the USAF Academy but based at sites worldwide, is designed to help undergraduate space research and community STEM engagement.

UNSW has a node of the network in Canberra, tasked to track satellites and space debris in their paths that could damage them.