[citation needed] The inner main-belt asteroid 3173 McNaught, discovered by Edward Bowell at Anderson Mesa Station in 1981, was named after him by its discoverer, following a suggestion by David Seargent.
[7] McNaught worked at the University of Aston's satellite-tracking camera originally outside Evesham in 1982, thereafter at Herstmonceux and more recently at Siding Spring.
In his spare time he successfully conducts patrols for novae, identifies images of prenovae and unusual variable stars on survey plates, measures their positions, makes astrometric observations of comets and minor planets and photometric observations of comets and novae.
In October 2011, partly due to changes in the exchange rate between the Australian and US dollars, Catalina Sky Survey of NASA had to end funding McNaught's southern survey,[8] which used to cost $110,000 per year,[9] ending the international cooperation in July 2012.
The astronomer estimated that the survey needs $180,000 annually, plus a small one-time sum to fix the observatory dome.