‘What makes this system so powerful is that you can leave the earth - you are not stuck on the earth anymore. Traditional planetarium shows are stuck on the earth looking up at the night sky, now we can fly away from the earth and travel through the universe, moving out into space - right back to the beginning. We don’t actually have data sets that go that far back, but be can get really close, looking at some of the galaxies billions of light years away from us and, of course, when you are looking at those galaxies you are looking back in time - into the past. This is strange because we are looking at objects develop, seeing them as they were a very long time ago.’
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IAN GLASS, CEDERBERG ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATORY, CEDERBERG, WESTERN CAPE
‘I enjoyed the scientific work, especially solving problems and understanding the physics of the stars, so doing something like this is a kind of motivation for other people to become interested in astronomy and until you study physics and astronomy, you don’t really know what is going on in the stars and you don’t see what professional astronomers are interested in. There are many things happening in our own galaxy and in our own solar system and of course with the space age we know a lot more now about planets and asteroids and many things. So even quite nearby objects turned out to be more interesting than people realised in the past. I studied the heat radiation from stars, with infra-red light. Usually stars that are forming or stars that are dying have a lot of dust around them and this shows up very strongly in the infra-red, so I studied basically variable stars that show up brightly in the infra-red and I studied certain types of galaxies which have active centers, the nuclei we call them - and quasars. So you think of stars, but dust and gas are also very important parts of the galaxies in the sky.’
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PULPIT, UNITED REFORMED CHURCH, CARNARVON, NORTHERN CAPE
‘Some people have this strange notion that there is a clash between religion and science. Especially when they come to a poor congregation, where the majority are poor people, they will think that they are perhaps creationist type of people - who reject science per se. That is not even close to the truth. In fact, I think we love science, we love to know more. We may have a certain interpretation of the wonders of creation, we believe in a creator, we believe that God not only created everything but that we are part of that creation and we want to really dispel the notion of science versus religion as always clashing. The Bible was never written with the intention of writing up a science handbook.’
‘Some people have this strange notion that there is a clash between religion and science. Especially when they come to a poor congregation, where the majority are poor people, they will think that they are perhaps creationist type of people - who reject science per se. That is not even close to the truth. In fact, I think we love science, we love to know more. We may have a certain interpretation of the wonders of creation, we believe in a creator, we believe that God not only created everything but that we are part of that creation and we want to really dispel the notion of science versus religion as always clashing. The Bible was never written with the intention of writing up a science handbook.’
Dr. Isak Potgieter, Pastor, United Reformed Church, Carnarvon
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DIE HEMELBLOM # 2 (FROM "DIE HEMELBLOM" BY JAN RABIE, 1971), CARNARVON, NORTHERN CAPE
'Only in the morning, when the daylight crossed over the highland rocks and fynbos, they saw how strange and otherworldly the hemelblom was. The seeds that fell the previous afternoon shot up incredibly fast, each on a lump of roots that didn't enter the ground, but just gripped the ground from above. In one single night each plant became fully grown and was spreading seeds so that new plants would shoot up. In one night the hemelblomme multiplied a hundredfold. For now it was just strange. Only later it would become frightening.'
From Die Hemelblom (The Heaven Flower) by Jan Rabie, 2nd edition 1974, Tafelberg, first published 1971. Translated from the original Afrikaans by Nic Grobler.
Photographed inspired by Die Hemelblom, Jan Rabie. The Hemelblom was sent to the earth by a concerned galactic council to ensure the survival of life on earth in the face of a new world war. The plant was specifically grown to remove the poisonous elements introduced by humans - feeding on pollution it would rapidly cover the earth and wipe out most of humankind but leave a new earth covered with fresh fertile soil.
NEELSIE AND JAKHALS (FROM LOELOERAAI BY LANGENHOVEN, 1923) KLAASTROOM, WESTERN CAPE
'To whom shall I dedicate this book? It is about a being who is not human, who is higher than man - an unattainable superior.
I think I will go to the opposite - and then I will not have to look very far. I lost a friend a long time ago - a friend that I loved and who loved me. I will never see him again forever; but forever I will never forget him. Now, after all these years, there is not a day that passes without his image coming before me and I'm grieving about him. To him I was the higher being - a Loeloeraai of a higher existence. To me he was the ultimate perfection I found on earth, of love and faithfulness and virtue. And I lost him, and I miss him dearly. . .
I dedicate this work:
To the memory of
MY FRIEND AND DOG, JAKHALS’
From the dedication of Loeloeraai, CJ Langenhoven, 4th Edition 1929, First published 1923. Translated from original Afrikaans by Nic Grobler.
Photograph inspired by Loeloeraai, CJ Langenhoven. Loeloeraai is a visitor from Venus, who spends about two weeks with a family in Oudtshoorn. They end up going on a small trip to the moon before Loeloeraai returns to Venus.
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REVERSIBLE TRANSIT CIRCLE TELESCOPE # 3, SAAO OBSERVATORY, CAPE TOWN
This building houses the Gill Reversible Transit Circle, built in 1905 to measure the position of stars as they pass the north-south meridian and to check the accuracy of clocks. It was also used to contribute to the Catalogue of Fundamental Stars (Fundamental Katalog FK4), and was in use until around 1980 - after which the use of space satellites became the norm in the 1990s. The building is in need of repair and apparently one of its chimneys is housing a bee hive.
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VISITOR CENTER, SUTHERLAND, NORTHERN CAPE
AFRIKAANS TAALMONUMENT, PAARL, WESTERN CAPE
'"Ten . . . Nine . . . Eight . . . Seven . . . Six . . . Five . . . Four . . . Three . . . Two . . . One . . . Zero!"
The constant punch of thunder shakes the whole area. All eyes are focussed on the heavens or monitors that show images of the heavens. Inside them VR3 shrinks on top of an intense column of fire, first moving slowly, then faster, then unbelievably fast until it microscopically swims into the blue sea of heaven.'
'If man ventures out into space, he needs to be prepared to realise quite a few other things. That he was not the first intelligent being to do so and that he was not even the first child of Terra to leave his mother planet in this way. He'll learn to be humble. And further: That Terra is not the only planet in the heavens. That he can forget his allegiance to Terra. That he himself might change out in space, that he will never totally be and think the same as his fellow humans on Terra.'
From chapter 1 and chapter 11, Die Groen Planeet (The Green Planet), Jan Rabie, First edition, 1961. Translated from the original Afrikaans by Nic Grobler.
Photograph inspired by Die Groen Planeet, Jan Rabie, 1961.
OFENTSE LETEBELE, IZIKO PLANETARIUM PRESENTER, CAPE TOWN
Ofentse Letebele is part of the team working to translate some of the old Planetarium shows to the new Digital Dome system.
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SAAO #1, OBSERVATORY, CAPE TOWN
View of the McClean telescope dome, South African Astronomical Observatory. The Observatory garden contains many beautiful flowers and plants including rare species, having become somewhat of a sanctuary in the area. Flowers in the foreground are Leucospermum cordifolium - Pincushion, Bobbejaanklou, Luisiesboom, Luisiesbos.
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TEMBA MATOMELA, EDUCATOR, PLANETARIUM OUTREACH OFFICER, EXPERT OF INDIGENOUS ASTRONOMY
'Meteorites or shooting stars are regarded in the Xhosa speaking community as a bad luck omen. This is because it is believed that when somebody dies they become an ancestor and the spirit of that dead person is wandering among the stars guarding us from the evil spirits. So if, perhaps, one dies as a bad person then that person would be a bad spirit or ancestor and up in the celestial sphere the good ancestors would kick out the bad ancestors - so when you see a meteor coming down you are actually seeing one of those bad ancestors being kicked out of the celestial sphere and it falls down. When you see this we say ‘let the bad luck pass us for we are not the only one who saw that’ - meaning that we associate that with bad spirit.'
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SAAO # 4, SUTHERLAND, NORTHERN CAPE, 2016
'With the 1.9m we were looking at the spectra itself. Like looking at a prism, we used diffraction gratings where you could shift the light and look at different parts of the color spectrum - from there you can tell from what stars were made of and so forth. Just doing star gazing, especially if you look at Jupiter and Saturn, it blows your mind away. If you look at Jupiter it looks like a solar system on its own. The big mother planet with a few small moons around it, and from time to time you see one of the moons disappear. Then you look at Saturn with the nice rings around it, it looks like a sombrero - that is just unbelievable. My first three years I was working with other people, as I was undergoing training. From there on most of the time I was on my own. Sometimes for 14 hours in winter, just with a CD player, my night lunch and my coffee. Then it is up to you to make all the decisions. You just got to make sure you stay awake and alert. Otherwise you can screw up big time. I did fall asleep, but the thing is, if you feel you are tired it is best to close the dome, switch everything off and sit and sleep. If you leave things on and you fall asleep then you are in trouble.’
Francois van Wyk, Night Assistant and service observer, South African Astronomical Observatory, Sutherland.
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SAAO # 2, SUTHERLAND, NORTHERN CAPE
'My first three years, I was working with other people as I was undergoing training. From there on, most of the time I was on my own. Sometimes for 14 hours in winter, just with a CD player, my night lunch and my coffee. Then it is up to you to make all the decisions. You have just got to make sure you stay awake and alert. Otherwise you can screw up big time. I did fall asleep, but the thing is, if you feel you are tired it is best to close the dome, switch everything off and sit and sleep. If you leave things on and you fall asleep then you are in trouble.’
Francois van Wyk, Night Assistant and service observer, South African Astronomical Observatory, Sutherland.
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MANATOKA TREE # 2, SAAO, OBSERVATORY, CAPE TOWN
The inside area of the tree revealed that although there were numerous trunks, it seemed to be one organism, with the oldest, thickest trunk appearing to have fallen over many years ago - some of its branches entering into the ground and then growing up out of the ground again.
These trees are known for being salt, wind and fire resistant and are originally from Australia. They are popular in coastal gardens but are invading coastal fynbos, dunes and river valleys as well as being poisonous to mammals.
This ancient animal like tree can be found in a clearing adjacent to the South African Astronomical Observatory buildings - a site that was known, in the early years of the observatory as a place surrounded by marshes and covered in snakes.
'Only one spot seemed to meet all these requirements, a low hill a few miles out on the Flats from Devil's Peak which gloried the name of Slangkop, meaning "snakehill". The name was accurate, as several astronomers would later testify in unequivocal terms. Additionally it was almost devoid of soil, while being surrounded by extensive marshes, down to which a variety of wild animals would occasionally make their way. For years, in fact, there existed a body of folk-lore on the conduct of astonomy in the presence of various unsavoury beasts.'
From The Whisper & the Vision, Donald Fernie, 1976.
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FRANCOIS VAN WYK, NIGHT ASSISTANT AND SERVICE OBSERVER, SUTHERLAND, NORTHERN CAPE
'Then you look at Saturn with the nice rings around it, it looks like a sombrero - that is just unbelievable. On the real astronomy side I’ve observed stars with are called roAp stars, it is short for Rapidly oscillating peculiar A stars. These are really peculiar. Those stars oscillate in a short time scale, like 8 minutes. What happens is the stars sort of blows up and gets bigger and fainter, then contracts and gets warmer. That is what you see. My first three years I was working with other people, as I was undergoing training. From there on most of the time I was on my own. Sometimes for 14 hours in winter, just with a CD player, my night lunch and my coffee. Then it is up to you to make all the decisions. You just got to make sure you stay awake and alert. Otherwise you can screw up big time. I did fall asleep, but the thing is, if you feel you are tired it is best to close the dome, switch everything off and sit and sleep. If you leave things on and you fall asleep then you are in trouble.’ - Francois van Wyk, Night Assistant and service observer, Sutherland.
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ELISE FILIPPERS, SUTHERLAND, NORTHERN CAPE
Elise lives in Sutherland, home to the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) - the largest optical telescope in the Southern Hemisphere.
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CEDERBERG ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATORY # 2, CEDERBERG
‘If you consider there are between 10 and 20 times as many galaxies outside ours as there are stars in our galaxy - and we have maybe 200 billion stars, so multiply that between 10 and 20 and that is the number of galaxies, and each of those may have 200 billion stars. So we are pretty insignificant. If you go and look at a piece of sand outside. That is how insignificant we are. We think we are important but we are not.’
Chris Forder, amateur telescope builder, Cederberg Astronomical Observatory partner.
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CEDERBERG ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATORY # 1, CEDERBERG
‘Are we alone, I don’t know - the thing is, we will probably never know. If we find a civilization that can signal to us we’ve got to be able to signal to them. If they are a 100 light years away we are talking about a 100 years between every communication, and by then the other one may have died out or they may have not reached the communications technology or we may have blown ourselves up enough to have to start all over again. So we will probably not communicate with anyone out there - not in our lifetime. But there is probably someone. We are so proud that we call them aliens - we may be the aliens. Who knows.’
Chris Forder, amateur telescope builder, Cederberg Astronomical Observatory partner.
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BIG MOON # 2 (ASTROGRAPHIC TELESCOPE BUILDING 1890) SAAO OBSERVATORY, CAPE TOWN
This photograph was taken during the night of 14 November 2016, with the biggest supermoon since 1948. When a full moon takes place when the Moon is near its closest approach to Earth, it is called a Supermoon. The next super moon similar to this will only take place in 2034. Supermoons generally appear 14% bigger and 30% brighter than other full moons.
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ANNA SKIPPERS # 3, SUTHERLAND, NORTHERN CAPE
'That was the most beautiful to me, when there is a shooting star, I always believed you could make wish - for good luck. Then I asked some questions and they answered; 'Oh, no, when there is a shooting star, it means it is dead and it is going to fall' and there where it falls, everything must just pray and ask 'God don't let it fall on a house, don't let it fall on a person' - because it can burn and kill, and you don't know if it has fire inside, you don't know if it has hail inside or even iron inside.'
Anna Skippers, Kamammas Community Centre Coordinator, Sutherland, Northern Cape
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