Anna lives in Sutherland, close to the largest single optical telescope in the Southern Hemisphere.
Read MoreSAAO OBSERVATORY # 5, SUTHERLAND, NORTHERN CAPE
SUTHERLAND # 2, (THE ROAD TO THE SAAO OBSERVATORY), NORTHERN CAPE
SUTHERLAND, (THE ROAD TO THE SAAO OBSERVATORY), NORTHERN CAPE
ANNA SKIPPERS, SUTHERLAND, NORTHERN CAPE
SAAO # 1, SUTHERLAND, NORTHERN CAPE
'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 colour 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.'
Francois van Wyk, Night Assistant and service observer, South African Astronomical Observatory, Sutherland.
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REST STOP ON R27, NORTHERN CAPE
The R27 road passes through exceptionally desolate areas and is one of the main routes from Cape Town towards the SKA project site. Here, the first phase of the largest radio telescope in the world is planned for completion in around 2024.
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SIENTJIE FLIPPERS, SUTHERLAND, NORTHERN CAPE
Sientjie lives in the rural area of Sutherland in the karoo, where the SAAO is (South African Astronomical Observatory) and many international Astronomical projects are active. She showed us where some constellations are usually positioned in the sky, even though it was day time.
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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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SALT, SAAO, 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.
SALT (Southern African Large Telescope) at the South African Astronomical Observatory, just outside Sutherland in the Northern Cape. It is one of the largest optical telescopes in the world - so powerful and sensitive that it could spot a candle flame on the moon.
NIGHTSCREENING # 1, SUTHERLAND, NORTHERN CAPE
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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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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ANNA SKIPPERS # 1 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, ‘o, 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.
Anna lives in Sutherland, close to the largest single optical telescope in the Southern Hemisphere.
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