Cape Town, SAAO, SALT and Work

We spent last weekend, Sept. 1-5^th, in Cape Town. I had organized talks for IDA with the South African Astronomical Observatory and the Illuminating Engineering Society of South Africa, Cape Town Section. When we got to Cape Town on Saturday the weather was pretty bad. It was raining and cold, but since we were staying on Long Street, Cape Town’s party street, we went out anyway. The place where we stayed was a bit of a dive but we were only planning to stay one night. We spent the afternoon walking up and down Long Street, finally ending in an Irish pub and having a couple beers. We noticed while we walking that there was an Ethiopian restaurant near the hotel so that’s what ended up having for dinner. The food was amazing and the atmosphere was really nice too. If you’re ever in Cape Town have dinner at Addis in Cape, you won’t regret it.

On Sunday morning we were invited out for a tour of Cape Town by a friend and lighting associate who lives in CT. Many thank to Alan and Eileen Hughes for all their hospitality. The weather had cleared and it was a brilliant day. They gave us an excellent tour around the city and then took us out for lunch at an incredible seafood restaurant at the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront. We ate on the balcony of the restaurant and had an amazing view of Table Mountain. I should also mention that Alan is also the person who helped arrange the presentation to the IESSA. On a side note, Tanya and I met him in Athens last year at the CIE meeting. When he heard that we were moving to South Africa, he was very supportive and gave us lots of good advice before we moved here.

Sunday afternoon, we met up with Kevin Govender from the South African Astronomical Observatory and the Southern African Large Telescope(SALT) to go on a tour to Sutherland and the SALT Observatory. As it tuned out the 4 hour trip out to Sutherland went by really fast, mostly because Kevin was a very interesting and energetic guy. He told us all about the observatory and the geology of the area. Sutherland is a small town of about 2000 people and in the middle of the desert. It actually reminded us a lot of Arizona. It was beginning to get dark when we arrived at the observatory, so we had dinner and then went up for the tour. In my years working at IDA I have toured a lot of major observatories, but never anything like this. SALT is the largest telescope in the Southern Hemisphere. It a multi-mirror telescope that is the equivalent to a 10 meter mirror. I think Tanya was most impressed by the way the telescope which weighs 100,000 tones, rotated by floating on a bubble of air, like a hovercraft. You can find out more about the observatory by visiting www.salt.ac.za. While we were there we also went outside and got to see and iridium flare, which is when you can see a flash of light from the sun reflected off the solar panels of a passing satellite. You can learn more about these by visiting www.heavens-above.com. We spent some time looking through a small telescope, which was really cool too. I have never seen skies that were so dark and natural. Instead of saying darks skies, you have to bright skies. There was so much light from just the stars that we could walk around and see where we were going. We could even see our shadow on the side of the observatory from the light that was cast by Jupiter. I have never been to a place or observatory where you could look out in 360degrees and not see a single light. I was truly and awesome experience. And probably the only observatory in the world where you could see Springbok walking around.

On Monday morning I met with some of the official of town of Sutherland to help them with restricting their lighting. The meeting went well and I think they will soon become an official “Dark-Sky Community” Monday night we ate a sushi restaurant in Cape Town. You don’t find sushi very often in SA, so it was a nice treat.

Tuesday morning I gave a talk at the SAAO headquarters. It was a cool place, you definitely knew it was an old building. It had that feel of an old English library or study. There were only about 20 people there, but it still went well. Always nice to give a talk when you’re really just preaching to the choir. Tuesday evening I gave a talk to the local IESSA Section. The talk was held at the Yacht Club. Alan Hughes has a sailboat docked there, so before the talk he gave a tour. This was the first time I have ever been on a sailboat. Now I’m gonna have to go sailing soon. There were about 60 people at the meeting. Apparently, there are usually only around 15, so I was really pleased that so many people came out to hear what I had to say. Hopefully IDA will get some new members and maybe even a new Section out of my talk.

Sorry so much of the entry was about my work, but at least now you know I’m doing more than just being on vacation while we’re here.