Royal Observatory, Cape Town & Sutherland in the 1970s Willie Koorts 2026-09-27 | Royal Observatory, Cape Town & Sutherland in the 1970s
What happened to Bridgetowns Bridge? Willie Koorts 2024-01-21 | Bridgetown was once described as a town that never developed ... called after a bridge that was never built! The "mad Englishman", William Edmund Scarbrow, was so optimistic that the town he dreamt of creating will one day have a bridge over the river, that he named it Bridgetown, long before he even started. This video tells the amazing story of why it never materialised and what eventually happened to the bridge he wanted so badly.Video clips used from:Fullriggeren Sørlandet, How to sail a Full-Rigged-Ship - The Sørlandet Part 1, YouTube, Mar 4, 2011, youtu.be/v6DZIvMZWzQ?si=en2QwAdykjrMtYfI
A Telescope without a dome Willie Koorts 2023-12-16 | The HESS (High Energy Stereoscopic System) telescopes are like nothing you have ever seen. Standing in the middle of nowhere, out in the open, without any protection from the elements!This video describes a trip to this bucket list destination with some behind the scenes views of this most peculiar telescope that looks like a scene out of a Mad Max movie!
Ndlovu Youth Choir Medley during their Celebrate tour Willie Koorts 2023-10-21 | Short extracts from the Celebrate tour of the Ndlovu Youth Choir, performed in the Opera House theatre at ArtsCape, Cape Town on Saturday, 14 October 2023. Being near the final games of the Rugby World Cup 2023, two special tributes were included in support of our Springbok team who made it to the semi-finals at that time.
Rare Brindle Southern Right Whale spotted at De Kelders Willie Koorts 2023-10-19 | According to Whale Watch SA, brindle colouration is present at birth in only about 4% of all Southern Right whales. This is a white colouration different from albinism, and about 94% of these individuals are males, as the genes of this colouration pattern are on the sex chromosome. The colouration is likely to turn grey as the calves get older.some southern right whales are born with white streaks or flecks on their backs, often in the shape of a V or partial V which points forwards. However, just as in the brindle animals, these markings darken with age so that they appear grey in the adults. Individuals with this particular pigmentation pattern are termed “partial greys”. This pigmentation pattern occurs as a result of the presence of both the dominant and recessive alleles of the gene. This is because the dominant allele is not completely dominant over the recessive allele and this results in a combination of the two pigmentation patterns. This pigmentation can only occur in individuals with the gene combination Xx. Partial grey whales are, therefore, always female and about 10.5% of adult females off South Africa have this pigmentation pattern. About 1.4% of partial grey whales will also possess white blazes on their backs.
Three major dams 103% full and overflowing Willie Koorts 2023-09-29 | 2023 has been a record breaking rainfall year for the Western Cape Province of South Africa. Nearly all its major dams frequently filled op to more than 100%, and then overflowed spectacularly! In this video I tried to capture this splendor using drone footage. The dams captured were the Clanwilliam Dam which had two sluice gates open but water tumbling over all 13 sluices on 27 August 2023. Next was the massive Theewaterkloof Dam, also at 103% on 1 September 2023. Finally, the Berg River Dam overflowed after 299mm rain fell in nearby Franschoek, causing huge damage on 24 September - this footage was taken 4 days after by which time the dam was still more than 100% full. This caused the Berg River to burst its banks downstream, as can be seen from this footage, taken the day after the storm at Wellington.
Clanwilliam: Biedouw Valley & Wild Flower Show Willie Koorts 2023-09-06 | With the good rains, 2023 was an unusually great year for wild flowers in Namakwaland. As always, the Biedouw Valley is a spectacular place to see wild flowers, literally wall-to-wall, the source of wonderful drone footage!We timed our visit to coincide with the Clanwilliam Wild Flower Show, always held in the "Blommekerk". Again an truly amazing experience!
Vanrhynsdorp Wildflowers Willie Koorts 2023-07-30 | With it being a good rainy season in the Namakwaland, the flowers look promising and starting to show it splendour quite early already! Here is a short drone video shot outside Vanrhynsdorp on 30 July 2023. Enjoy.
Berg River Dam 104% and Overflowing #shorts Willie Koorts 2023-06-18 | After heavy rains, the Berg River Dam quickly got to 104% full and was overflowing. Witness the sheer power of nature as the mighty Berg River Dam overflows after a deluge of heavy rains! In this awe-inspiring video, watch as the dam's gates struggle to contain the massive volume of water, eventually succumbing to the force of nature. Marvel at the raw energy as torrents of water surge over the dam's walls, creating a breathtaking display of nature's might.
How to prevent a GeyserWise losing its settings Willie Koorts 2023-04-05 | GeyserWise controllers tend to loose their settings when left unpowered for an extended period, like during long spells of loadshedding. One way to prevent this from happening is to add a 12V backup battery. When I could not find any useful information on the internet, I decided to make this video for people with the same problem.
First Starlink observation - eyewitness reaction! Willie Koorts 2023-02-17 | Seeing one's first Starlink pass can be very frightening! Fear and tears are not uncommon, often leading to UFO reports! See how I videoed two bright Starlink passed while listening to the exiting report of someone who saw it by accident, not knowing what he is witnessing!
Shaun & Roné Walsh #getyourwalshon Willie Koorts 2022-11-18 | #getyourwalshonRoné le Roux & Shaun Walsh, 12 November 2022, De Kelders
We photographed something unexplained! Willie Koorts 2022-11-04 | On a recent trip to the Sutherland Observatory we photographed something unexplained which we would like the experts to solve the mystery as to what we saw!Site location: -32.3756, 20.8107Date & Time 1: 21 October 2022 between 22:30 & 23:10 SASTDate & Time 2: 24 October 2022 between 22:00 & 23:00 SASTDirection: SW to SSW
How Sutherland got from 4 to 24 domes in 35 years! Willie Koorts 2022-09-09 | On 15 March 2023, the Sutherland Observatory will officially be 50 years old. In commemoration of this centenary, a series of talks was arranged , and I was asked to share my 35 years of employment at SAAO (South African Astronomical Observatory). The first 15 years after the establishment of the Sutherland Observatory was relatively uneventful. Then SN1987A exploded! The supernova was still naked eye brightness when I started as Electronic Technician in Sutherland in May 1987. Today, 50 years after the official inauguration, the site similarly exploded with the addition of 20 more domes. During my 35 years at SAAO, several telescopes and instruments were shut down and replaced, the management changed three times and six directors came and went.
The story of the Shipwreck and the Lighthouse Willie Koorts 2022-07-29 | This video revisits the tragedy of the HMS Birkenhead, which struck a submerged rock at Danger Point, outside of Gansbaai, on the night of 26 February 1852, causing 9 officers, 349 other ranks and 87 of the ship's company to loose their lives, which lead to the building of the Danger Point lighthouse, 42 years later. The story is wonderfully narrated by local historian, John McGregor, currently residing in nearby De Kelders, while illustrated with video, drone, timelapse and hyperlapse footage.
How the PRIME Telescope was installed Willie Koorts 2022-07-16 | After almost a year in their shipping crates, the Japanese PRIME Telescope (PRime focus Infrared Microlensing Experiment) was finally installed in July 2022 by its manufacturer, Nishimura. For this a 45 tonne crane was hired for a week to install the individual parts. This video covers the whole installation process.
Sutherland Observatory - The Movie Willie Koorts 2022-07-04 | A few months ago we had a VIP visit at work and my boss asked me to make a video to show as background, with the following requirement: "A macro to micro journey from landscape of telescopes on site, then the telescopes themselves, then the instruments and a few pretty star sequences in between. Around 5 min in length."Judge for yourself what I got right and what not.A huge thank you to Chantal Fourie for permission to use her amazing night footage!
The Shenanigans of Sheeka, a 9-year-old German Shepherd Willie Koorts 2022-06-25 | #createwithvideoprocPlease vote at videoproc.com/campaign/contest-pet-video.htm before 30 June 2022.Hi! My name is Sheeka. I’m a 9-year-old German Shepherd bitch. My dad is Willie Koorts, a want-to-be YouTuber, but I don’t think he is very good as you will see from the bloopers at the end! We made this video together, to enter into a competition for videos edited entirely with VideoProc Vlogger, so I hope you will like it …. Get it?
3 Ways to Predict STARLINK passes yourself Willie Koorts 2022-05-19 | Starlink Satellites are becoming more and more difficult to see these days. If you can't see it in the first few days after launch, you miss them completely. It therefore became necessary to ensure that you even have pre-predictions before launch, to ensure you don't miss anything. This video shows three methods to do just this!
Pieter Le Roux, 29/10/1959 - 3/12/2021, Gedenkdiens, 12 Desember 2021 Willie Koorts 2022-04-27 | Hierdie video vervang die oorspronklike live-stream by youtu.be/N-NkeQyoVGs wat sekere gebreke gehad het met stiltes aanvanklik, dele wat verdwyn het, klank- en beeld-probleme, ens.Die diens was waargeneem deur ds Nelis van Rensburg vanuit die NG Kerk, Wellington-Oos op Sondag, 12 Desember 2021 om 11 vm.Ons neem met hartseer afskeid van ons geliefde Pietie / Piet Skollie in die ouderdom van 62 jaar. Ons sou hom so graag nog langer by ons wou hê, maar gun hom die rus. Hy het dapper en positief se kruis gedra. Ons sal hom altyd onthou as 'n mense-mens.
How (not) to recover a car from the sea Willie Koorts 2022-04-08 | In January 2022 the seagod, Poseidon, was angry, resulting in another terrible drama in Gansbaai! A car, with two people in it, got washed off the harbour pier! The owner of the A-class Mercedes, Calvin Combrink and his cousin, Xavier Belcher, both crew members of the long-liner, I Do, were busy working on the ship, when their fellow crewmen alerted them about the growing storm. It was decided to remove all vehicles from the pier. The bakkies (the South African name for a pick-up) all made it out safely, but by the time Calvin and Xavier started negotiating the dreadful trip, huge waves were already crashing over the pier. They tried to time their dash to safety during the lulls between waves as much as possible, before gunning for it! Juts over halfway to safety, a huge wave surprised them and swept the car into the harbour, unfortunately first bouncing it over the dolosse. Calvin described the experience as if being hit side-on by a truck at full speed!
Spotting all of the Marine Big 5 in one trip! Willie Koorts 2022-01-15 | In this video I want to share an amazing trip we had with international award-winning, Dyer Island Cruises, where we were incredibly lucky to have encountered All of the Marine Big 5, namely; a stunning Bryde's whale, playful common dolphins, curios bronze whaler sharks, highly endangered African penguins and thousands of playful Cape fur seals.
Marietha Wessels (1940 - 2021) gedenkdiens - 27 Desember 2021 Willie Koorts 2021-12-29 | Gedenkdiens gehou vir Marietha (Oumie) Wessels (oorlelde 14 Desember 2021), gehou uit Wellington Moedergemeente op 27 Desember 2021, gelei deur Ds Lettie Büchner. Huldeblyk en bedankings deur Willie Koorts (skoonseun).
Rainbow Telescope Instrument see First Light Willie Koorts 2021-12-16 | Mookodi is a Sesotho word, meaning "rainbow", an apt name for a Spectrograph for the Lesedi telescope (meaning "light", also in Sesotho).Just before the Omicron variant of Carona reached it peak, a small team of technicians, engineers, astronomers and students headed up to Sutherland to install an instrument on the the second port of the Lesedi telescope, called Mookodi. This video, narrated by the PI’s, or principal investigators, and the mechanical engineer, shows the whole installation process, from assembly to so-called “first light”.
ATLAS Telescope: Crane Lift of Telescope and Mount #CreateWithVideoProc Willie Koorts 2021-11-18 | Regular viewers of my channel will remember my previous two videos showing the complete construction process of the sub-building and dome assembly of the NASA-funded ATLAS telescope at the Sutherland Observatory. ATLAS being an acronym for “Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System”.Two crates were shipped to Sutherland in the meantime, one containing the telescope mount and the other the telescope tube itself. This video shows the crane-lift of these two items.#CreateWithVideoProcThis video was entirely edited using VideoProc Vlogger - downloadable for free from videoproc.com/video-editing-software Video stabilization was done using VideoProc Converter - download an evaluation version from videoproc.com
Domes in the Mist - Sutherland Observatory engulfed in ridge cloud #videoprocvlogchallenge Willie Koorts 2021-10-28 | Despite being situated in a semi-dessert, from time to time the Sutherland Observatory gets engulfed in low local cloud. This can be pretty spectacular, particularly from the air. This video contains drone footage of this phenomena.#videoprocvlogchallenge #createwithvideoprocThis was my first try-out of a new, totally free, video editor, called VideoProc Vlogger (videoproc.com) which looks very promising! It has amazing functionality under the bonnet, some of which I tried out here. I will definitely give it a change for future videos!
Opel Corsa Lite: How to change the dashboard lights Willie Koorts 2021-10-17 | This video shows step-by-step how to change the dashboard (or instrument panel) lights on an Opel Corsa Lite. Although it is not a very difficult procedure, it is somewhat fiddly, which are pointed out and shown in this video.
Interskole 2014 - 2017: Hugenote (Blackies) vs Swartland (Rockies) Willie Koorts 2021-08-27 | Almost two years into Covid, it is unthinkable that there used be a time when we could gather in huge crowds, sing and shout from the top of our voices without any fear or mask! Every year, normally in August, Hugenote High (Blackies) and Swartland (Rockies) had Interschools, a huge event, drawing massive crowds. Weeks before, singsongs were learned and moves practised, apart from excelling in sport and numerous other events to determine who won. The main event to decide who won the interschools, is the winner of the under-19 rugby, which is also the final event.This video was composed from my archives, digging up footage of the 2014, 2015 and 2017 Interschools to remind us what it was like in the BC years (Before Covid)!
How the Ashton Arch Bridge was Launched - Timelapse. #shorts Willie Koorts 2021-08-15 | How an 8000 tonne, 110 m long, 22m high arch bridge was launched sideways nearly 20 metres!#shorts
Heliostat Crane Lift - 6 Aug 2021 Willie Koorts 2021-08-07 | On Friday, 6 August 2021, a Heliostat was installed on the roof the new Visitors' Centre at the South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO) in Cape Town. A crane was needed to place the actual instrument as well as the roll-off shelter on top of the building. The whole procedure was captured with several action cams, a GoPro Session, a Mobius (C-lens) and a Hawkeye Firefly.
Come take a ride on my Telescope #shorts Willie Koorts 2021-08-01 | The 40-inch "Elizabeth" Telescope in Sutherland, South Africa, dates from 1962, made by Grubb Parsons, England. It was first installed at the Royal Observatory in Cape Town, but moved to Sutherland ten years later when the South African Astronomical Observatory was formed. Despite being quite old (almost 60 years at the time of upload), it is still in use almost every clear night. This footage was taken by attaching two Mobius action cams to the telescope, while taking it through it paces. The telescope controls were subsequently automated, but here the manual system was used.#shorts
Shackleton Blows over a Wall! #shorts Willie Koorts 2021-07-30 | #shorts In the video on my YouTube channel where a Shackleton blows over a wall when revving up its four massive engines to near full throttle, the sound-track contains some amazing information and an interesting surprise!One can clearly see when each engine was started ... first nr. 3, then 4, followed by 2 and 1 respectively. After a few minutes’ warm-up, you will hear the almighty roar of those four Rolls-Royce 37 litre V12 engines being pushed into the red!So, while you are trying to think why the collapsing of the wall, coincides with the sound suddenly dropping, let’s listen to a few of these moments .....If you thought that the sound level dropped because a huge area, previously reflecting sound, suddenly disappeared, you are correct!
Epic fail tractor mud rescue! Willie Koorts 2021-07-27 | What to do when your rescue tractor also gets stuck in the mud? And then the second rescue tractor also gets stuck in the mud!
Stunning views the morning after it snowed in Sutherland Willie Koorts 2021-07-18 | Since my quick video taken during the snowstorm in Sutherland, it snowed more during the night. The next morning we were greeted by a stunning scene to behold, forcing me to make this follow-up video.Over the years I learnt that, in order to take good snow photo's, you must wait until the Sun comes out, otherwise they are grey with pale contrast.Luckily the wind allowed me to fly my drone, showing the stunning view from the air. Enjoy!
Snowing in Sutherland - 12 July 2021 Willie Koorts 2021-07-13 | The weather forecast for Monday, the 12th of July 2021, predicted light snow in the late afternoon for the South African Astronomical Observatory in Sutherland. That morning saw a stunning show of sun rays, piercing the typical broken cloud you find before snow. The wind was picking up as is also typical for Sutherland, where I always said it snows horizontal. I can count the times I’ve seen it snow vertically on my one hand, in my almost 35 years at the Observatory.Exactly as predicted, it started snowing shortly before 3:30, so I quickly took a video, before having to attend a zoom-meeting. The next video-clip was taken an hour later, during which time some snow built up already. It was still snowing lightly, so I took a quick drive around the domes. I just had to play with my new toy, a DJI Osmo Mobile gimbal – so make sure you watch to the end for a hyperlapse, circling SALT. Enjoy!
Willie Koorts - Celebrating 10 years on YouTube Willie Koorts 2021-07-11 | The 7th of July 2021 marked the 10-year anniversary of my presence on YouTube. Amazingly, my humble channel reached a remarkable number of milestones and achievements over this decade. My 232 videos were viewed a total of 1.1 million times and I’ve gained nearly 3000 subscribers. My two top videos just exceeded 150-thousand and 100-thousand views respectively, with another at nearly 100-thousand.In this video we take an overview of my channel and I share some of my experiences, successes, failures, etc. publishing videos on YouTube. It always amazes me how it is totally impossible it is to predict how good or bad a video will perform when you upload it. Enjoy the trip down memory lane and the journey!
PRIME Telescope: The Dome Lift - Part 3 of 3 Willie Koorts 2021-06-26 | Welcome to the 3rd, and final video in the PRIME telescope dome series. As you saw last time, after lots of blood, sweat and tears, we eventually managed to assemble this huge dome! When our initial plans of sourcing a crane from one of the nearby wind-farm projects fell through, another week passed, during which a 40-ton crane had to be hired from Cape Town. This video features the eventual dome lift.As you saw in my previous video where the wind ripped our dome in three, wind is an equally important consideration for the dome lift. The prediction for the next week Thursday and Friday looked good, so it was arranged that the crane will travel up to Sutherland on Wednesday, 16 June 2021 and do the dome lift first thing on Thursday morning. Since we still had a few tasks to do to be ready for the dome lift, we came up early and spent Wednesday finishing it all. However, by the end of the day, there was still no sign of the crane! Later that evening we got a message that they got held up with a job and is expected to get to site at 04:00 the next morning!
PRIME Telescope Dome assembly (with difficulty). Part 2 of 3 Willie Koorts 2021-06-22 | Welcome to the second video in the PRIME telescope dome series. Last time you saw that building construction stopped, awaiting the dome to be installed, so this video is about the dome assembly itself.Due to COVID-19 travel restrictions, the people from the supplier, Ash Dome, could not come out from the US, so local "experts" had to be sourced! So who are these experts, and are there any in South Africa? Perhaps those who assembled domes before? As you saw in a previous video, it so happened that Nic and myself recently assembled the ATLAS dome, and Windmeul Engineering from Wellington assembled the three Las Cumbras Observatory domes, about 8 years ago. So there you go - local experts! But I must admit, we underestimated the sheer size of this 30-foot, or 9m diameter monstrosity! Being about double the size of what we assembled before, means everything multiplies by FOUR! To add insult to injury, the weather also gave us a low blow (pun intended ), when high winds ripped our dome in three pieces!
PRIME Telescope building construction. Part 1 of 3 Willie Koorts 2021-06-14 | On 26 October work began on the construction of the new PRIME telescope building at Sutherland. PRIME (PRime focus Infrared Microlensing Experiment) is a 1.8 m telescope, built in Japan, which will have a wide field prime focus infrared camera covering 1.25 degrees in diameter a field of view 6 times size of the Moon. This massive camera is utilizing flight spares of the infrared arrays being used in the NASA Roman Space Telescope (formerly known as WFIRST and renamed in honour of Nancy Roman, NASA’s first chief astronomer), which is the same size as the Hubble Space Telescope, but has a 100 times larger field of view and is due to be launched in the mid 2020s. Apart from the camera, there will also be a second instrument, namely a high resolution fibre fed spectrograph, similar in some aspects to SALT’s High Resolution Spectrograph, but working in the infrared.
Jean Tresfon - Marine Conservation Photographer - on Insider SA Willie Koorts 2021-05-16 | Jean Tresfon - Marine Conservation Photographer wrote:There are several questions that I often get asked when posting aerial images on social media. They include: - Are these shot with a drone? - What type of aircraft do you fly? - What is a gyrocopter? - What is the difference between a gyrocopter and a helicopter? - How do you fly and take photos at the same time?At the same time I often see comments suggesting that I'm somehow brave (and/or stupid!) for trusting my life to such a tiny little machine. Gyrocopters have an undeserved reputation for being unsafe, largely due an era when there were no production built machines or even two-seater training aircraft available. Prospective pilots had to build their own aircraft from kits and training was either self taught or by being towed behind a pick-up with the instructor shouting instructions from the vehicle to the student who was alone in the plane! Unsurprisingly there were quite a few accidents and the reputation has stuck. The reality is quite different nowadays with these tiny little aircraft being super forgiving and easy to fly, unable to stall like a fixed wing and much easier to handle in an engine-out than an equivalent sized helicopter. That's not to say they are risk free, like all other aircraft they still have their weaknesses and will bite hard when pushed beyond their limits. But these days flying a factory built gyrocopter after receiving proper instruction and training is hardly an extreme sport!So it was with no small sense of amusement that I was asked to be featured on SABC3's The Insider SA "Living on the Edge" episode! It was however a great opportunity to showcase both these amazing little flying machines and how I use them as a platform for more serious conservation work. Tune in tonight (Monday 10 May) at 5:30pm (SA time) or set your recorder to watch me, together with Morningstar Flying Club flight instructor Len Klopper, flying and talking gyrocopters, photography and conservation...
Come check out our finished ATLAS dome Willie Koorts 2021-04-24 | In my previous video, we just managed to close up the ATLAS dome. We since finished all the mechanical and electrical stuff and tested all the dome movements.See how we marked out an exact N-S line using the sun and determined the exact centre of rotation of the dome. Finally we built a Mezzanine floor with staircase.Let me take you on a drone flight over and through the dome to see what it looks like inside now that it is finished.
The Story of the Hawekwa Mirror Willie Koorts 2021-04-18 | In the Hawekwa mountains behind Wellington, South Africa, a bright light can occasionally be seen, reflecting the sunlight off a granite memorial stone, as a reminder of a tragic event that took place in this mountain on 19 November 1959 when two local youths, Piet Hugo, from the farm Hexberg, and Frans Ferreira, the only child of the then police chief of Wellington, were on vacation from university. On the morning of that fateful Thursday, they set off to climb the Hawekwas. Frans’ beloved Dobermann went along. As the party travelled through the farm Patatskloof, the owner, Sarel van der Merwe, warned them about the danger of taking a dog into the mountain. Frans replied that his dog was used to climbing but Sarel’s concern soon came true when the dog got stuck on a narrow ledge high up on a cliff. In an attempt to lift his dog to safety, Frans lost his balance and fell to his death. Although his heroic deed saved the dog’s life, it is said that the dog later mourned itself to death. This video tells the full story of the event and also how I tracked down where, when and how to see the reflection any time of the year as it sweeps the town on Wellington.More comprehensive article: https://wpk.saao.ac.za/New/HawekwaMirror/index.html Geocache URL: geocaching.com/geocache/GC22ZC8_mirror-mirror-on-the-wall
Watch 60 satellites evolve over consecutive nights Willie Koorts 2021-02-13 | In this video I want to share how I recently got lucky when I managed to record something I have not seen done before, namely the rapid evolution of a SpaceX Starlink satellite launch for four consecutive nights, starting just 12 hours after launch. It was amazing to see the train of 60 satellites spread out into a string of pearls which caused a few UFO sightings, and my observations even reached the media!
Laingsburg vloed, 40ste herdenking Willie Koorts 2021-01-26 | 40 years ago today (on 25 January 1981) Laingsburg, in the Western Cape was devastated by a severe flood. 425mm of rain fell on 24 and 25 January 1981 causing the Buffalo River that flows through the town to burst its banks. The average annual rainfall is 150-175mm. The hard rains immersed the whole town in water, only the roofs of the houses were left visible. 104 residents lost their lives and the bodies of 72 people were never found. A total of 184 houses were destroyed leaving only 21 houses standing. A fund of R3 million was collected by the Die Burger newspaper for victims of the flood. The state spent R7 million repairing the infrastructure and housing. Today we remember those who died in 1981 as well as honour those who rebuilt their lives and the town following the flood.
How to prove if the Earth is Flat or Round Willie Koorts 2021-01-08 | One of the most common proofs that the Earth is not flat, is that ships disappear from the bottom up over the horizon. But Flat-Earthers claim that it is not possible to see far enough because of moisture (or whatever) in the atmosphere and it is therefore not a proof of a globe Earth.In this video I'm showing two experiments I did - one to determine how far a ship at sea is visible and another to see the effect of a change in height on a ship on the horizon.Conclusion: The Earth is a globe!
SAAO Year-End functions: 2010 to 2019 Willie Koorts 2020-12-20 | By 2010 Shireen started to scale down, resulting in "SAAO's Got Talent" not reaching the huge success of the previous years' year-end functions. During this period a number of venues were used, some to better accommodate the Sutherland people, either meeting them halfway and one held in Sutherland itself. A variety of themes followed, including orienteering, team building, and even square dancing!
SAAO Year-End functions: 2007 - 2009 Willie Koorts 2020-12-20 | 2007 to 2009 were the "golden years" with extravagant shows and themes like the Academy Awards, the Grammy Awards and Mamma Mia! Important visitors included George Clooney, ABBA, Britney Spears, Pavarotti, Snoop Dog, to name a few under the directorship of Shireen Davis (Evans).
How to build a Telescope Dome and Sub-Building Willie Koorts 2020-12-11 | This video documents the complete construction of a 16-feet (5 m) Ash Dome, including the Sub-Building. It was built over an 11-day period, mainly by two people, with extra help at times. Footage is mostly time-lapse with some drone footage and still images mixed in.ATLAS Project Homepage: fallingstar.com/home.phpSouth African Astronomical Observatory: https://www.saao.ac.za/Ash-Dome Homepage: ashdome.comEyethu Alpha Civils : http://alphacivil.co.za/main/
African Starlore: The morning star is the heart of Dawn Willie Koorts 2020-11-29 | Another video in the "Moments in the history of optical astronomy in South Africa" series.Today’s episode is again starlore, in particular a San/Bushman story, titled "The Morning star is the heart of Dawn", telling how the Morning star became the heart of Dawn but also why Wolf has a slight limp and why the Lynx has tufts of hair at the tips of his earsThis story was recorded in Volume 1, "Mythology and Legends", titled BOESMANSTORIES, written by Gideon Retief von Wielligh, first published in 1919. Von Wielligh collected about 60 stories from the Bushmen at the time which he published in four-volumes, between 1919 and 1921.00:00 Today's Story is ...00:25 The term "Bushman"00:47 Oral cultures quote00:59 About the author, GR von Wielligh01:50 Carol Botha - Bushman paintings background info02:40 Info on 2nd illustrator & narrator03:01 The Morning star is the heart of Dawn06:19 Good bye
African Starlore: The evening star is the eye of dusk Willie Koorts 2020-11-18 | Another video in the "Moments in the history of optical astronomy in South Africa" series.Today’s episode is again starlore, in particular a San/Bushman story, titled "The Evening Star is the eye of Dusk", telling how the eye of Dusk became the evening star, but also explains the habits of the porcupine and the sad call of Owl at night.This story was recorded in Volume 1, "Mythology and Legends", titled BOESMANSTORIES, written by Gideon Retief von Wielligh, first published in 1919. Von Wielligh collected about 60 stories from the Bushmen at the time which he published in four-volumes, between 1919 and 1921.00:00 Today's Story is ...00:24 The term "Bushman"00:46 Oral cultures quote00:58 About the author, GR von Wielligh01:49 Carol Botha - Bushman paintings background info02:39 Info on 2nd illustrator & narrator03:01 The Evening Star is the eye of Dusk07:40 Good bye
African Starlore: The Stars are Coals and Ash Willie Koorts 2020-11-09 | Another video in the "Moments in the history of optical astronomy in South Africa" series.Today’s episode is again starlore, in particular a San/Bushman story, titled "The Stars are Coals and Ash", telling how the stars were formed after Owl threw coals and ash into the sky, how owls are still punished for doing this, even today, and how this caused Evil to spread on Earth.This story was recorded in Volume 1, "Mythology and Legends", titled BOESMANSTORIES, written by Gideon Retief von Wielligh, first published in 1919. Von Wielligh collected about 60 stories from the Bushmen at the time which he published in four-volumes, between 1919 and 1921.00:00 Today's Story is ...00:30 The term "Bushman"00:53 Oral cultures quote01:05 About the author, GR von Wielligh01:55 Carol Botha - Bushman paintings background info02:44 Info on 2nd illustrator & narrator03:05 The Stars are Coals and Ash07:20 Good bye
