Uploaded July 2020 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
Another video on the “Moments in the history of Optical Astronomy in South Africa”. In 2020 where we celebrate the 200th anniversary of Astronomy in South Africa. This episode features an edited version of a video I made back in 1996 of a typical trip to Sutherland.
Being a technician, this may be a bit technically biased, but I did include all sorts of things, going around site, seeing what the hostel kitchen, lounge, and even the hostel rooms looked like back then. Even the spring-buck on site were giving us quite a nice show when I made this video.
Also highlighted in here will be the daily and weekly tasks all around the site. And I’ll show you what the primitive internet looked like back then.
At the time there were about a dozen people resident on site, and everybody was an amazingly tight knit family. You will also see that it was an amazingly well oiled machine. We were still in the aftermath of Supernova 1987A, where we did these changes very very regularly, sometimes weekly.
While editing the bit about how we did a “top change” on the big telescope, I realised that none of the present technical team, has ever even seen this done, never mind doing it themselves. In fact, only two people still employed at SAAO, has been involved in this change. We both feature in this video, and this is myself and Piet Fourie.
Videos referenced here:
youtu.be/CnIIyFXc2kg Royal Observatory, Cape Town & Sutherland in the 1970s
youtu.be/F5R2X4mfzpY Freddie Marang - celebrating 40 years service at SAAO
youtu.be/BKU32cTe75o Cape Town's Oldest Living Tradition v.s. SA's oldest Timekeeper
Another video on the “Moments in the history of Optical Astronomy in South Africa”. In 2020 where we celebrate the 200th anniversary of Astronomy in South Africa. This episode features an edited version of a video I made back in 1996 of a typical trip to Sutherland.
Being a technician, this may be a bit technically biased, but I did include all sorts of things, going around site, seeing what the hostel kitchen, lounge, and even the hostel rooms looked like back then. Even the spring-buck on site were giving us quite a nice show when I made this video.
Also highlighted in here will be the daily and weekly tasks all around the site. And I’ll show you what the primitive internet looked like back then.
At the time there were about a dozen people resident on site, and everybody was an amazingly tight knit family. You will also see that it was an amazingly well oiled machine. We were still in the aftermath of Supernova 1987A, where we did these changes very very regularly, sometimes weekly.
While editing the bit about how we did a “top change” on the big telescope, I realised that none of the present technical team, has ever even seen this done, never mind doing it themselves. In fact, only two people still employed at SAAO, has been involved in this change. We both feature in this video, and this is myself and Piet Fourie.
Videos referenced here:
youtu.be/CnIIyFXc2kg Royal Observatory, Cape Town & Sutherland in the 1970s
youtu.be/F5R2X4mfzpY Freddie Marang - celebrating 40 years service at SAAO
youtu.be/BKU32cTe75o Cape Town's Oldest Living Tradition v.s. SA's oldest Timekeeper
