Astronomers gathered in Johannesburg on May 10th 2003 from as far afield as Durban and Dundee, in KZN, to attend the annual Scopex telescope and Astronomy day, organised again by the Johannesburg center of ASSA at the Military History Museum, next to the zoo. Coincidentally this day had been selected as the international Astronomy Day. Various branches of ASSA elected to hold functions open to the public on this day.
Bigger and better than last year, it was a huge success and thoroughly enlightened and educated all who attended. Around 1000 visitors enjoyed seeing some 40 (mainly) home-made telescopes with a vast display of commercial binoculars and telescopes of all designs, makes and sizes. Some excellent talks were presented in the auditorium, but more of this elsewhere.
Members of the Pretoria center once again joined in and had a very active section that attracted a lot of interest. With various superb telescopes, a webcam, a CCD camera , and other gadgets, they certainly earned the interest of young and old.
This year prizes were awarded to some of the telescope makers who had produced something excellent, novel or noteworthy. However the judges had a difficult time choosing between the exhibits and agreed that many of the telescopes that did not win an award, were also very good. Two telescopes showing outstanding workmanship were those belonging to Jan Schut and Peter Baxter, the one a mechanical masterpiece and the other a beautiful wooden piece of art.
There was also lots of fun to be had for kids of all ages with all sorts of scientific toys being demonstrated by Experilab, including a number of rocket launches during the day. While none were seen to actually go into orbit, the heights reached by these little rockets were very impressive.
Exclusive books once again provided a book store, with double the amount of books that they had last year and enjoyed a brisk trade. The Johannesburg planetarium also ran a table with lots of the interesting goodies that they stock, always of interest to the amateur astronomers.
The Alberton radio hams set up a station and demonstrated the tricks involved in making contact with like-minded fanatics all over the world. Alongside their stand, a couple of the telescope-making enthusiasts set up a mirror grinding demonstration that seems to have attracted some 15 new members to the society’s telescope making classes.
In the evening, thanks to wonderful clear skies organised by the weather man, it was possible to turn the telescopes to the heavens and show the visitors some of the interesting objects around. Saturn was a wow! , the moons of Jupiter were interesting to watch, and the usual beautiful splendours of the southern skies had numerous people captivated. Tim Cooper’s 16-inch dob had an enormous queue all night long, but then so too did some of the other telescopes.
Lerika Cross, secretary at the Jhb center, did most of the organizing and deserves a gold medal for arranging such a successful day, enjoyed by so many. Other members with their families and friends assisted in running the show, including Gill Stewart and Dave Gordon.
Brian Fraser