Report back on the Trip to Boyden Observatory

by Maureen Chitters

My teenage children share little of my interest in astronomy, but we all eagerly await the annual trip to Boyden. To look at, never mind through, the 60-inch is fascinating, and the library is a treat! As keen campers, we find the relative luxury of the accommodation available at the facility part of the attraction of this expedition. We plan what food, utensils, layers of clothing and selected friends to take with us well in advance. This year, however, the friends let us down, and so my children decided not to join me. I don’t miss Boyden (3 years now), so ended up travelling as Constant’s passenger, rather than taking another car. Constant is a very careful driver, and with nothing to worry about for the next two days, I relaxed as we chatted the whole way down. And so began an astonishing weekend…

The first astonishing thing was that there were very few takers for this trip. Johan van Niekerk with two friends (for Friday night only), and Rob, whose wife accompanied him for the trip but stayed in her room working, were the only other members from the Johannesburg Centre. Solly, an eager and capable assistant at living at Boyden, and Marty Hoffman welcomed us, and joined in stargazing on both nights, and a braai on the second night.

Astonishing too was the sky. It was dark and wonderfully clear on Friday. Marty opened the 60-inch telescope, which has had a new computer upgrade to make for easy finding. We looked at Omega Centauri, the Lagoon Nebula, the Swan Nebula and Centaurus A. Marty showed us the Metcalf(?) scope, but we didn’t use it.

Solly took us on a sky tour with the 13-inch. We looked at many of the same areas we had seen through the 60-inch and then again using the binoculars to get the full spectrum of views. On Rob’s advice for apprentice astronomers like me, we concentrated our sky tour to a small piece of the sky - mostly in the vicinity of Crux and Scorpuis.

On Saturday, (after a long bath, there being little bathroom competition!), Constant took me on an astonishing tour of Bloemfontein. We started at a very well-stocked but quaint, antiquarian-looking bookshop, and then did the tourist bit at the Woman’s Memorial and the Anglo Boer War Museum. After lunch we did and the Orchid House (and a brandy-and-coke with some friendly local braaiers in the park), and Naval Hill’s ex-observatory (now theatre) and nature reserve. We saw a couple of giraffe and two varieties of buck.

On Saturday night, there was a problem with the right ascension drive on the 60-inch, and we were unable to use it. However, using the 13-inch I experienced the most astonishing of all for me - looking at Venus, something I had never seen through a telescope before. Solly put it into tracking mode, and we gazed at it while we braaied. The moon-like crescent was wondrously bright (apparently it will be full again in mid September). To see that the bright star hanging so visibly in the low western sky was but a small illuminated piece was astounding. We made extensive use of David Levy’s Skywatching, and some ‘observing fluid’ (Old Brown’s).

Like Johannesburg, Bloemfontein’s weather was mild for July, with warm days. This made for an even more comfortable trip.

Thanks to Boyden for their hospitality.    It was a most extraordinary experience!