‘What makes this system so powerful is that you can leave the earth - you are not stuck on the earth anymore. Traditional planetarium shows are stuck on the earth looking up at the night sky, now we can fly away from the earth and travel through the universe, moving out into space - right back to the beginning. We don’t actually have data sets that go that far back, but be can get really close, looking at some of the galaxies billions of light years away from us and, of course, when you are looking at those galaxies you are looking back in time - into the past. This is strange because we are looking at objects develop, seeing them as they were a very long time ago.’
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IAN GLASS, CEDERBERG ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATORY, CEDERBERG, WESTERN CAPE
‘I enjoyed the scientific work, especially solving problems and understanding the physics of the stars, so doing something like this is a kind of motivation for other people to become interested in astronomy and until you study physics and astronomy, you don’t really know what is going on in the stars and you don’t see what professional astronomers are interested in. There are many things happening in our own galaxy and in our own solar system and of course with the space age we know a lot more now about planets and asteroids and many things. So even quite nearby objects turned out to be more interesting than people realised in the past. I studied the heat radiation from stars, with infra-red light. Usually stars that are forming or stars that are dying have a lot of dust around them and this shows up very strongly in the infra-red, so I studied basically variable stars that show up brightly in the infra-red and I studied certain types of galaxies which have active centers, the nuclei we call them - and quasars. So you think of stars, but dust and gas are also very important parts of the galaxies in the sky.’
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PULPIT, UNITED REFORMED CHURCH, CARNARVON, NORTHERN CAPE
‘Some people have this strange notion that there is a clash between religion and science. Especially when they come to a poor congregation, where the majority are poor people, they will think that they are perhaps creationist type of people - who reject science per se. That is not even close to the truth. In fact, I think we love science, we love to know more. We may have a certain interpretation of the wonders of creation, we believe in a creator, we believe that God not only created everything but that we are part of that creation and we want to really dispel the notion of science versus religion as always clashing. The Bible was never written with the intention of writing up a science handbook.’
‘Some people have this strange notion that there is a clash between religion and science. Especially when they come to a poor congregation, where the majority are poor people, they will think that they are perhaps creationist type of people - who reject science per se. That is not even close to the truth. In fact, I think we love science, we love to know more. We may have a certain interpretation of the wonders of creation, we believe in a creator, we believe that God not only created everything but that we are part of that creation and we want to really dispel the notion of science versus religion as always clashing. The Bible was never written with the intention of writing up a science handbook.’
Dr. Isak Potgieter, Pastor, United Reformed Church, Carnarvon
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SIVUYILE MANXOYI, SAAO, OBSERVATORY, CAPE TOWN
‘So I think it can form a basis for humanity, the world, to say that we all have a relationship with the stars and we have used stars for different purposes. If we start sharing those experiences, those practices, those stories - it is one way in which we can unite our people.’
Sivuyile Manxoyi, South African Astronomical Observatory, SALT Collateral Benefits Programme
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NEW PETROL STATION, CARNARVON, NORTHERN CAPE
The lights are left on through the night at this new petrol station building site - mainly for safety. The manager of the building project, who also slept on site, was eager to show visitors around - clearly dedicated to building a place that everyone can be proud of. He also explained that the station will be named after the owner's daughter, who, as she grew up, really took a liking to the energy of the people working at stations of this kind.
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DIE HEMELBLOM # 2 (FROM "DIE HEMELBLOM" BY JAN RABIE, 1971), CARNARVON, NORTHERN CAPE
'Only in the morning, when the daylight crossed over the highland rocks and fynbos, they saw how strange and otherworldly the hemelblom was. The seeds that fell the previous afternoon shot up incredibly fast, each on a lump of roots that didn't enter the ground, but just gripped the ground from above. In one single night each plant became fully grown and was spreading seeds so that new plants would shoot up. In one night the hemelblomme multiplied a hundredfold. For now it was just strange. Only later it would become frightening.'
From Die Hemelblom (The Heaven Flower) by Jan Rabie, 2nd edition 1974, Tafelberg, first published 1971. Translated from the original Afrikaans by Nic Grobler.
Photographed inspired by Die Hemelblom, Jan Rabie. The Hemelblom was sent to the earth by a concerned galactic council to ensure the survival of life on earth in the face of a new world war. The plant was specifically grown to remove the poisonous elements introduced by humans - feeding on pollution it would rapidly cover the earth and wipe out most of humankind but leave a new earth covered with fresh fertile soil.
REVERSIBLE TRANSIT CIRCLE TELESCOPE # 3, SAAO OBSERVATORY, CAPE TOWN
This building houses the Gill Reversible Transit Circle, built in 1905 to measure the position of stars as they pass the north-south meridian and to check the accuracy of clocks. It was also used to contribute to the Catalogue of Fundamental Stars (Fundamental Katalog FK4), and was in use until around 1980 - after which the use of space satellites became the norm in the 1990s. The building is in need of repair and apparently one of its chimneys is housing a bee hive.
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ANNA SKIPPERS, SUTHERLAND, NORTHERN CAPE
Anna lives in Sutherland, close to the largest single optical telescope in the Southern Hemisphere.
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NICO SMIT, SCI-FI WRITER, CLANWILLIAM, WESTERN CAPE
‘The half blood is not accepted by anyone, he is not ethnic enough for his own group and not good enough for the group he is descended from. So both groups reject him, but he posesses the skills and knowledge of both groups - the strong characteristics of both groups is combined within him. Even though he is initially rejected by the modern group and the historical native group, at the end of the day he unites them - he is the glue that keeps them together. He is the connection or the missing link between them and the two groups then fight together against what you can call the evil side - the bad guys in the story. With him as the leader figure. In the beginning the natives from the planet Kazdan, the Hunters didn't trust the Neanites who were technologically advanced - almost seen as gods. Like it was in the past when the white man landed in the Cape - everybody thought it was amazing and at the end of the day it wasn't that amazing and there is a golden middle groud to be followed and somebody has to take the lead - that is the half blood that brings the groups together. That is the initiating concept of my sci-fi story.’
Nico Smit, Sci-Fi Writer, Clanwilliam
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SKAAP, CARNARVON, NORTHERN CAPE
TRUITJIESKRAAL CAVES # 4, CEDERBERG
OFENTSE LETEBELE, IZIKO PLANETARIUM PRESENTER, CAPE TOWN
Ofentse Letebele is part of the team working to translate some of the old Planetarium shows to the new Digital Dome system.
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JAKHALS (LANGENHOVEN'S DOG), KLAARSTROOM, WESTERN CAPE (From Loeloeraai, by CJ Langenhoven, 1923)
'To whom shall I dedicate this book? It is about a being who is not human, who is higher than man - an unattainable superior.
I think I will go to the opposite - and then I will not have to look very far. I lost a friend a long time ago - a friend that I loved and who loved me. I will never see him again forever; but forever I will never forget him. Now, after all these years, there is not a day that passes without his image coming before me and I'm grieving about him. To him I was the higher being - a Loeloeraai of a higher existence. To me he was the ultimate perfection I found on earth, of love and faithfulness and virtue. And I lost him, and I miss him dearly. . .
I dedicate this work:
To the memory of
MY FRIEND AND DOG, JAKHALS’
From the dedication of Loeloeraai, CJ Langenhoven, 4th Edition 1929, First published 1923. Translated from original Afrikaans by Nic Grobler.
Photograph inspired by Loeloeraai, CJ Langenhoven. Loeloeraai is a visitor from Venus, who spends about two weeks with a family in Oudtshoorn. They end up going on a small trip to the moon before Loeloeraai returns to Venus.
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LUZUKO DALASILE, IZIKO PLANETARIUM PRESENTER, CAPE TOWN
'I’ve learned a a lot about stars by coming here. I knew enough stars before so that I could point out a few, but here I got to learn more about them - about stars, what they are, what they are made of and so on. How they come about and into being. Before we were just learning names and constellations but here we were going deeper into it. Usually I just looked at them - without any understanding. Just you know, like if you looking at a tree that is standing there, you know that it is a tree, it is just there, it is a tree, you don’t really know what it does or anything. So I’ve got to learn more about stars, who they do and what their significance are in our lives and in the lives of everything around us. I understood that things were big you know - like the earth has got to be big, and South Africa has to be big - but without understanding that there were even bigger things out there. You know when you look at the sun, from a distance, like when it is on the horizon before it sets. You are not exactly sure where it is and how it relates to you and your life - you just know it is something that is out there. You are so far away from it, you don’t actually know that is very big. You could fit like a million earths into the sun - that is how big it is. It is hard to grasp. You know you are part of this world, but the universe can feel like something else - far from you. Even at night, you are thinking: there is the universe and here am I. But all in all you are part of the universe, you know, the universe is you, the universe is me, the universe is around - the space we are living in is the universe. This is not just earth and your life and then the universe is over there - you are in the universe. So in terms of understanding the whole universe like that. Ja… ja… a very very big place you know - really no one can understand how big it is, like fully understand. You can talk numbers, like 13,7 billion light years - what is that? You don’t know, but it’s big, something very big.’
This is a transition area between Planetarium entrance and the Planetarium dome - An area where the viewers eyes are given some time to adjust to the darkness that they will be in when inside the dome.
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WANDA DIAZ-MERCED, ASTRONOMER, SAAO, OBSERVATORY, CAPE TOWN
'Do you want to hear it? It is nothing spectacular. But you’ll get an idea of what happens during the eclipse. Maximum brightness, first contact, second contact… getting close to totality - It doesn’t go completely silent because you will always have some light. We were able to get our sensor to be sensitive enough to detect luminosity. My friends at the University of Harvard were able to achieve minus 1 lux of sensitivity, that means it is a little bit more sensitive than the human eye.'
Wanda was a post doctoral fellow at the South African Astronomical Observatory in Cape Town and currently works with the Office of Astronomy for Development(OAD) where she has led the OAD project AstroSense since April 2014. She helped develop sonification methods that allow us to listen to the stars. Her research in this field started after losing her sight as an undergraduate at the University of Puerto Rico.
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BLACK ROCKS # 1, BETWEEN CALVINIA AND WILLISTON, NORTHERN CAPE
These rocks contain a high percentage of iron and their dark appearance forms a truly ancient landscape. The rocks make a metal sound when played; they are referred to with different names such as ‘rock gongs’, ‘ringing rocks’ or even ‘bushman pianos’. Found in various areas around the world and Africa, tradition formed around communicating with the help of the rocks - evident by the ancient drumming marks often found on them.
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TEMBA MATOMELA, EDUCATOR, PLANETARIUM OUTREACH OFFICER, EXPERT OF INDIGENOUS ASTRONOMY
'Meteorites or shooting stars are regarded in the Xhosa speaking community as a bad luck omen. This is because it is believed that when somebody dies they become an ancestor and the spirit of that dead person is wandering among the stars guarding us from the evil spirits. So if, perhaps, one dies as a bad person then that person would be a bad spirit or ancestor and up in the celestial sphere the good ancestors would kick out the bad ancestors - so when you see a meteor coming down you are actually seeing one of those bad ancestors being kicked out of the celestial sphere and it falls down. When you see this we say ‘let the bad luck pass us for we are not the only one who saw that’ - meaning that we associate that with bad spirit.'
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REST STOP ON R27, NORTHERN CAPE
The R27 road passes through exceptionally desolate areas and is one of the main routes from Cape Town towards the SKA project site. Here, the first phase of the largest radio telescope in the world is planned for completion in around 2024.
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NICO SMIT, SCI-FI WRITER, CLANWILLIAM, WESTERN CAPE
‘The half blood is not accepted by anyone, he is not ethnic enough for his own group and not good enough for the group he is descended from. So both groups reject him, but he posesses the skills and knowledge of both groups - the strong characteristics of both groups is combined within him. Even though he is initially rejected by the modern group and the historical native group, at the end of the day he unites them - he is the glue that keeps them together. He is the connection or the missing link between them and the two groups then fight together against what you can call the evil side - the bad guys in the story. With him as the leader figure. In the beginning the natives from the planet Kazdan, the Hunters didn't trust the Neanites who were technologically advanced - almost seen as gods. Like it was in the past when the white man landed in the Cape - everybody thought it was amazing and at the end of the day it wasn't that amazing and there is a golden middle groud to be followed and somebody has to take the lead - that is the half blood that brings the groups together. That is the initiating concept of my sci-fi story.’
Nico Smit, Sci-Fi Writer, Clanwilliam
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