SALT, SAAO, SUTHERLAND, NORTHERN CAPE

tommaso fiscaletti December 18, 2017

'My first three years, I was working with other people as I was undergoing training. From there on, most of the time I was on my own. Sometimes for 14 hours in winter, just with a CD player, my night lunch and my coffee. Then it is up to you to make all the decisions. You have just got to make sure you stay awake and alert. Otherwise you can screw up big time. I did fall asleep, but the thing is, if you feel you are tired it is best to close the dome, switch everything off and sit and sleep. If you leave things on and you fall asleep then you are in trouble.’

Francois van Wyk, Night Assistant and service observer, South African Astronomical Observatory, Sutherland.

SALT (Southern African Large Telescope) at the South African Astronomical Observatory, just outside Sutherland in the Northern Cape. It is one of the largest optical telescopes in the world - so powerful and sensitive that it could spot a candle flame on the moon.

NIGHTSCREENING # 1, SUTHERLAND, NORTHERN CAPE

tommaso fiscaletti December 18, 2017

NICO SMIT, SCI-FI WRITER, CLANWILLIAM, WESTERN CAPE

tommaso fiscaletti December 18, 2017

‘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

MARWA'S CAVE, (FROM JAN RABIE'S "DIE HEMELBLOM" 1971), TRUITJIESKRAAL, CEDERBERG

tommaso fiscaletti December 18, 2017

'For real, that is not a shadow, but an upright being squeezed up against the edge. Kind of like a human form with two arms and legs, a narrow, oval face framed by a cap looking like a bare skull, clothed in a blue overall that they only had a glimpse of previously. Dead quiet. Francois lowers the torch, lifts it again. One thing is for sure: this being is just as afraid as they are.'

From Die Hemelblom (The Heavenly Flower) by Jan Rabie, 2nd edition 1974, Tafelberg, first published 1971. Translated from the original Afrikaans by Nic Grobler.

The first encounter with Marwa, the main alien character in Die Hemelblom takes place in a collapsed cave near the Cederberg - she takes hands with the humans as they search for the a way out together.

MANATOKA TREE # 2, SAAO, OBSERVATORY, CAPE TOWN

tommaso fiscaletti December 18, 2017

The inside area of the tree revealed that although there were numerous trunks, it seemed to be one organism, with the oldest, thickest trunk appearing to have fallen over many years ago - some of its branches entering into the ground and then growing up out of the ground again.

These trees are known for being salt, wind and fire resistant and are originally from Australia. They are popular in coastal gardens but are invading coastal fynbos, dunes and river valleys as well as being poisonous to mammals.

This ancient animal like tree can be found in a clearing adjacent to the South African Astronomical Observatory buildings - a site that was known, in the early years of the observatory as a place surrounded by marshes and covered in snakes.

'Only one spot seemed to meet all these requirements, a low hill a few miles out on the Flats from Devil's Peak which gloried the name of Slangkop, meaning "snakehill". The name was accurate, as several astronomers would later testify in unequivocal terms. Additionally it was almost devoid of soil, while being surrounded by extensive marshes, down to which a variety of wild animals would occasionally make their way. For years, in fact, there existed a body of folk-lore on the conduct of astonomy in the presence of various unsavoury beasts.'

From The Whisper & the Vision, Donald Fernie, 1976.

LIEZEL HOFMAN, LIVING LANDSCAPE PROJECT, CLANWILLIAM, WESTERN CAPE

tommaso fiscaletti December 18, 2017

“For me, my identity is basically the person I’m accepting myself to be and who I believe I am. I don’t think I would identify myself as Xhosa or Tswana, I don’t think I would identify myself as coloured either. My father is coloured and everything in my genes I believe is more connected to an African lifestyle - which includes the Xhosa and Tswana. But currently, I’m the person I believe I am - that is my culture.”

Liezel is employed from twelve years in the museum of the living landscape project, that conceived around the idea of the Cederberg landscape as a time machine, that visitors can ‘travel’ through using the wealth of archaeological material continually discovered on site: structural remains, plants, animals etc.. the legacy of the San, the old Inhabitants of the area. The project looks at the astrological mythology of San people.

PROF. IAN GLASS, ASTRONOMER, CEDERBERG ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATORY

tommaso fiscaletti December 18, 2017

‘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 studied 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.’

FRANCOIS VAN WYK, NIGHT ASSISTANT AND SERVICE OBSERVER, SUTHERLAND, NORTHERN CAPE

tommaso fiscaletti December 18, 2017

'Then you look at Saturn with the nice rings around it, it looks like a sombrero - that is just unbelievable. On the real astronomy side I’ve observed stars with are called roAp stars, it is short for Rapidly oscillating peculiar A stars. These are really peculiar. Those stars oscillate in a short time scale, like 8 minutes. What happens is the stars sort of blows up and gets bigger and fainter, then contracts and gets warmer. That is what you see. My first three years I was working with other people, as I was undergoing training. From there on most of the time I was on my own. Sometimes for 14 hours in winter, just with a CD player, my night lunch and my coffee. Then it is up to you to make all the decisions. You just got to make sure you stay awake and alert. Otherwise you can screw up big time. I did fall asleep, but the thing is, if you feel you are tired it is best to close the dome, switch everything off and sit and sleep. If you leave things on and you fall asleep then you are in trouble.’ - Francois van Wyk, Night Assistant and service observer, Sutherland.

FULL MOON # 1, CEDERBERG

tommaso fiscaletti December 18, 2017

ELISE FILIPPERS, SUTHERLAND, NORTHERN CAPE

tommaso fiscaletti December 18, 2017

Elise lives in Sutherland, home to the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) - the largest optical telescope in the Southern Hemisphere.

REVERSIBLE TRANSIT CIRCLE TELESCOPE # 1, SAAO OBSERVATORY, CAPE TOWN

tommaso fiscaletti December 18, 2017

KAROO FYNBOS, BETWEEN CALVINIA AND WILLISTON, NORTHERN CAPE

tommaso fiscaletti December 18, 2017

DIE HEMELBLOM # 1 (FROM "DIE HEMELBLOM" BY JAN RABIE, 1971), CARNARVON, NORTHERN CAPE

tommaso fiscaletti December 18, 2017

'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 Heavenly Flower) by Jan Rabie, 2nd edition 1974, Tafelberg, first published 1971. Translated from the original Afrikaans by Nic Grobler.

Photograph inspired by Die Hemelblom (The Heavenly Flower), an Afrikaans sci-fi novel by 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.

CHRIS FORDER, TELESCOPE BUILDER, CEDERBERG ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATORY

tommaso fiscaletti December 18, 2017

'Are we alone, I don’t know - the thing is we will probably never know. If we find a civilization that can signal to us, we’ve got to be able to signal to them. If they are a 100 light years away we are talking about a 100 years between every communication, and by then the other one may have died out or they may have not reached the communications technology or we may have blown ourselves up enough to have to start all over again. So we will probably not communicate with anyone out there - not in our lifetime. But there is probably someone. We are so proud that we call them aliens - we may be the aliens. Who knows.'

Chris Forder. Amateur Telescope builder.

PROJECTION SCREEN, CEDERBERG ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATORY, CEDERBERG

tommaso fiscaletti December 18, 2017

'We all sat down in this amphitheatre - everyone so excited. Waiting for it to start, and then every now and then a car would arrive in the parking lot and its lights would shine onto the screen and then everyone would freak out a bit. This guy gave a presentation, using like Hubble telescope photographs, each and every photo - incredibly impressive full multicoloured images. This all whilst telling us about the telescopes they themselves have built and that we will be able to see Jupiter with them after the presentation. When we eventually went to look through the telescopes - it was all monochrome tiny little things, no multicolored Hubble stuff. Anyway, it was so great though seeing these old guys, listening to Led Zeppelin, who go up there every two weeks, observing through the night. It’s their thing, it is like playing golf to them'

Dennis Williams, visitor to Cederberg Astronomical Observatory.

CEDERBERG ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATORY # 3, CEDERBERG

tommaso fiscaletti December 18, 2017

CEDERBERG ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATORY # 2, CEDERBERG

tommaso fiscaletti December 18, 2017

‘If you consider there are between 10 and 20 times as many galaxies outside ours as there are stars in our galaxy - and we have maybe 200 billion stars, so multiply that between 10 and 20 and that is the number of galaxies, and each of those may have 200 billion stars. So we are pretty insignificant. If you go and look at a piece of sand outside. That is how insignificant we are. We think we are important but we are not.’

Chris Forder, amateur telescope builder, Cederberg Astronomical Observatory partner.

CEDERBERG ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATORY # 1, CEDERBERG

tommaso fiscaletti December 18, 2017

‘Are we alone, I don’t know - the thing is, we will probably never know. If we find a civilization that can signal to us we’ve got to be able to signal to them. If they are a 100 light years away we are talking about a 100 years between every communication, and by then the other one may have died out or they may have not reached the communications technology or we may have blown ourselves up enough to have to start all over again. So we will probably not communicate with anyone out there - not in our lifetime. But there is probably someone. We are so proud that we call them aliens - we may be the aliens. Who knows.’

Chris Forder, amateur telescope builder, Cederberg Astronomical Observatory partner.

BLACK ROCKS, CLOSE TO CALVINIA AND AT LIVING LANDSCAPE PROJECT CLANWILLIAM NORTHERN CAPE

nic@nic.co.za December 18, 2017

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.

BLACK ROCKS # 3, BETWEEN CALVINIA AND WILLISTON, NORTHERN CAPE

tommaso fiscaletti December 18, 2017