LOELOERAAI, HARRIE THE ELEPHANT, NEELSIE AND JAKHALS ON COVER, 17TH EDITION, CJ LANGENHOVEN

nic@nic.co.za February 10, 2018

'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.

LOELOERAAI, 4TH EDITION, 1929, CJ LANGENHOVEN

nic@nic.co.za February 10, 2018

Loeloeraai written in 1923 is a novel about a visitor from Venus, he spends most of his time with a family in Oudtshoorn.

'Loer' means to peek. 'Raai' means to guess.

The book is dedicated to the writers dog Jakhals.

In the book he describes his feeling in the presence of the alien as one that he might guess how a dog feels in the presence of a human.

THEO FERREIRA, PLANETARIUM MANAGER, CAPE TOWN

nic@nic.co.za February 10, 2018

‘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.’

IAN GLASS, CEDERBERG ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATORY, CEDERBERG, WESTERN CAPE

nic@nic.co.za February 10, 2018

‘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.’

MeerKAT, SKA site, CARNARVON, NORTHERN CAPE

tommaso fiscaletti January 25, 2018

'We saw it from far away, the dish - we saw it going up and then turning. Turning all around. It doesn't move fast - just slowly all around. It is very beautiful to see it happening.' - Abie Makok, Church Warder, United Reformed Church, Carnarvon, Northern Cape.

SANSA, SA NATIONAL SPACE AGENCY, HERMANUS, CAPE TOWN

nic@nic.co.za January 7, 2018

KNERSVLAKTE (GNASHING PLAIN), WESTERN CAPE

nic@nic.co.za January 7, 2018

PULPIT, UNITED REFORMED CHURCH, CARNARVON, NORTHERN CAPE

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‘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

CEDERFLOWER, CEDERBERG, WESTERN CAPE

nic@nic.co.za December 26, 2017

MARWA'S CAVE, CEDERBERG, WESTERN CAPE

nic@nic.co.za December 26, 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 hold hands with the humans to make it out alive.

SANSA, SA NATIONAL SPACE AGENCY # 7, HERMANUS, CAPE TOWN

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SANSA, SA NATIONAL SPACE AGENCY # 6, HERMANUS, CAPE TOWN

tommaso fiscaletti December 21, 2017

SANSA, SA NATIONAL SPACE AGENCY # 5, HERMANUS, CAPE TOWN

tommaso fiscaletti December 21, 2017

DANIE GOUWS # 2, (HELMHOLTZ COIL CALIBRATION SYSTEM), SANSA, HERMANUS

tommaso fiscaletti December 21, 2017

‘We’ve also built a coil like this under water before, where the field is changed to be like it would be in Northern America - then they can see changes in the sharks behaviour, so most definitely animals use magnetic fields for navigation. We’ve imported hundreds of these specific sensors, and we sell them to Denel, and they place them on some system that flies towards a target and goes kaboom at the end.

Danie Gouws, SANSA

DANIE GOUWS # 1, (HELMHOLTZ COIL CALIBRATION SYSTEM), SANSA, HERMANUS, CAPE TOWN

tommaso fiscaletti December 21, 2017

Danie Gouws, SANSA

TEBOHO NXELE, SPACE WEATHER ASSISTANT, SANSA, HERMANUS, CAPE TOWN

tommaso fiscaletti December 21, 2017

SIVUYILE MANXOYI, SAAO, OBSERVATORY, CAPE TOWN

nic@nic.co.za December 20, 2017

‘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