So the Seriously Cool Toys have arrived: a Nikon D3S, a Hasselblad H4D-40 & a bunch of Byoootiful pieces of glass to stick on the front of each! That makes for one VERY happy brother, not to mention an incredibly proud sister, revelling - as usual - in the glow of said brother's sublime toy prowess & overall awesomeness :)
The obvious place to go to give the new kids a good run-around? That magic spot in the Karoo that's been the source of so much trouble for me over the last 18 years: the Sutherland field station of the South African Astronomical Observatory. In fact, it was upon this very hill that we decided (about 7 years ago) that Kev ought to make a living doing photography... As always - be careful what you wish for ;)
Besides a dramatic afternoon thunderstorm, a pretty sunset & an encounter with a magnificent martial eagle on our way up from the town, we had a huge amount of fun photographing this incredible rock! It seems to have burst open after falling off the back of a spaceship, or perhaps it was cracked open by a grumpy troll? However it got to be down there, over the eastern side of the plateau, it's just a fascinating subject!
The modern, technological equivalent is SALT - the 11-metre Southern African Large Telescope. A delightful beast in its own right, even if it's been hell to nurse through kindergarten... Years of effort by a number of extraordinary people have gone into getting every sub-system ready - may the data soon flow!
The next biggest telescope on the continent is our 1.9-metre, equatorially-mounted battleship, affectionately known as the 74-inch, or the Radcliffe Reflector (for those that take this stuff too seriously). Even tarted up in bright orange, at the age of 72, she still exudes mechanical elegance & unmitigated charm.
There probably aren't too many places of work that one would happily drive 4 hours to get to on a weekend...
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