3/28 Good bye Wellington - Hello Nelson - I met Albert Jones for the first
time...
Special thanks to Albert and Carolyn for perfecting this page, all remaining
errors are mine entirely. ".. finished before the stars
came out.." wrote Albert.
I arrived shortly after 9:30am. Albert Jones was already waiting at the
Boutique Motel - with jacket, shorts and a pair of sport shoes. He d
id not look his age. He looked much younger. Even though this was my first time meeting him we had spoken over the
phone and exchanged a few e-mails. When we met it was as if we had known each other for years. I put down my luggage and we headed
towards his house.
We went home and waited for the clouds to clear to do some star gazing. I had my first
Southern sky Iridium Flare from IR#84 low ( 18 degrees) in the SW. Keen-eye Albert spotted the 'intruder ' first. Having observed several variable stars in that part of sky - he knew the sky like the back of his hand
and had no problem identifying the new comer to the sky. For me I am not at all familiar with the constellation of Pavo - the Southern peacock. That night I also observed how he carried out his variable star work. Light pollution is getting worse according to Albert.
His wife works as Secretary at a local college during day time so Albert had
the whole day doing his star list compilation, checking the internet etc.
He had a little shed built specially for his hobby. The sliding glass door opened into a computer table , open boxes
housed neatly stacked contain his observations records, corresponde
nce, everything were within
easy reach. I looked around and at the back wall was his bookshelf
filled with books , catalogues, spotted a few written in Russian. I
asked to borrow his Norton Atlas to check out Pavo for the next night
Iridium Flare. I thought my Norton Atlas was old - 1978. I opened his Norton's with its well worn cloth jacket. He told me his was 1950 edition. I was MINUS 8 years old then !!! Despite our vast age difference - we both agreed the latest edition of Norton's weakest point lay in the binding. The pages do not lie flat on the table.
In the evening Carolyn came back and we had our dinner in a nearby restaurant. I was introduced to two dear friends of theirs - Cliff and Norma Scholefield. Back at Albert's home that night we had a little chat - I gave them my first-hand account of the missed Mir descent and shared with them my other travel tales. It was then I remembered and
ask them whether they will support the eating of kiwis to keep kiwis survive. Obviously none agreed to eat the national symbol of NZ - Kiwi. ( at least kangaroo had more 'meat' than a bird)
3/29 Cliff and Norma reappeared around 10:30am. Together four of us had a spin in Nelson town. They
drove me up the nearby hill top, around Nelson harbor and we also visited the Lord Rutherford ( Nobel Prize winner)
Memorial. Never knew this great physicist was born at the nearby town of Brightwater. That night Albert and his wife Carolyn all three of us had dinner at a restaurant called "The Honest Lawyer" ( all lawyers are NOT honest). In
the western horizon Jupiter, Saturn and Aldebaran hang low. Fiji for a moment seemed so far from here.
Looking at the night sky I can say Fijian sky was better but it was much drier here. That night the neighbor's security light blinded us. I tried to help
by using my shadow to block the bright light. Albert gave up and politely phoned the
neighbor. In a few minutes the light was off. He scanned the
sky stopping at variable stars picked from the 'big' list he developed during the day time or (years). Apart from two comets he discovered over a span of 54 years and also being the oldest person to have found a comet, - he
was also one of the first to have visually seen the great outburst of Supernova 1987A in the
L M C in 1987. His portable 12.5"
Newtonian allowed him to point to any part of the sky. Tracking was unnecessary for variable work so the mounting has no drive
motor, and no setting circles - star
fields are located by star-hopping from nearby bright stars. The scope was
placed a few feet away from a little shed adjoining the garage so he can walk back and record the star name, the
time and
magnitude estimation by pencil in an A4 log-book . I
reckon he spent less than a minute on each star he observed. Later he
showed me a couple of the stars and Omega Centauri, M42, some
doubles, a nova in Puppis (south of Canis Major) and a red color variable star. Imagine doing these over the years - I have seen published visual light curves of variable
stars done by him in similar fashion that spanned over tens of years ! In
fact my copy of the Astronomical Discovery carried a photograph of him next to the very same Newtonian. During the day he will
entered all the observations into a database program ( written in Foxpro). Later that night, Ashley Marles came and shared with us his photos of the Southern Lights. We observed for a little while. Then I walked back
to my motel in the crisp cool night air.
Looking back all these two weeks - indeed many events had happened.. I have met quite a number of interesting and nice people, my
'..reminiscing visit' to Wellington, Palmerston North as termed by the a fellow Singaporean (!) in the Visitor Center at a corner of Palmerston North's Square - a little sadden by what I saw. Despite missing a 200 secs Mir sighting and the loss of a digital camera , the experiences of this trip will be with me for a long while. When I think about NZ - I still envisioned Palmerston North and Wellington in the 1970s scene, the March
2001 visit did not in any way wipe out my old memories of the places I
once lived. Instead new chapters were added to the memory.
3/30 Home coming - Nelson - Auckland - Singapore