Photoelectric Photometry Newsletter

Six Weeks in Kiwi-Land

University of Canterbury had begun as a small campus in the centre of the city. About 30 years ago, the university needed to expand. A new campus was built amidst pleasant parkland, about two km from the city centre. The city wisely preserved the architecturally striking buildings of the old campus; they are now a thriving Arts Centre, with theatre, concert hall, and crafts studios. They also include the old observatory with a 6" refractor, which is used for public nights by the university department of physics and astronomy. About the same time, the small astronomy group began to develop an observatory at a spectacular site at Mount John, overlooking Lake Tekapo. The observatory has a 1m telescope, very well instrumented for spectroscopy, and smaller telescopes instrumented for imaging and photometry. The greatest asset of the observatory is the two resident observers Alan Gilmore and Pam Kilmartin, who (along with the faculty and graduate students) are able to pursue long-term observational programs in stellar astronomy --- especially studies of long-period variable stars such as R CrB's, RV Tau's, Cepheids, and small-amplitude red variables. The week I arrived in Christchurch, the president of the university took the visionary step to pledge up to $2,000,000 to join the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) project --- the largest telescope project in the southern hemisphere, and a clone of the Hobby-Eberly telescope in Texas. Quite remarkable for a university with about four permanent astronomers! The astronomy group is now being expanded into theoretical and observational cosmology, in anticipation of the benefits which SALT will provide. All of this is a tribute to astronomer Peter Cottrell, the head of the physics and astronomy department, and my host during my visit.

Another notable feature of New Zealand is that astronomy is compulsory at every level of the school science curriculum. As in most places, the teachers do not receive much support; curriculum support materials had been promised, but were long overdue, and teachers had little time for professional development. But I was able to do one-day workshops in three places across the country, and got appreciative audiences of 30-50 teachers for each one. Somewhere down my priority list is to prepare an article for the New Zealand Science Teachers' Journal, summarizing my impressions, and offering my advice.

There are two public observatories (each with a planetarium) in the country: the Carter Observatory in Wellington, the capital, and the Auckland Observatory, in Auckland, the largest city. Both these facilities cater to the public and to schools; of the two, Auckland was the most dynamic and entrepreneurial. New Zealanders, like Canadians, are gradually being weaned off government funding, and into the private fundraising mode. Some are succeeding better than others.

The other notable feature of New Zealand is the vitality of the amateur astronomy community. My impression is that New Zealanders are more inclined to participate in things, rather than just to watch. So community arts, and sports, were similarly thriving. Amateur astronomy has a long history in New Zealand. Frank Bateson, an amateur, was largely responsible for encouraging astronomy in the country, and building up the Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand --- still the only national astronomical society. Albert Jones is by far the most prolific visual observer of variable stars anywhere, with over 500,000 measurements (over twice as many as the second-place observer). A younger generation of amateur astronomers is active in projects such as Joe Patterson's ``Center for Backyard Astrophysics" --- a multi-longitude network of small telescopes used for photometry of cataclysmic variables. They are also becoming more active in public education, and in supporting astronomy in the schools.

I gave talks on "Pulsating Red Giants" at the three universities with active astronomy groups --- University of Canterbury, Victoria University in Wellington, and Auckland University. I also gave a less technical version of this talk at Canterbury Astronomical Society, Auckland Astronomical Society, and at the Winter Star Party organized by the Phoenix Astronomical Society. Among other things, I outlined how the AAVSO's visual and photoelectric observations of pulsating red giants helped us to understand their structure and evolution.

Astronomy has a long and rich heritage in New Zealand, starting with the astronavigation skills of the Maori who arrived about 1000 AD, and continuing with the arrival of astronomer-explorer James Cook who arrived about 1770. New Zealand is now in the forefront of astronomical research and education --- not bad for a country with about the same population as Toronto!