Recommended
More Related Content
What's hot
What's hot (20)
Similar to Jack Bennett Centenary
Similar to Jack Bennett Centenary (20)
Recently uploaded
Recently uploaded (20)
Jack Bennett Centenary
- 1. The Centenary of the birth of Jack Bennett Born Estcourt Natal 6th April 1914 Died Pretoria 30th May 1990
- 2. Meeting Jack
- 3. Meeting Jack
- 4. One of his Telescopes • Ordered a 3" refractor from Japan in 1960 • Celestron
- 5. Jack and Patrick Moore
- 6. Supernova Discovery • July 16th 1968, while searching for comets he discovered a supernova in M83 in the constellation Hydra - which will be close to the zenith tonight at midnight. • No-one else alive at the time had ever visually discovered a supernova. The last such feat was achieved in 1885.
- 7. Comet Observations • Jack turned attention to comet searches averaging 100 hours a year behind the eyepiece • Catalogued comet-like objects
- 8. The Jack Bennett Catalogue
- 9. Jack’s 1st Comet • Comet Bennett 1970 II – formally named C/1969 Y1 • 28 December 1969 at magnitude 8.5 just 15 minutes after he had started his comet sweep in constellation Tucana (the other side of the SCP from Crux). • The comet passed closest to Earth on 26 March 1970. At that time the average brightness was around magnitude 0 !!!
- 10. His 1st Comet
- 11. Jack’s 1st Comet • After witnessing the splendour of Comet Bennett in 1970, Australia’s William (Bill) Bradfield – who discovered 17 comets - started comet hunting. • Rob Mcnaught’s first comet observation was of Comet Bennett on 4th April 1970. He went on to discover 50 comets.
- 12. Jack’s 2nd Comet • Comet Bennett 1970 II – formally named C/1974 V2 • In November 1974 Jack found a comet in Hydra in the morning sky, which was named Bennett 1974 XV. • In 1964 and 1965 he also found comets but did not report them. If he had, they too would have been named after him.
- 13. Pickering Nova Award • AAVSO recognised Jack’s discovery of his supernova by awarding him the Pickering Nova Award in 1976. • Travelled to USA to collect his award and met Brian Marsden at the Sky and Telescope offices Article Sky & Telescope June 1991
- 14. President of ASSA • 1969 - before he had discovered his first comet - he was elected as President of the association. • Director of the Meteor and Comet section - a position which he held until 1985.
- 15. Merlin Medal - 1971 • The Comet Section of the British Astronomical Association honoured him with the Merlin Medal for his two comet discoveries. He went to England to be presented with the award.
- 16. Gill Medal
- 18. Asteroid VD 4093 • In 1989 the asteroid VD 4093 was named after Jack at the recommendation of its dicoverer Rob McNaught in Australia. It is thus called 4093 Bennett.
- 19. The Age of Satellites • Superpower race into space • CSIR and Roy Smith and Moonwatch Program
- 20. Moonwatch
- 21. Jack Bennett and Moonwatch • 27th June 1957 • Moonwatch site moved from Radcliffe to Jack’s house
- 22. Moonwatch
- 23. Book Jacket
- 24. Jack Bennet Street • A street near to the old Radcliffe Observatory was named after Jack
- 25. • What do you need to be a famous comet hunter?
Editor's Notes
- We need to take a look at what Jack did to bring him the fame that he preferred rather to shy away from, but look at the rewards and acknowledgements that came his way.
- I met Michael Poll for the first time when he was giving a talk to the club somewhere around the end of 1985. In those days, meetings were held at UNISA mainly because a club member Jan Wolterbeek lectured there. It was in that talk that I heard the pronunciation of the star Betelguese for the first time. Having just become very interested in astronomy, I had read about this star and had no idea how to pronounce it. Michael’s pronunciation amused me, because having once owned a Volkswagen Beetle, this star name sounded like the petrol that went into its tank! The club chairman at that time was Jack Bennett. He was in his early 70’s. At the next AGM I was nominated as secretary and perhaps Michael Poll too was elected onto the committee. There were 2 keen youngsters in the club then, one a very shy 18 year old Mauritz Geyser whose enthusiasm managed to override his shyness and a similarly aged Frikkie le Roux who is still a member and attends a few meetings here each year.
- I soon learned that the club had a 12” telescope in the CBC grounds but it was obviously not being used. In those months before being elected to the committee, I had discovered that Jack had the key the observatory which I fetched from his house. The inside of the observatory was dust and cobwebs and with the help of some friends we cleaned it from the outside of the dome, the inside of the dome, polished the tiled floor and finally uncovered and cleaned the telescope. This had been my introduction to Jack. Very soon the new committee arranged to hold the monthly meetings in this auditorium. Jack was unfortunately not a regular attendee, because arthritis was rapidly crippling him and the stairs made it very difficult for him.
- In 1987, Jack had to leave the house where he had lived for many years to move into the special care facility at the Mothwa Haven. I was amongst a group of us who went to help Jack empty his house. I am sure this must have been a very sad time for him. In particular we went through his library of books, and if we wanted a book, he say how much he would sell it for. Small amounts. I bought several of them including the original Norton’s Atlas in which he had recorded the discoveries of his nova and comets – more about those later. Some of his equipment had been donated to UNISA. He had bought this 76mm refractor in the mid-60s. As a buyer in the town council, he knew how to buy things from ‘overseas’ and ordered this telescope from Japan. In the early 1970’s friends of his at the CSIR replaced the original tripod with these theodolite tripod, added a stepper motor and built an electronic motor controller using very new integrated circuits. Various members visited Jack at Mothwa Haven from time to time. His bed, desk and a small library of books were squeezed into a small cubicle. When he could no longer walk he got around in a battery-powered wheelchair. While chatting to him one time, I referred to a CeLEStron telescope. Once I had finished saying whatever it was that I had to say, he told me that even though most people used the pronunciation CeLEStron, he had learned when he visited the company factory in 1976 that it wa CELestron.
- While I talk about Jack, I think it is a good idea the you get to know him a bit more from this short video of …………….
- July 16th 1968 Messier 83 also known as the Southern Pinwheel Galaxy, M83 or NGC 5236) is a barred spiral galaxy approximately 15 million light-years away in the constellation Hydra which will be close to the zenith tonight at midnight If not visually then it would be photographically.
- The Norton’s atlas where he noted his comet finds
- The comet was widely observed in April as its morning sky position improved. The fact that the comet was moving away from the Sun and Earth, and was therefore fading, did not prevent it from being mentioned in newspapers and on television news broadcasts. The comet began the month near magnitude 1 and faded to about 5 by month's end. Although the tail was generally estimated as about 10 or 12 degrees, a few estimates went as long as 25 degrees around mid-April.
- NB: Bradfield said “OK, if Bennett, an amateur astronomer from South Africa could find a comet that eventually turned into a spectacular object, perhaps I can find a comet too. And this is supposed to be a comet hunting telescope. It may be rough and ready, but you don't need a chrome plated telescope to discover a comet”. Rob McNaught - http://cometography.com/lcomets/1969y1.html
- His Norton again
- Top of rhs column – finest comet in 2nd half of 20th century See Last paragraph – shy and humble
- So – this is what he did . What awards did he receive?
- Quaint picture – looks as if Patrick is scolding Jack and Jack won’t have any of it !!
- Roy Smith died in June 2013 More about Roy soon
- I recall seeing the certificate hanging on the wall when we helped clear his house.
- Jack played a role in the development of satellite launches. In 1957 when 43 years old, Jack was known for his interest in astronomy and his knowledge of the starry sky. The Russians and Americans were both developing their rocketry expertise and the race was on to see who would first put a satellite in orbit around the Earth. In those days, it was not easy to precisely determine the orbit a satellite was on, mainly because there was no network of radio or visual tracking stations around the world. The Russians were secretive about their program while the Americans were transparent in their successes as well as in their failures. This transparency allowed them to make use the man in the street to help track their launches. In those days objects that orbited planets were considered to be moons – which they still are of course – but they applied this term to the proposed man-made objects which they intended to put in orbit around our planet. The civilian tracking program was thus named Moonwatch.
- The function of a Moonwatch team was to receive predictions from the Americans and to check how close the actual path of the satellite was to the predicted path. These satellites were generally not visible to the naked-eye. The Sputnik – not American of course – was a sphere only about 60cm in diameter and was painted black. Some of the American satellites were only 6” or 150mm in diameter. To compute the satellite’s orbit, scientists needed to know where and when it crossed the sky from multiple locations. So each Moonwatch team created an “optical fence” along the celestial meridian, with up to a dozen observers using low-power, wide-field telescopes like the one shown here. Preparations were well on the way when the Russians shocked the American pioneers and the American public by launching Sputnik on 4th October 1957. The Moonwatch teams quickly had to spring into action so that as much could be learned from the Russian program. Operation Moonwatch or Project Moonwatch was a complex operation managed from the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in America and is worthy of a talk all on its own.
- A man by the name of Roy Smith was chosen to set up the Pretoria Moonwatch team and Jack was an obvious choice. The Pretoria Team originally ran from the grounds of the Radcliffe Observatory up on the Fort Klapperkop road. In those days it could only be reached by driving up gravel roads at 4 oclock in the morning. This soon proved impractical and Jack offered the garden of his home in Riviera as a more convenient venue. This made it much easier for Jack and besides not being married and not having to drive anywhere (he never drove a motor-car), his enthusiasm and dedication made him a valued Moonwatch satellite spotter.
- This is a special photograph
- This photograph was followed up by 2 other people later, the one to be used insides a book and the other to be used in an hour and a half documentary called Sputnik Mania
- On the Waterkloof Ridge where the street naming theme is astronomy, and probably because it is close to where the old Radcliffe Observatory was along Johan Rissik Drive – that road that goes passed Fort Klapperkop. Note the spelling !! Remember Canopsus Street
- do not drive a car – stops you from gallavanting stay unmarried or – get divorced move in with your mother