climate
The Central Otago air is remarkably clean. The winds coming over the Southern Alps tend to wash out any particulate leaving us with some of the cleanest air in the world. The 6000 mm annual rainfall on the west coast relative to the 300 mm rainfall of the Ophir area shows how much of that washing out effect happens before the air crosses over the mountain range. Being in that rain shadow of the mountains leaves us with semi-arid conditions. While large rains and even flooding can occur, we’re typically in near-drought conditions in this area. Ophir is surrounded with pastoral farms running mainly sheep at moderate stocking rates. The low population density also means there is little in the way of light pollution so the night-time skies are bright and unobstructed.
Being at a latitude of 45 degrees south (exactly halfway between the equator and the South Pole), and 300 metres elevation above sea level, even though Ophir is 100 km from the coast, we experience a continental climate with some of the hottest and coldest temperatures in New Zealand. Morning frosts and snow in the ground can happen though October (XXX to check XXX), and summer highs in the 30s can frequently occur (albeit tempered with refreshingly cool night time temperatures). New Zealand’s nearest neighbours are Australia to the West and Antarctica to the South, both of which can strongly affect our weather, bringing either hot or cold air depending on which way the winds are blowing.
Richard Quirel, NIWA
The Booth Road Observatories
“He was a creator of dreams,” says Jeannie Brown of her partner, the late Graham Long; “A self-taught astronomer with an engineer’s brain.”
In the 1990s, Graham and Jeannie created their dream on a large section on Booth Road, about one kilometre from Blacks Hotel. Graham bought an old rabbiter’s cottage and added more buildings over the years. Jeannie, a painter and art teacher, used one of these as her studio. The garden that Graham and Jeannie created together “was like the Garden of Eden,” Jeannie says.
Further back the section, Graham demonstrated his genius by creating three working observatories: two he constructed on site, and the third, a dome, was acquired from Dunedin’s School of Arts; all equipped with telescopes Graham designed and built himself.
“He could make anything he put his mind to,” explains Jeannie. “He didn’t use someone else’s plans. He figured it out for himself.”
“The observatories were bitterly cold in the winter,” Jeannie adds. “But our magnified view of the night sky was worth it.” She was particularly fascinated by the Jewel Box cluster, in the constellation Crux, and the Terminator, the place where the shadows on the moon are longest.
Graham died of cancer in 1997, just shy of his 50th birthday. “He was an extraordinary, modest man, impossible to evaluate,” says Jeannie.
The first observatory Graham built was relocated to the Alexandra Airport after Graham died, but the other two remain on site. Obscured by a plantation of pine trees, they are difficult to see from the road.
Jeannie moved away many years ago, and she is not sure what happened to Graham’s telescopes; she thinks one is at the Dunedin Observatory, and another may have gone with the largest observatory to Alexandra Airport.
STORY BY SPIKE
If any readers have any information about Graham Long’s telescopes, please contact us at gary@gasproject.co.nz