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New NRF President visits HartRAO 2006/10/23


Professor Mzamo Mangaliso, the newly appointed President of the National Research Foundation, the parent body of the Hartebeesthoek Radio Astronomy Observatory, paid his first visit to HartRAO on Monday October 23.

He first met the observatory management team, and then addressed the whole staff. Director Roy Booth then took him on a tour of the observatory, starting at the site where construction of the eXperimental Development Model (XDM) of the Karoo Array Telescope (KAT) is about to begin.

During his visit to the telescope control room to meet the astronomers and science awareness team, DST intern Bogoshi Mogadima and presenter Sam Rametse took some photographs, a selection of which are shown below.

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Astronomer Sharmila Goedhart on the left describes her research on methanol masers. Next to her is NRF Executive Director: Human Resources Patrick Thompson, then astronomer Marion West, Prof. Mangaliso, astronomer Mike Gaylard and Director Roy Booth.

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Sharmila explains the periodic variability she discovered in some of the maser sources to Patrick Thompson, Prof. Mangaliso and Roy Booth.

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Mike Gaylard described pulsar research at the observatory, and in particular the real-time detection of glitches - sudden spinups that occur in the rotation rate of these exotic collapsed stars..

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Prof. Managaliso discusses the glitch detection programme, while Patrick monitors the situation. Astronomy student Christina Langa awaits her turn.

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Astronomer Marion West, in the blue top, described her work on the hydroxyl masers in OH/IR stars. To her right is Christina Langa, who is a month away from submitting her MSc thesis on a methanol maser source in a starforming region. Christina has come through the National Astrophysics and Space Science Programme (NASSP).

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Prof. Managliso encouraged the two DST interns, Bogoshi Mogadima and Paul Radingwane, at far left, to continue their studies. Alongside them is Anacletta Koloko of the science awareness programme. Roy and Mike discuss where the tour will go next.