Perdrix Address: “Looking Back at Looking Up”

Presenter(s): Ray Johnston

Affiliation(s): AAQ

Session details: Saturday, 2020-04-11 10:30:00, LEAGUES

Abstract

”Looking Back at Looking Up” is a retrospective that covers the more than eight decades that Ray has enjoyed as an amateur astronomer. It started as a young child making patterns from the stars and later with his wife, Libby, operating a tropical island tourist observatory for many years, visiting schools with their portable planetarium, travelling to many of astronomy’s historical sites worldwide, lecturing on cruise ships, to being in charge of one of the world’s largest telescopes (albeit temporarily). This presentation is a relaxed chat about their experiences introducing basic astronomy to the general public.

Biography

Ray is a creaky old NACAA veteran who has been around for a long, long time… some suggest that he knew Galileo, and that his hearing was affected by the Big Bang. He usually presents on non-technical general interest subjects and has extensive outreach experience. Ray and his wife, Libby, operated the Great Barrier Reef Observatory on Hamilton Island for 18 years, and a portable planetarium which they took through schools in North Queensland. He was also an invited cruise lecturer with Cunard and Princess. They now live in a quiet seaside village in the Wide Bay area of southern Queensland and they continue to travel to many parts of the world visiting observatories and recording indigenous sky stories, as they have a keen interest in Aboriginal and archeo-astronomy