Marion West, Science Engagement Coordinator, celebrated 40 years at SARAO this year, having joined in January 1985

Marion West, Science Engagement Coordinator, celebrated 40 years at SARAO this year, having joined in January 1985. 

At SARAO she is dedicated to promoting public understanding and appreciation of radio astronomy in South Africa.

West has been working in the field of research in Radio Astronomy, from when she joined the staff at HartRAO in 1985, up until the time that HartRAO and the SKA Project became SARAO in 2017. At that point in time she switched her primary focus from research to science engagement, which she had been involved with in a part-time capacity since the early 1990s.

Through her efforts, she plays a pivotal role in inspiring the next generation of astronomers and fostering a greater appreciation for the universe among the South African public.

West graduated in 1998 with a M.Sc. in Physics, from North-West University, specialising in the field of Radio Astronomy and utilising observational data that she had collected over a period of 10 years, using HartRAO’s 26-metre radio telescope. The stars that she observed over the 10-year time span varied with periods between 1 and 7 years and are at the stage in their lives that the Sun will be in about another 5 thousand million year’s time.

West looks back on her journey of the last 40 years, in her own words. 

Marion West – Looking Back on Forty Years of Service at HartRAO:

(under the CSIR (1985-1988), the FRD (1988-1999) and the NRF (1999-2025))

“I started my career at the Hartebeesthoek Radio Astronomy Observatory (HartRAO) in January of 1985. At that time, HartRAO fell under the National Institute of Telecommunications Research (NITR), which fell under the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). It is the first job I ever had (apart from some vacation work while I was studying at University) and I have spent my whole working life based at what is now, the Hartebeesthoek Site of SARAO.

The overarching institute to which HartRAO reports has changed three times since I started at HartRAO –  from the CSIR (1985 to 1988) to the Foundation for Research Development (FRD: 1988 to 1999) and then from the FRD to the National Research Foundation (NRF) from 1999 onwards. My work telephone number has changed several times over the 40 years and the name of the institute to which HartRAO ultimately reports has changed a few times, but my place of work and even my office has remained the same (apart from a very early change where I swapped offices with a colleague at my request and her offer).

I became fascinated by science at school in my Standard 8 year (Grade 10, in today’s terms).  We had an excellent science teacher from Standard 8 to Matric and in his classroom laboratory we carried out real experiments, with real equipment and got real results.

The trigger point for me was an experiment that we did with light. We were given a “light box” that shone a ray of light, which showed up very clearly on the blank sheet of very ordinary paper that we were given and on which we had to draw the ray. We were also given a highly polished strip of metal that we could stand up on our piece of paper, some distance from the light box, with the highly polished surface facing towards the “light box”. We were required to draw a line (using a ruler) on our piece of paper, on which we had to place our highly polished metal strip, facing towards the “light box”. We also had to draw another line, perpendicular to the first line, away from the metal strip (mirror) in the direction of the light box. We then had to shine the light ray, at an angle to the line we had drawn perpendicular to our metal strip mirror, onto the highly polished flat metal strip, which acted as a mirror, reflecting the ray of light off its highly polished surface.  We then had to mark the path of the light ray both towards and away from the mirror (using the assistance of a ruler, as the light ray formed perfectly straight lines). When we measured the angle at which the light struck the mirror and the angle at which it was reflected off the mirror, using the line perpendicular to the mirror’s surface, the angles were precisely equal.

I was really, really awe-struck by the precision with which the angle of incidence at which the light struck the mirror, matched the angle of reflection of the light off the mirror!

I then began to consider what kind of a career I might want to embark on after matriculating. I was fascinated by science (particularly physics) but was not sure which careers in physics I might find attractive. I had always been fascinated by the night sky – by the pinpoints of light (the stars) which I knew, from reading I had done and discussions that I had had with my father, that they were like our Sun, but so very, very far away, that their light only reached our Earth looking like small pinpricks in the black velvet background of the night sky.

I wrote to the Professor of Astronomy at the only university in the mid-1970s, the University of Cape Town (UCT), which offered any courses in astronomy. I enquired what courses I would need to be able to pursue a career in astronomy. Professor Brian Warner of UCT, replied that I could study astronomy provided I took physics at university and that to study physics, I would also have to take mathematics up to my second year in my bachelor’s degree (BSc). The problem that I had explained to him was that I lived in Johannesburg and my parents could not afford to send me to UCT in Cape Town to study. He said that as long as I had physics and continued with it, I could enter a career in astronomy at the BSc, BSc (Hons), MSc or even PhD level.

I did my undergraduate degree (BSc) at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), majoring in physics and applied mathematics, graduating in 1983. I did my honours degree in physics at Rhodes University, graduating in 1984 and much later, my masters (MSc) at North-West University’s Potchefstroom campus. During my first year of study for my BSc, I pestered my physics lecturers so much about astronomy, that for our first year tour (as physics major students) of a place where physics was put into practical use, we visited the Hartebeesthoek Radio Astronomy Observatory (HartRAO), some 60 km from Johannesburg. I had never even known that HartRAO existed!

I was very excited about the astronomy that was described during our visit, by both the then Director of the Observatory, Dr George Nicolson and an MSc student then at Rhodes University, who was at that time, simply Justin Jonas, but who is now known as Professor Justin Jonas, who was Chief Technologist during the building of the MeerKAT Telescope and has continued on in technical leadership roles within the SKAO global organisation. I was even boldly daring enough during the visit to HartRAO, to ask questions of Dr Nicolson about his fascinating work on an object that, it was thought, might very well be a black hole.

At the end of the first year of my BSc, I applied for an undergraduate bursary from the CSIR to study astronomy and was successful in obtaining it. The place I was due to work at, in repayment of my undergraduate bursary, was the South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO) in Cape Town. While I was doing vacation work at the SAAO at the end of the second year of my BSc, Dr Nicolson visited SAAO to attend a meeting. Seeing me at the entrance to the SAAO building in the early morning, he asked whether I had perhaps not visited HartRAO together with a group of students at some point. Very embarrassed, I answered in the affirmative, to which he replied, jokingly, that one always remembers the students who “ask the silly questions”. Even more embarrassed, I giggle-laughed, to which he responded that I had actually asked some really good questions. By now I was embarrassed beyond belief and giggle-laughed again.

This meeting turned out to have been key to my future career in astronomy. After completing my BSc, the SAAO no longer wanted/needed me and I was “adrift” in the CSIR undergraduate bursary pool, not knowing where in the CSIR I could work to pay back my undergraduate bursary. Dr Nicolson very generously said that if I did my Honours degree at the Department of Physics and Electronics at Rhodes University (which collaborated closely with HartRAO in radio astronomy projects, such as which Prof. Jonas’ was doing for his MSc project) then I could work off my undergraduate bursary re-payment at HartRAO. Thus began my work at HartRAO in 1985.

At that time at HartRAO they were installing a new receiver at 18cm wavelength and I was very fortunate that Prof. Eddie Baart of Rhodes University, had done some work while on sabbatical leave, on stars that radiate strongly in the radio frequencies at 18cm wavelength. I was further privileged in that Prof. Jim Cohen of Jodrell Bank, Manchester University (with whom Prof. Baart had worked while on sabbatical leave) came to HartRAO and set up a project for observing these types of stars at HartRAO. It was a very long-term project, as these types of stars (called OH/IR stars) vary with periods from one year, up to six years or more. They are stars that are at the stage that our Sun should be in another 100 thousand million years’ time, on its way to becoming a planetary nebula.

I learnt more than I would ever have believed possible about these long period variable stars – they constitute a world of research all on their own, in their own right. I also learnt about setting up the HartRAO 26-m radio telescope to observe my set of OH/IR sources over a 24-hour period once every two weeks. I learnt to write computer programmes in Fortran-77, with the patient assistance of Mike Gaylard (later Dr Mike Gaylard, the last Director of HartRAO) – as in the early eighties, programming computers as part of physics courses, had not really got off the ground.

I learnt to use programs that Dr Gaylard had written, to reduce the data on my sources to a useful format, after which I could plot the variations in their radio brightness over time. I learnt to write programmes to analyse the time series (radio “light curves”) of my sources to determine the delay in time, between the brightening of different peaks in their radio spectra and so eventually, to determine distances to these sources. This project formed the basis of my MSc degree at North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus.

Later I branched out, in addition to my research work, into occasionally taking some school tours at HartRAO, as well as alternating with Dr Gaylard, every alternate month, in taking public visit tours at HartRAO.

Shortly before the Covid-19 lockdown, HartRAO merged with the MeerKAT SKA project based in Cape Town and the Karoo. It turned out that SARAO was not set up to place people who worked partly in research and partly in science engagement, so I moved over into the Science Engagement section, reporting to Dr Anton Binneman in Science Engagement in SARAO. In this position I travelled to the MeerKAT site to assist with Public Open Days, exhibited at National Science Weeks in the Karoo and assisted Dr Binneman with Astro-Tourism Guide training. I also began to attempt the restoration of the HartRAO science engagement programme, and have been very ably assisted in this by my colleague Simphiwe Madlanga – with whom I worked during Dr Gaylard’s directorship of HartRAO.

So, my work at HartRAO over the last 40 years has been the only job I’ve ever had. However, looking back I don’t have many regrets. I always thought I was privileged to work out at the Hartebeesthoek Site, as I am not a great lover of city settings and always treasured the country setting of the Hart 26-m radio telescope and its environs. I am very grateful for the many opportunities I have had throughout my years of service, which over the years have included quite a broad spectrum of experience in various fields associated with astronomy. I feel that I have been very privileged in the learning opportunities I have been exposed to and am immensely grateful for all I have learnt – not only in the field of astronomy, but also in my interactions with colleagues and members of the public, both local and abroad.

So to the NITR staff of the CSIR at Hart in the mid-eighties, the staff serving in the years of the FRD in the late eighties and nineties and to the staff of the NRF up to this current time – a big thank you for opportunities and lessons learned. I am most grateful!”