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July 15, 2025 14 mins

Jacob Moshokoa, in for Pippa Hudson, speaks to Dr Daniel Cunnama about the opening of the visitor centre at the South African Astronomical Observatory in Observatory. He also speaks to Jacques du Plessis from Karoo Astro Route about star-gazing in Sutherland.

Lunch with Pippa Hudson is CapeTalk’s mid-afternoon show.

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Lunch with Jacob Mushoka on Cape Talk. It is thirteen
forty two and we're probably going into my most favorite
part of the show. This is our travel and tourism feature.
And I saw the word Sutherland and my mind just
went crazy. Back in twenty seventeen or twenty eighteen, we

(00:20):
had this amazing experience where we teamed up with one
of the big motoring manufacturers and Cape Town Studios. I
e KFM and Cape Talk presenters got into these cars
and they did a trek around the country to go
up to joe Burg and we were in joe Burg
nine four seven and seven oh two. Guys got into

(00:41):
these cars and we did a drive, obviously drive the
long way to Cape Town and our journey took us
to Sutherland. My very first time going to Sutherland, I
couldn't understand why. Our producer Gary Albert Holzell was like,
we got to go to Southerland. This is why Southerland
is on the map. And then I got there and
I saw the South African line telescope. I was blown away.

(01:02):
We had to go there at sunset, the most beautiful,
gorgeous sunset. We went in November, so it was nice
and warm, and seeing the stars around that area totally
boggled my mind. And ever since then, I've been so
obsessed with Sutherland. I remember going back home to tell

(01:23):
my mom, who was a geography teacher. By the way,
she was like, Sutherland is one of the top places
she'd like to visit. And that's one place I'd love
to take my mom, specifically for the stars and to
experience the snow in winter. It is the type of
place that you have to go and experience in two
or three different seasons, because apparently every season has a

(01:43):
story to tell when it comes to Sutherland. And now
Sutherland is known as the number one hot spot for
star gazing and this beautiful new term I just learned
called astro tourism. What a great way to talk about
what happens in the galaxy. Sperience in Sutherland was that
learning about the galaxy from the light telescope. It is

(02:07):
the perfect and most serene place to do a proposal, truff.
If you want to propose, you can propose there if
you want, or you want to have a picnic under
the stars, it is the ultimate place to do it.
And the really cool thing was we ran out of
petrol when we were leaving there and we needed to
stop at one of the filling stations in Sutherland. I
think there's only one filling station there. What we did

(02:28):
was we had to call the owner of the filling
station to come and open up for us so we
can fill up our cars there. And then he was
even like, nia Jelo canre you guys can go. I'll
just send you a WhatsApp with my banking details and
you can just send me an EFT. That's how it
is in Sutherland. You go to a B and B.
There's an honesty bar there. You don't have to take

(02:50):
out money or swipe your card. It's the level of trust,
the level of Ubuntu, the level of South africanness. That's
the thing about Sutherland. You want to go there to
experience all this and of course to do some proper
star gazing, and that takes us into a full on
conversation about astrotourism. I'll get to Southerland in a bit. Now,

(03:11):
I'd like to just start by chatting to our guest,
Daniel Kanema. He'll be telling us a little more about
what's been happening in Observatory.

Speaker 2 (03:20):
Now.

Speaker 1 (03:20):
If you didn't know today we're going to focus on
astrotourism specifically because the launch last week of the Visitors
Center at the historic South African Astronomical Observatory is now open.
It was the official opening of the Remote Operations Center,
which both form part of government's broader astro tourism strategy.

(03:41):
To tell us more about the center and what visitors
can expect to see, were joined on the line by
Science Engagement astronomer at the South African Astronomical Observatory, doctor
Daniel Kanema. Doctor Daniel Kanema, thank you so much for
joining us on Cape Talk.

Speaker 2 (03:54):
How are you good man?

Speaker 1 (03:56):
Thanks for having me fantastic. Now, tell us a little
more about this visitors center. What can visitors expect and
experience when they visit this newly opened Remote Operations Center.

Speaker 2 (04:09):
Yeah, so there's a few things on office. So the
observatory itself, as you mentioned, is in observatory in Cape Town.
We were here first and then they named the suburb
after us. So the observatory was established in eighteen twenty,
so we've been around for two hundred and five years now.
We held our bar centenary back in twenty twenty and

(04:34):
on the site over those years, many many things have
come and gone. As you mentioned. Now the operating telescopes
are all up in Sutherland and have been there since
the seventies, including the Southern African large telescope Salt. But
we still have a large head office here in Cape
Town and many historical instruments which are still here and

(04:56):
available to the public, as well as a museum, and
for many years we've been hosting tours, so open nights
and other tours where members of the public income and
they get a talk by an astronomer and then a
tour of the historical observatory, see one of our old
telescopes at the McLain which is very very large refracting telescope,

(05:20):
and visit the museum and just get an idea of
what astronomy was like here in Cape Town. For many years,
and then recently since twenty twenty, we've been working on
a couple of projects which you mentioned. The first was
the Remote Operations Center. So the telescopes being up in

(05:41):
Sutherland initially meant that the astronomers had to go up
to Sutherland and spend a night there in the dark
and the cold, observing and operating the telescopes from there,
but over the last few years, we've managed to link
up most of our telescopes to be remotely operable, so

(06:03):
they can be controlled from anywhere as long as you
have a laptop and an Internet connection. And then as
part of that, we built a remote operations center here
in Cape Town, which is a very high tech room
which connects live to Sutherland. You can see the all
Scar camera in Sutherland and the weather, and you can

(06:24):
even hear what's going on in the telescopes in Sutherland,
so that the astronomers can sit here comfortably and control
the telescopes remotely. So we added that as an offering
that people could visit here in Cape Town. And then,
as you mentioned, the visitor center, so we refurbished an
old pump house at the observatory into a cutting edge

(06:48):
visitor center, and in that we wanted to not just
showcase the incredible technical expertise and science that we do,
but also more of a sort of deeper cultural connection
to astronomy. So we did some original research on indigenous

(07:09):
constellations from the Koi and San people and those are
reflected on our roof. We have a beautiful installation and
the ceiling and quite a few sort of information boards
around that and some animations highlighting the indigenous style or so.

(07:29):
It's been a wonderful project over the last five or
so years and very exciting to have finally launched it
last year last week.

Speaker 1 (07:37):
That's fantastic news. Now, doctor Daniel, tell me something. This
is something that you would open up to school groups,
you would open up to adults, you'd open up to
anyone and everyone can visit. When are the visiting hours?
How does it actually work? Do we need to book ahead?

Speaker 3 (07:54):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (07:55):
Absolutely, So we have school groups and we have had
for many years school groups coming through and those happened
during the week, So we have Tuesdays and Wednesdays are
available for schools and they are acquired to book and
we give the schools a tour of our observatory. They
also get a talk and often a hands on activity

(08:16):
depending on what they're after and the age of the students.
So we do run school tours during the week and
then we're slowly ramping up our tours and open arts.
So we used to just run Open Nuts twice a
month through summer. Now we did. We did a soft
launch in this past summer at the tours the end

(08:38):
of last year, just to try and get the visitors
center you know, debugged, so to speak. And yeah, so
then we were running three or four tours a week
and it's a little bit quiet now during winter, but
we'll be ramping up again shortly. So all of those
tours are listed on our website s AO dot ac dota,

(09:01):
so you can go there and you can book. It's
their their cricket links for each of the events and
they do sell out quite quickly. So yeah, I would
just encourage you to to visit the website. Otherwise, you
can find us on social media on Instagram and Facebook,
and yeah, wherever you get your media.

Speaker 1 (09:21):
Can you just give us that website again, s A
A O dot ac dot s a A O dot
AC dot z A. That's where we'll find all the
details about the new visitor center and of course the
remote operations center. Doctor Daniel Kanama, thank you so much
for your time, really appreciate it. Such a pleasure, absolute pleasure.

(09:42):
Thank you so much. That was doctor Daniel Kanema chatting
to us a little more about the new features in
observatory and he mentioned it when we opened up. They've
been here forever, they were there before the place was
called observatory. I really appreciate that and appearance. If you're
looking for something to do, make sure you get your

(10:03):
children out there. All your details at SAAO, dot AC,
dot z A. But we're still on astro tourism and
we're now talking about my favorite spot in the country.
It is Sutherland. I gave the most heartfelt intro for
this place for a reason. It's because I visited this

(10:24):
place and I thought it is a really amazing place
and it's something you got to experience at least once.
The only issue was I didn't sleep over there. I
stayed over in Mikey's Fonteane, which is about a forty
or forty five minute drive away from Sutherland. But I
mean that is the plan, right The plan is to
go to Sutherland in the near future, maybe when it's

(10:44):
a little warmer, because I don't think I'll be able
to deal with the snow in Sutherland, although that is
of course one of the attractions. But to tell us
more on what else you can get up to. We
are now joined on the line by Jacques dupless He's
from Discover Sutherland and the Kreu Astro Route. Jacques, thank
you so much for joining us. On Cape Talk.

Speaker 3 (11:02):
Good afternoon, right, good often Jacob, how I'm good.

Speaker 1 (11:06):
Thank you. So it's that time of the year that
Sutherland must be living up to its reputation of being
the coldest town in South Africa. What's the weather like
there today?

Speaker 3 (11:15):
Yeah, this morning we started at minus four.

Speaker 1 (11:17):
Oh no, and.

Speaker 3 (11:20):
But that's without the chol feeling. So I think at
the end of the day it feels like minus eight.

Speaker 2 (11:26):
In the morning.

Speaker 1 (11:27):
Oh goodness.

Speaker 3 (11:29):
But I mean, if you visited in November, you have
to come during the during the winter season.

Speaker 1 (11:35):
You're not making it sound amazing. You said minus eight. Ark,
Come on, what what else can I do if I
come to Sutherland in winter?

Speaker 3 (11:45):
Obviously the star guysing, so we get a lot of
the quests for when can I you know, the people
do the star guysing. So then it'll say he had
that about observatory. In observatory, but I saw there's two
tours in the morning, one one in the morning and

(12:06):
one two in the afternoon. And then they also do
my two s where you can physically then I give
you a guarded to it. We can see the the
diamonds and and and the sculpts, and then there is
there are two. One private star guising place intown, the
southern kind of which I do a pretty full down

(12:31):
tours during the guy. And then they've got a latch
star guizing as well. And then we've got Yerks and
star Guizing which is a kilometer out of town were
he's got a fossil displaying and he also does the
star guising tours at night.

Speaker 1 (12:49):
Now, if anyone is thinking about coming to visit Sutherland,
where do they go about getting all the information they
need when it comes to accommodation, the bookings for stargazing,
et cetera. How we go about doing that?

Speaker 3 (13:02):
Jacob? Obviously the assault you have to do the tourism,
do the bookings online and we we've got to discover
Sutherland dot dot and we do have Caro Astro and
all the information that people will need, you know, other
contact details to do booking online. Everything is on their.

Speaker 1 (13:24):
Website and in general the surrounding areas around Sutherland are
there also areas that promote this astro tourism.

Speaker 3 (13:34):
You will rock Cluff just outside of sort of they
they do amizing, But I've got all kinds of tourists,
hiking tours, the game drawers they you can you can
at the night Star Rising as well, and then the
farm blast Fontaine is about twenty six kilometers out of

(13:55):
town and Nicole and they also give to these case
I'm starguizing at night, should at least to do.

Speaker 1 (14:05):
So, Jacques, I thank you so much for your time,
Jaques Dupless of Discover Sutherland. That website again carew astro
Root dot co dot zere and.

Speaker 3 (14:16):
The other one is Discover Sutherland.

Speaker 1 (14:21):
Discover Sutherland dot co dot z Now if you didn't know,
now you know this is the place to do your stargazing.
This is the place to take some time out and
go see some real snow. Jacques Dupless. He's from Discover
Sutherland and the Kreu Astro Roots giving us a little
more insight on what actually happens in Sutherland. And it's
not only a winter thing. You can also go in

(14:43):
the summer. There's always something to experience there. And these
websites he just meant, websites he just mentioned are a
perfect place to start doing your research. I hope to
see you guys in Sutherland next year.
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