Welcome to Episode 24 of the Urban Astronomer Podcast, and a Happy New Year to each and every one of you.  This episode features the keynote lecture from ScopeX 2017, delivered by Willie Koortz.  Willie is an electronic technician working for the South African Astronomical Observatory, and is one of South African astronomy's more interesting characters. In his talk, he discusses South Africa's role in the early days of the Space Age, looking at professional-amateur collaborative projects like Moonwatch, and how american tracking stations built in South Africa in the 1960's started South Africa's push into radio astronomy, with telescopes like HartRAO (built from decommissioned NASA tracking hardware) and MeerKAT continuing to contribute valuable scientific research.

 

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