[FPSPACE] death of Project Moonwatch veteran

[Keith Gottschalk]

Dear FPSPACErs,

	if amongst our list are any survivors of the IGY 1957-1958, I
regret to report the death in Cape Town, South Africa, of 83 year-old
Rupert Hurley.

	Rupert, a land surveyor by profession, had been a keen amateur
astronomer since at least the total eclipse of the sun of 1943 in the
Karoo (South Africa), which he showed to then Prime Minister Jan Smuts.

	During IGY Rupert headed or played a major role in the N-S line
of wide-angle telescopes set up at the Observatory, Cape Town, between
1957-1968.  In 1957 he joined the Cape Centre of the Astronomical
Society of Southern Africa (ASSA), & was in recent years the doyen of
its one hundred members up until his death. Through the 1960s & 1970s he
played a leading role among our amateur astronomers. 

	A fortnight ago, Rupert suffered both a stroke and a heart
attack, partly recovered, then died. In the words of a local newspaper
columnist, he has now "merged with the cosmos".

Keith Gottschalk
Chair,
Cape Centre
Astronomical Society of Southern Africa