Some of us really managed to get a few hours of sleep on the flight from Frankfurt to Johannesburg, South Africa, or at least tried to take a nap, curled up in some awkward position. The sunrise marks the beginning of a wonderfully clear day.
Even those who were really tired wake up again and try to take a picture through one of the tiny windows ...
Me, too, me too! Just a little bit to the left please!
Will the pilot follow this request?
But ten hours on the plane have taken its toll. The team leaves the plane, exhausted and tired. Luckily we find a nice Café in the brand new terminal.
Finally in Africa!
A four-hour wait for the connecting flight to Windhoek, Namibia. Shopping would be nice but where to put all the stuff? We have already got a lot of equipment. Some of us start to talk shop. Others prefer a nap on one of the benches in the terminal.
At last we leave for Windhoek. After two hours the plane prepares for landing. Below us desert. Going down. Still desert. Further down. Only desert. We are landing. To the left and to the right desert. We have landed - in the middle of the desert. No town in sight. The airport is 25 miles outside Windhoek.
The deserts of Namibia - stargazers' heaven
Arrival in Windhoek, the starting point of our trip through
the South of Africa
Baggage claim. Will we get all our luggage? The (only) conveyor belt starts moving, exciting moments. Some bags and pieces of luggage are there. Hurray! The belt stops. That's it? A second container arrives, the belt is moving again. Some more bags. By and by all of our bags arrive. Well, almost all of them. In the end Bernhard Kohmann's luggage is missing. His flight from Munich to Frankfurt was delayed and so the bags did not make it. And Wolfgang Weiser's 10" LX-200 is missing. The beginning of complicated investigations and of a long wait. ...
Our mini-vans are waiting and we load our luggage. It is a makeshift solution because there is still one trailer missing. In the afternoon we reach Pension "Moni" in Windhoek. For the last time a real bed. For the last time the conveniences of civilisation?
Our group visiting Windhoek
After a short sightseeing tour through Windhoek (including a visit at the National Museum!) we get a first glance at the southern sky: There's Alpha Centauri! Beta too! And here they are, one after the other, Alpha, Beta and Gamma in the Southern Cross. Sirius (lousy seeing tonight), Canopus, more and more stars. Carina, Vela, … Reluctantly we go to dinner.
Dinner in a rustic kind of pub provides us with the first contact with local food (game - anything from springbuck to crocodile).
On the way home we have a first glance at the "celebrities" of the southern skies, despite moonlight and some light from the city. Gerhard uses his Portaball but we also enjoy Doris' 4" Newton because it is easy to put up and with my 14 mm Pentax the view is excellent. For a detailed observation report in German click here!
At 11 p.m. we end the observation. For many of us it was the first contact
with the southern sky. Now a real bed is waiting for us - the first and last one
on our tour.
[ back | Start | Tour | Team | Astronomy | Acknowledgements | next ]