Mankind has always been fascinated by the sky, and astronomy is one of the oldest sciences, which started centuries ago in ancient civilisations. Today, astronomy is still an intriguing field, and modern technology has made further exploration of the universe possible.

Lisa Crause is an astronomer at the South African Astronomical Observatory in Cape Town. She chose this career path because of her fasci-nation with science and technology, and her natural inclination to observe things. She states, “Astronomy is particularly intriguing, because of the enormous scale. It’s tricky to have to deal with remote experiments – we can’t do anything to change the stars, we can only observe them.”

Astronomy allows for a varied work life, as it isn’t a typical nine to five job. Ordinarily, the hours are reasonably flexible. Some like to work late into the night, while others prefer to start work early in the morning. The exception is, however, when astronomers are observing, in which case the hours are fixed by the length of the night.

“When observing (using a telescope to collect data), you sleep during the day and work all night. In winter, that can mean extremely long hours (14-hour nights) in unpleasantly cold conditions – for up to two weeks at a time. As one is working with expensive, delicate instrumentation, one needs to maintain one’s concentration at all times to avoid damaging the equipment and yourself.”

When not observing, work hours are spent on a computer, reducing and analysing data, writing code, producing plots, downloading and reading journal papers, writing up results as journal papers, corres-ponding with colleagues, writing applications for telescope time, applying for funding and preparing to present results at conferences, both local and international. Astronomers are also often called upon to lecture astronomy and physics courses, supervise graduate

Lisa remains passionate about the mysterious nature of her field. She enthuses, “I love puzzles and find it exciting to investigate things that we don’t understand. It still amazes me that we can figure out as much as we do just by studying the trickle of starlight that reaches us from incredibly distant stars and galaxies. I enjoy the challenge of having to be resourceful and always being on the lookout for clues. I’ve found myself in some pretty unusual situations along the way – travelling all over the world, riding along on the tracker at the top of the Southern African Large Telescope, superstitiously singing the magic song while dancing around the 1.9 m telescope’s primary mirror that we were busy aluminising …

“Many astronomers dream of being astronauts, but most have to settle for pursuing those ambitions from down on the ground. Luckily, we still get to play with amazing toys, travel extensively and meet interesting people, so I think it’s a really neat job!”

To pursue a career in astronomy, you need to be self-motivated, inquisitive and tenacious about solving problems, as a lot of the work is done alone. Some situations call for teamwork, however, so you also have to be able to work well with others, as well as with complex equipment. One aspect that may discourage prospective astronomers   is the lengthy study time, as it takes some ten years to qualify as an astronomer.

Nevertheless, Lisa has no regrets and advises, “The future of astronomy is extremely bright! The field is driven by technology, which is improving all the time, so we’ll never run out of puzzling questions to tackle. We are also extremely fortunate to have excellent facilities in South Africa. Work hard and chase your dreams – you’ll be surprised by what you can achieve!”

Jeanne du Plessis