By Marina Joubert, for South African SKA Project Office

A new Astronomy Centre, consisting of offices, open-plan work stations, meetings rooms and an astronomy library, is now in full use at the SKA Offices in Rosebank, a suburb of Johannesburg.

The Centre is the brainchild of Professor Roy Booth, Director at the Hartebeesthoek Radio Astronomy Observatory (HartRAO). "My vision for the Centre is to concentrate our local astronomy education efforts in a vibrant hub for the two universities in Johannesburg, as well as for HartRAO staff and students," he says. "I hope that they will find a quiet place and the inspiration to study and write papers here, away from the work of operating the telescope."

The Rosebank area is a convenient and central meeting place. "It is imperative to get new senior and mid-level blood into South African Radio Astronomy and we trust that the Centre will facilitate this process," Professor Booth adds.

The combination of local, postgraduate university students, their lecturers and the HartRAO staff is perhaps the powerful motivation for the astronomy Centre. "Here we can mix practicing radio astronomers and their students with the more theoretical university people and begin adding a more experimental and data oriented approach to teaching and learning among the staff and students."

The Johannesburg Astronomy Centre will also provide a platform and home for the HartRAO Visitor Programme. International visitors will lecture at the Centre, but will also meet and mentor students informally. Professor Booth hopes that these visitors will "pass on the spirit of excitement of astronomical research and persuade the students to take up radio astronomy at a higher degree level".