By Rhonda Bartle

Steering by the Stars

Stars are good for many things - for wishing on, for studying and for steering with. Don Glass of Hāwera became interested in the skies above more than 50 years ago.

"During the war, I was in the army first," he says, "and then I went into the Air Force in August 1943, and that was the start of it. We had to know the 25 stars in the northern and southern hemisphere for navigation."

So began a long fascination with astronomy.

"That's were it first started. I had to know the stars. There were charts for the stars and you could work out your latitude, proving you had the time right and good timekeepers. It was very accurate."

As President of the Hāwera Astronomy Society for 21 years, he remained in the role until the year 2000. "I thought I'd done enough by then, and I was able to go and do other things," he grins.

Come in Halley's Comet

During the time of Halley's Comet in 1986, the society hosted northern hemisphere astronomers from the USA, Canada and England.

"That was an interesting time. Preparations began in 1984. I had contact with a yachting firm in Auckland who had a co-partner in Los Angeles and they asked could we host and billet astronomers and we said yes."

After approaching church groups and various organisations, Glass made 200 beds available in Hāwera for visitors who needed them.

Though overseas astronomers didn't arrive in quite the numbers expected, many took the opportunity to observe Halley's Comet from Hāwera.

"We got to know the astronomers as they came through," Glass says. "They travelled down through the Waikato, did a loop through Hāwera and then went up through the centre of the island back to Auckland. They thoroughly enjoyed our dark skies."

Taking it to the kids

The Hāwera Astronomical Society, formed in 1926, went off in new directions after that. "The children got involved. The schools were very keen."

Glass and his colleagues took astronomy into the schools, chatting with the teachers and offering tuition in the classrooms. Pupils were then invited out to the observatory - something Glass remembers as a pleasure.

"Yes. I enjoyed that. We used to have about 450 children in small groups through in a year."

The Hāwera Astronomical Society became a great place to study the heavens and nurture an interest in realms beyond earth, particularly with such notable men as Monty Townsend and Newt Burrell in attendance.

"We'd have a monthly meeting and go out to somewhere where there was an observatory. We used to go out to Cape Egmont but of course, Des Whelan has since died."

Newt Burrell owned the telescope that resides in the Hāwera Observatory - one that originally belonged to his father, A.W.Burrell.

In 1986, Glass helped organise a reunion for those who were involved in the initial building of the Hāwera Observatory, which marked 60 years of star-gazing.

Later, he joined the Taranaki Active Astronomers group headed by Rod Austin.

Pioneer Astronomer: A.W.Burrell on the steps of the Stratford observatory in 1915.

Seeing stars

Because the earth rotates, the sky appears differently each night, with a different group of stars visible throughout the year. At the beginning of each new year, the sky goes back to the start again.

"When you look through a powerful telescope, you see far more than you can through binoculars or the naked eye. You can divide little objects out, not only the planets, but the nebula and clusters of stars. There are all sorts of things you can see."

According to Glass, the most exciting astronomical event he witnessed was in 1997, when he located and viewed an exploded star.

"Albert Jones of Richmond, near Nelson, was the co-founder of that one. He saw it directly and it was visible for some months, but is now a telescopic object.

"It's something in our lifetime to have a star explode. There have been bigger novas, like the one the Chinese saw 900 years ago, but it was in daylight so it was much bigger than ours."

Right around the world

Glass's astronomical bent has taken him all around the world, from Kid Peak, Arizona, to Mount Davis in Texas, which he says has a remarkable telescope with a laser beam to measure the distance to the moon.

Glass has visited universities in Minneapolis and Vancouver. "We motored from Orlando up to Washington DC, so I've been to the big telescope in Washington. Also, I've seen the one that they sighted the planet Pluto through. It's got an hydraulic floor so the floor comes up wherever the telescope is pointing. You can bring the floor up. You don't need a ladder."

And of course, he's been to Houston and Cape Canaveral. "No, I didn't see the shuttle take off because it was in transit at the time."

A telescope out the back

With the Hāwera Astronomical Society in decline and down to around 5 members, due to new trends and Taranaki's shifting population, Glass is no longer the active member he once was. These days he is content to view the night sky through a telescope on his back lawn.

Unlike others in the society, he never felt the urge to build one of his own. "No, I wasn't tempted to build one with a dome because I've always had access to them.

"A chap in Wanganui, Ray Lee, about my age, built his own with a dome and motorised it, and I could generally go down there once a month. That's a nine and half inch (24.1cms) telescope. It gives quite a good view," he says.

As Glass explains, the bigger the objective lens, the better the image. Today, there are reflector telescopes which allow the viewer to get a clearer view of clusters and nebula. 

"They become alive," he says, "when compared to an ordinary telescope, but we use the others for looking at planets because they have a tracking device."

A cosmic solution: Hawera Observatory was built on an converted band rotunda.

When you wish…

So, do astronomers wish upon stars? "No," Glass says. "And we don't call them shooting stars because they're meteors and they're not very big.

"There was one quite recently and they reckon it was about the size of a basketball but, of course, when it hits our atmosphere and breaks up, it tends to spray out bigger than it is."

He gently points out, too, that there is a cosmic world of difference between astronomers and astrologers, though the two were once linked together, which might account for any confusion.

"We're not astrologers. We don't predict by stars. That's an old custom. They used to linked together but astronomers don't accept astrologers completely now, because they're a step out. I think that's it…people get trapped into a way of thinking…they buy a book…and some of the things you read…"

Lastly, does he believe in Heaven or aliens from outer space? The answer is yes, maybe, to both. "We're guided by a higher power, we're not animals," Glass says.

And while man has explored his own solar system for life and not found it, that doesn't necessarily mean it doesn't exist in an undiscovered galaxy.