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04-09-2020
In Memoriam: Jeanette (Jet) Katgert-Merkelijn (1943-2020)
| Submitter: | Tony Willis, Jan Noordam |
| Description: | In a recent AJDI we remarked that many of the great radio astronomers passed through Leiden in the sixties. One such was Jet Katgert-Merkelijn, who sadly died after a home accident on June 10th. Jet Merkelijn was born in The Hague. After studying astronomy in Leiden, she was able to do research in Australia with John Bolton. There she took an active part in the pioneering studies of the southern sky using the Parkes radio telescope at 2700 MHz. She identified hundreds of radio sources with optical objects. The project was a great success, and after returning to Leiden, she completed her 1970 PhD thesis on this topic. After getting a job at the Leiden Observatory, she helped Peter Katgert with testing the cables of the original WSRT analogue delay system for gas leaks during the telescope construction. It became a love affair and they married. Jet and Peter became the first users of the WSRT for cosmology and source count studies. Although she was a brilliant astronomer in her own right, she helped male colleagues, including her husband, create the building blocks for their discoveries. It did not bother her to work in the shadow of others. In later years she worked as assistant editor for the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics, and the Oort archives. A beautiful tribute by Harm Habing on the occasion of her 65th birthday may be found here: https://local.strw.leidenuniv.nl/news/jet.php Jet had a subtle sense of humour and liked to display her knowledge of obscure Australian cricket terms that she had picked up during her Australian sojourn. She was very kind and helpful to others, including one of the authors of this AJDI when he came to the Netherlands. She will be greatly missed. |
| Copyright: | nn |
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