Daily Image
13-01-2023
Rudolf le Poole turns 80
| Submitter: | Jan Noordam |
| Description: | Today, Rudolf le Poole will be honoured at the Leiden Sterrewacht for his many years as their Resident Instrumental Maverick. In the sixties and seventies, during the 1st period when virtually every astronomer in the Netherlands was a radio astronomer, he clambered all over the new WSRT, together with other future luminaries like Peter Katgert and Johan Hamaker. From the eighties onwards, he (and ASTRON) diversified, and we encountered him at optical telescopes of UKNL (ING), ESO (VLT) and ESA (Hipparcos). In all these projects we greatly enjoyed his bubbling presence, and occasionally helped to restrain him. Your reporter has fond memories of sitting on top of him to prevent him from improving the dome-seeing of the Isaac Newton Telescope in the middle of the night, with an axe. Although he has been banned from various mountain-top observatories over the years, people realised that Rudolf was usually right about technical matters. So he soon found his way back into the good books of observatory Directors all over the world, and into the instrumental design groups that really mattered. As a member, to be sure, never as chairman. Soon we will know whether he is right in claiming that a groundbased optical telescope needs a diameter of at least 100m to "see" enough calibration stars to achieve diffraction-limited imaging. His argument is disconcertingly plausible, but the proof is as yet in the pudding. As the image shows, Rudolf is also a voracious sailor. Three times he has won the highly prestigious "shit-race" between Workum and Leiden. Without the help of an engine for maneuvering locks and low bridges. So let's cherish an unusual colleague and friend, and finish with a tip to wise management: Try to find more (but not too many!) of his ilk. They make the difference. |
| Copyright: | Hermine le Poole |
| Tweet |  |