Kiwi adventurer and astronomer dies

The Royal Astronomical Society of NZ regretfully notes that Jon Hamilton, son of Sir William Hamilton, inventor of the jet-boat died recently at age 84. As well as being an an ambassador for his father's invention, piloting Hamilton jet-powered boats on the first upstream run of the Colorado River, and on the Ganges with mountaineer Sir Edmund Hillary, Jon was a long-time member of the RASNZ and great supporter of New Zealand astronomy.

Clive Rowe provided this memory:

"Jon had built his own observatory on his property in Kennedy's Bush road, Halswell, in the 60s. The telescope was an equatorially-mounted Celestron 14. He often showed visitors the moon and planets and on one occasion we observed one of the black spots on Jupiter soon after the impact of one of the components of comet Shoemaker-Levy.

"He subscribed to Scientific American and enjoyed discussions on the science and particularly, astronomy and cosmology after reading the relevant articles in that Journal.

"Jon was particularly helpful to the Canterbury Astronomical Society (CAS) and we folded the robust frame of the present 14 inch Cassegrain (Nankivell optics) on the 1000 tonne press in the Company's jetboat manufacturing facility. They welded and turned the frame on their large vertical mill. The company also built the solid equatorial mount which supports the 14 inch. Jon, until some months ago, was actively involved in an upgrade to the 14 inch dome at the CAS observatory at West Melton.

"I was fortunate to share (from the passenger seat), Jon's passion for gliding about the Southern Alps on numerous occasions. The evenings were spent discussing science and astronomical topics."