One of the greatest benefits of membership in the Victoria Centre is that we get to meet and know some of the giants of Canadian astronomy. This centre
was founded under the tutelage of the father of Canadian astrophysics, John S. Plaskett. When I joined the centre, I was able to rub shoulders with people
like Jack Newton, George Ball and John Climenhaga. Jim Hesser and John McDonald remain active members of our centre, and some of our younger speakers at our monthly meetings will no doubt move on to prominence in astronomy.
In recent weeks, we in Victoria have lost two remarkable astronomers who I am glad to have known. Dr. Allan Batten was an important figure in the history of our centre. He served as president both of our centre and the National RASC, and also as Editor of the Journal of the RASC. Dr. John Hutchings, who was known in our centre for his talks over the years, was one of the central figures in the rise of space-based astronomy in Canada.
Dr. Batten, who passed away on July 30 at age 91, joined our centre in 1962 after starting work at the DAO in 1959. A native of the United Kingdom, he spent his career at the DAO and researched radial velocities and binary stars. He was President of our Centre in 1970-72 and then moved to the national scene, serving as National President in 1976-78, and as Editor of JRASC in 1980-88. He received the RASC Service Award in 1988, was honorary president from 1993- 97 and was named a Fellow of the RASC in 2016.
He also served as the second President of CASCA in 1972-74, following Dr. Helen Sawyer Hogg in that job. He was a vice-president of the International Astronomical Union, taught at the University of Victoria, and held visiting appointments in many places, including the Vatican Observatory.Dr. Batten became more interested in recent years in the history of astronomy and in philosophical reflections on science and society, and later in his life, he lectured and wrote widely on these topics. He was active in the Anglican Church of Canada and at the Centre for Studies in Religion and Society.
Many of us saw him speak on those topics, since he continued to speak regularly at RASC meetings and elsewhere at UVic until recently. He was also a bell ringer at the Christ Church Cathedral, and at his funeral there, the bells rang in his honour. Dr. Batten Memorium
Dr. Hutchings, who passed away in his sleep on September 18 at age 83, was still actively engaged in research at the DAO in his retirement. A native of South Africa, he started at the DAO in 1967. He was involved in the development of the Hubble Space Telescope from its beginnings as a member of the research teams for the Goddard High Resolution Spectrograph and the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph. He also chaired Hubble’s Space Telescope User’s Committee.
He was the Canadian Project Scientist for the James Webb Space Telescope during much of its tortuous development process, and was involved in other space telescope programs.
When I began research work on my history of the Hubble Space Telescope, one of the first doors I knocked on was that of Dr. Hutchings. He provided valued advice to me, and I was looking forward to talking to him again as part of my research on the history of space astronomy in Canada.
