Sir Arthur C Clarke

Star-gazer
Clarke

Young Clarke using his home-made telescope at Ballifants Farm

As a farm boy growing up in the 1920s, Arthur C Clarke home-built his own first telescope in Minehead, rural England. He spent long hours observing the night sky and mapping the Moon’s surface.

Over the next few decades, he bought a succession of telescopes intended for the serious amateur astronomer. After he chose to live in Ceylon in 1956, he realised that most of the northern and southern skies were visible from the island’s near Equatorial location. But he also found out that observations were not easy since “half the year we can’t observe due to cloud cover”.

Undaunted, he became an opportunistic night sky watcher, catching a glimpse of the heavens when weather and schedule permitted. The astronomy ‘bug’ soon spread and the Ceylon Astronomical Association (CAA) was established in June 1959 to promote organised amateur astronomy. Clarke became its founder president, and later served as its patron.

“ 

UFOs tell us absolutely nothing about intelligence elsewhere in the universe, but they do prove how rare it is on Earth. ”

– Arthur C Clarke

“ 

UFOs tell us absolutely nothing about intelligence elsewhere in the universe, but they do prove how rare it is on Earth. ”

– Arthur C Clarke

Knowing the scarcity of observational instruments in Sri Lanka, Clarke generously loaned his telescopes to other amateur astronomers. He served as occasional guest speaker at the Colombo Planetarium. In the pre-web days, Clarke was also a key source of astronomy and space related information to school children and educators alike.

Professional astronomer Dr Ray Jayawardhana, dean of science and a professor of physics & astronomy at York University in Toronto, Canada, was one such Lankan youth who was inspired and assisted by Clarke. Jayawardhana recalls how meeting Clarke was a turning point in his life and choice of career.

Sri Lankans Remembering Arthur C Clarke