SSO Update

Published in the RSAA Lunations
Vol1 Issue29 1–30 June 2022

Farewell John and Kristin

After a combined 52 years of outstanding service, Kristin Fiegert and John Goodyear will retire at the end of June.

Kristin started working for the ANU in 1994, where she worked in administration, at the visitor centre and at the former SSO Lodge. Apparently, she knows the favourite dish of most of the astronomers who stayed at the Lodge during the second half of the 90s. Does anyone fancy Moroccan Chicken? In 1999, she joined the AAO as an optical technician. For more than two decades she maintained the delicate fibres of 2dF and, for a shorter time, 6dF. Kristin also did night assisting, both at the UKST and the AAT.

John Goodyear also started working for the ANU. He joined the ANU in 1998 as an electronics technician working mostly at the 16”, 24”, 40” and 2.3-metre telescopes. He moved to the AAO in 2008 as an electronics technician and worked with all the instruments on the AAT, including UCLES (the predecessor to Veloce), IRIS2 and of course 2dF with its two backend spectrographs.

On May 28th, we had a farewell party for John and Kristin at Pilliga Pottery. It was a fun night shared with family, friends, and colleagues.
We wish them the very best in their retirement. We will miss them.

Chris Lidman on behalf of SSO

_{Picture: Kristin, second from left, and John, right, together with their spouses. Photo taken by Steve Chapman. Andre Phillips and Ned El-Saleh are chatting in the background.}