Astrognomes Junketting

Explanations

Sometimes one had to go out data hunting. This usually involved the misfortune of taking a several-week trip to some distant part of the world cursed with spectacular scenery, weather and wildlife.

Explanations: the several weeks: to get a cheaper air fare than for a go-there-do-it-and-get-back trip; the scenery: far away from "civilisation" and its inevitable luminous footprint on the sky; the weather: a minimum of cloud, rain, airborne snow etc in order to see that sky; the wildlife: sometimes hazardous (spiders in the console, scorpions in the bedroom, kangaroos in the passenger seat, supremacists in the bar etc).

Having done the observing bit (perhaps one night, sometimes up to a week or two), one then had to kill time on some tiresome tropical beach or untrodden remote mountainscape. If one was really unlucky, in a comfortable hotel with interesting entertainments too. Of course one dreamt of being back at base groping through the new data or, perhaps, filling in all the paperwork for another slot sometime if things had been rained out. It was dreadful.

The Actual Horror

Please 'click' on images for a larger version (sorry, some of the pictures have still to be added):

The Invasion of Pantherville - the frontier of research
Mini-Couperette on the beach (the exception to the subtitle)	[Image to be inserted]
Scholars debate a point
The secret of Herstmonceux Castle dungeon - more fun than Eastbourne on a rainy Sunday afternoon
Sundown on the veranda with a G & T - whatever became of the Empire, old chap?
Trudging across landscapes - so who wrecked the Jeep?