Just adding my condolences to Bill's family & friends. I had the great pleasure of meeting Bill on several occasions back in the late 70's and early 80's whenever Bill would come home to catch up with his elderly mother in his home town of Shannon on the south western coast of the North Island, N.Z. Bill moved to Australia at the ripe old age of 27!
In the photo attached Bill was visiting our little roll-off roof we operated back in April 1981. I'm on the left, Bill centre, and my good mate Noel Munford on the right. I remember a very droll sense of humour and an amazing amount of knowledge regarding anything to do with observing.
All who knew him will miss him for sure. Those dirty snowballs are freer to roam the firmaments now that the best hunter has passed on.
It sure is Suzy. I'm amazed at how much of that visit from a third of a century ago I still remember. Just shows what sort of an impression Bill made. He had a very easy going style about him.
His comet hunting telescope was what we typically call No. 8 fencing wire technology. Made out of whatever was at hand and only what was required. After that it was all down to the observer and his knowledge of the sky.
Bill has said it elsewhere but I clearly remember the gleam in his eye when he described his observing routine. He would start by covering the part of the sky also available to the Japanese comet hunters who were also very prolific through the whole time that Bill was active. Having covered that part of the sky he would settle in to the southern sky in the knowledge that there were very few southern comet hunters about (my good mate Rod Austin was one of them).
When Bill found a comet we were always excited to observe it. His last comet was a really good one but best seen in the N.H. I was glad that he got the Edgar Wilson award for that one as this was when the robots were really starting to sweep them up.
Saddened to hear of the news of the death of Bill Bradfield. He originally worked with my father at Defence Research Centre Salisbury and the two were members of the 1957 Moonwatch team that spotted, tracked and captured video of Sputnik from the Physics building of the University of Adelaide.
The photo shows the two men at a Defence Science Technology Organisation (DSTO) reunion many years later. Two of the ex-WW2 tank scopes they used to track Sputnik have survived.
