Hakos

One place that Bill and I really wanted to visit was the Hakos Guest Farm, a few hours west into the Hakos mountains from Windhoek. The highlight of this farm is the southern sky, and is has an observatory as well as telescopes set up on the lawn. As Namibia is one of the least populated places on the planet, it is considered one of the best places for viewing stars and planets, and the stars are all different than in the northern hemisphere. The Milky Way is visible every day in Namibia, even in our backyard in Windhoek! Hakos is near the top of the Gamsberg mountain pass, so it’s viewing is even better. Many astronomers from northern countries come to Hakos for their southern sky tours. A German astrophysicist who comes annually to Hakos led our “tour”. He says his favorite thing to do is to stay up all night laying in a lawnchair, looking at the sky with his binoculars. We are all pretty good at picking out the Southern Cross and all the planets, and, with a telescope, we were able to see Omega Centauri, other globular clusters, and the four moons of Jupiter. It was a great night!


Traffic on the way to Hakos






Driving near Hakos mountains



Another beautiful, remote, Namibian campsite


Ruby in front of the Hakos mountains. We don't have any photos of the telescopes!