KEY POINTS:
Everyone has their heroes. Ask any New Zealander and you'll come up with a standard list. Ed Hillary, Charles Upham, Colin Meads, Ernest Rutherford are sure to be among them.
For me, well up there is a man called Frank Bateson, who has just died in Tauranga at
the age of 97.
Not bad for a man whose ill health forced him to give up, in 1969, his dream job as astronomer in charge of New Zealand's top observatory.
Mt John Observatory, atop a large hill overlooking Lake Tekapo in the Mackenzie country of South Canterbury, is acknowledged as one of the finest observatories in the Southern Hemisphere - and it owes its existence to Frank Bateson.
Frank was that rara avis, the untrained amateur who could foot it with the professionals. His interest in astronomy came early - he was just 18 when he started studying variable stars. It was an interest that would last all his life.
Wherever he was, he would set up his telescope and make his meticulous observations, resulting in more than 600 scientific papers worldwide.
His 17 years in the Cook Islands as manager of a big trading company were unbelievably fruitful. How did he find the time, with his business interests and while serving as a member of the Cooks' Parliament?
But it was when he returned to New Zealand in 1960 that the real work began. With the space race gathering momentum, astronomy was the hot topic. Astronomers throughout the world were keenly interested in the southern skies, which had many more stars than the Northern Hemisphere - a largely untapped wealth of interesting objects to be studied.
But for every major observatory in the south there were 18 in the north. The quest was on for new southern sites: New Zealand, Chile and South Africa.
New Zealand had the advantages of lying well to the south, with political stability, good infrastructure and well-regarded universities.
The major doubt was climate. Could we guarantee sufficient clear nights and quality of air to justify investment in a major observatory? Find the right site, and money and instruments, with technical and professional support, would be readily available from overseas.
Enter Frank Bateson. In association with Pennsylvania University, he set out to do just that.
Initially it was a paper exercise, poring over topographic maps to narrow the possibilities down to about 40. For instance, they had to be far enough away from habitation to avoid light pollution but not too inaccessible. Frank narrowed the list to four: Black Birch in Marlborough, Mt John, and two sites in Central Otago. Now came the hard work.
A full year's observations had to be made on each site - winds, clouds, temperatures and so on and, above all, tests of viewing qualities, using a five-inch telescope lent by the United States Naval Observatory. It meant living on each site, summer and winter, often in the bleakest conditions.
Students were of help at times, but the bulk of the work was done by Frank Bateson, then in his 50s.
It was never easy. At Black Birch, for instance, there were frequent gales, and on the coldest nights ice had to be chipped from the thermometers before they could be read. Breath froze into ice around sleeping bags.
This stay-at-home reporter experienced a little of what it was like on a first visit to Mt John after it had been announced as the chosen site in July 1963.
The drive into the Mackenzie Country over Burke's Pass was through a full-scale snowstorm - thank God for Land Rovers.
It cleared the next day, but the noon temperature on top of the mountain - a stiff, leg-killing climb through thick snow from Tekapo township - was still 5C below freezing. Better Frank than me, I thought.
It was no surprise when he was appointed astronomer in charge at Mt John, and no surprise - after the hardships he had endured - when he gave it up in 1969.
"Ten years on the mountains in all types of weather and under difficult and trying conditions is about as much as one man can accomplish," he said. He was just short of his 60th birthday.
Mt John today has a high position among world observatories and the area has been nominated to Unesco as a new type of World Heritage site - a dark sky park. Scientific properties aside, the site could not be bettered - the glorious turquoise lake below, and the majestic backdrop of the Southern Alps. Well chosen, Frank.
