Today was the Memorial Service for Jonathan Wood, and below you will find my thoughts as I presented them during the service, on how I remember one of my dearest friends:

In Memoriam: Jonathan Wood

There’s probably someone who you’ve known for a while, but you really believe you have known him for a lifetime. Well, to me, Jon Wood was one of those people.

I joined the Charlie Elliott chapter of the Atlanta Astronomy Club in January of 2007. The chapter has monthly meetings at Charlie Elliott Wildlife Center in Mansfield. When I went to my first meeting in the beginning of 2007, I walked nervously into the meeting room with the lights tempered low and wondered what everybody would say or think. As I scanned the room, I saw this fellow with a big smile on his face and guess what, the chair next to him was empty. I decided that’s where I wanted to sit, and it was Jon who immediately made me feel comfortable in this new club. This was the first time I met Jon, but that’s how many people who came to our meetings and observing sessions felt about him – a big, friendly fellow with a big smile and very big heart.

The friendly outreach did not stop at the meeting, but continued afterwards when we went to the nearby observing field. Jon kept impressing me and putting fuel on that fire that astronomers feel when they are outside in the dark and cold, looking through their telescopes and get connected with all that is “up there”. It was winter and Jon showed me that first night M42 (the Orion Nebula), the brightest nebula in the sky and some other night-time jewels. Well, Jon got me hooked and following this first night, there were many late evenings and nights we spent together on the field.

Because of his knowledge of the night sky, Jon became the chapter’s observing director. This was a natural for him. You know, Jon always had the answer if someone needed to know what this star or that star was, or needed to know which stars to align a scope onto. He would help newcomers or anyone who had trouble with their gear. If they needed an eyepiece for the night, Jon had it, if someone needed a Barlow eyepiece for the night, Jon had it; he had everything – even the hardware if you lost a screw somewhere on your gear.

And Jon did not only help people, but he also was a great astronomer. He participated in the chapter’s event to observe the transit of Mercury across the face of the Sun, and he was the one who recorded the event into a short movie you really should not miss. That movie also won him the Charlie Elliott Chapter “Larry” Award for the Best Astronomy Movie Director……

Do you believe you need to go to Florida to observe the launch of the space shuttle? Not for Jon. In December 2006, as chapter members watched the night launch of the space shuttle on the Internet in the warm conference room at the Charlie Elliott visitors’ center, Jon was up the road with his telescope in the cold, taking images of the shuttle launch some 350 miles away, as it slowly rose over the tree line of the Charlie Elliott observing field!!! That was Jon, no challenge too big for him. And to prove it, please visit his photo gallery on the Charlie Elliott website and see the image. He did this not one just once, but twice!! I was also one of several other lucky chapter members with Jon at the observing field to witness the launch of another space shuttle launch in March 2008 at 2:30 A.M. in the morning as it took off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida!

You think imaging something 350 miles away is great? Jon thought different, he loved to locate comets millions of miles away as well as galaxies, star clusters and nebulas millions of light years away and image them. Comets come in different sizes and the ones Jon liked were the really faint ones. I still remember the night when both of us were trying to identify a light spot seen through Jon’s scope that was not on star maps. Based on the star charts, we believed we did locate a comet, but it took us another day to ensure that the faint light dot we had identified as a comet was actually not there anymore and had moved a little way from its previous day’s location.

We had many laughs with Jon and I would like to share one of them. We were observing after the meeting in which I had made a presentation about observing the moon. Jon wanted to see Rupus Recta (the “Straight Wall”), a 68-mile-long straight ridge on the Moon. As I was guiding Jon in “crater-hopping” towards the feature, he interrupted me and said: “Hold on for a moment, I need to clean my eyepiece, I believe I have an eyelash on the eyepiece”. We burst out laughing as we both realized that the hair was not a hair, but actually the Straight Wall!

Jon’s greatest passion in astronomy was not astronomy itself but being able to reach out to people – especially youngsters – as illustrated by a comment made by one of our members who has small children. “Every time I made the 38-mile trip to Charlie Elliot, I always wondered if I would see Jon as I pulled up onto the observing field. Sometimes one of my boys would ask me ‘if the man with the big red truck was going to be there.’ My answer was, ‘I don’t know, but if the sky is clear tonight, I bet that we will see him.’ Jon had a way of making everyone feel comfortable and special.”

Jon had this special way to get the small ones interested. I remember last Jakes Day, Charlie Elliott’s outdoor festival in May of 2009 (named for its founder and benefactor Charlie Elliott). Jon had set up his scope inside the visitors’ center, and on a table next to it he was running a computer program called “Celestia” which allows you to simulate a flight through the solar system, enter orbits around the planets and their moons and look back at Earth. A little girl had made it to Jon and was looking at the scope and the monitor of his laptop. She got really comfortable with him and excited about the spaceflight and ended up on his lap while looking at the monitor as they were orbiting some moons and again the planet Saturn. I noticed her excitement and how she was involved in the flight and what she saw as she turned to Jon and said: “Can we turn around and fly back to the moon?”

Jon did touch the interest of many, both the old and the young. He was an extraordinary fellow and I am proud to have called him my best friend……

Finally, I feel so lucky to have gone out and imaged the red planet Mars on January 5th. It was 21 degrees with wind gusts up to 19 miles an hour, so you can imagine how it felt on the outside. But inside, I felt good, because I knew that I captured how Mars looked as Jonathan was passing by on his way into the Heavens Above!

Jonathan, you always will be remembered, and may you rest in peace.

Theo Ramakers
Director, Charlie Elliott Chapter of the Atlanta Astronomy Club.