Derek Benham & GJW-WA

Date: 2018/01/11

Our fifth observatory, called GJW-WA, was enabled by a generous gift to the University of Oxford from Derek Benham of New York.  Derek was a wonderful friend and supporter of Global Jet Watch.  The whole Global Jet Watch team is very sad to learn of Derek’s recent passing, and we send our deepest condolences to his wife Joan.

Derek Benham himself studied Physics as an undergraduate at the University of Oxford, and had a long-standing interest in astronomy that dated as far back as his primary school days and he loved the connectedness of Global Jet Watch with schools.  The GJW-WA observatory, in Western Australia, fills in the longitude gap between GJW-OZ on the eastern side of Australia and GJW-IN located in southern India.