From 1995, a picture of Kathy at the Royal Observatory, at Greenwich. She’s standing on the prime meridian, but the scanner’s cut off her feet so you can’t see it.
The photo may have been taken by Sue Casper or Gardner Dozois, who joined us on the excursion. We were zigzagging our way to the first Glasgow Worldcon.
We got on a ferry near Tower Bridge and cruised down the Thames, where History lines both banks of the river. In Greenwich we walked through the lovely Christopher Wren-designed Greenwich Hospital (for retired sailors) and the Royal Naval College, where back in 1980 I did research for my Privateer books.
There are actually two prime meridians, because the Astronomer Royal built a new transit-telescope 5.79 meters from the original one, and shifted the prime meridian in 1851. With the technology available at the time, the difference was not detectable.
With her astrophysics background, Kathy was very interested in the astronomical and navigational equipment on display, particularly K1 and K3, chronometers developed by watchmaker Larcum Kendall and carried to the South Pacific by Captain Cook, They were the first clocks to accurately determine longitude on shipboard (or indeed anywhere).
The trip earned back its investment, as it were, fifteen years or so later, when I revisited my photos of the observatory to help inspire the astronomy scene in Quillifer the Knight.
