Field Notes

My best friend passed away Sunday August 3rd.  Jeff Medkeff was an amazing person.  A scientist.  A critical thinker.  A skeptic.  An astronomer.  But most of all he was a self-less friend.

I first met Jeff in the spring of 2004 at an astronomy day event in downtown Anchorage, AK.  Jeff and I became instant and the best of friends.

Many people in the astronomical arena, both professional and amateur, know Jeff.  If they did not know him personally, they knew of him.  Jeff was a contributing editor to Astronomy and Sky and Telescope magazines.  During his 40 years of life he owned a computer company and a robotic observatory company.  Jeff’s numerous contributions to astronomy are cataloged in the 100s of asteroids he and amateur astronomer Dave Healy discovered, the countless people whose lives he has enriched through his public outreach on astronomy and science.  Jeff was the consummate writer.  Articulate, funny, and able to cut to the chase and find humor in absurdity.  My personal favorite is when he would point out the GIGANTIC holes in creation science, noting that belief in creation is not science at all.  I am sure Jeff and God are now having some amazing conversations and hopefully having a good laugh about 6000 year old Earth theories.

Jeff gave of himself without reservation.  He was there for me when my daughter was born with Down’s Syndrome and I needed someone to listen.  He and I spent many a Tuesday evening at Jitter’s Coffee house in Eagle River.  We talked of science.  Solved the worlds problems.  Pointed out how the rest of the world was obviously wrong for not thinking like us.  (This would often make us laugh.  As we said “Too bad everyone isn’t as smart as we are.”  We were of course kidding.)  Jeff was always there to teach me about astronomy, even when he was trying to take a break from it, he would always help me because he knew it was my passion.  Jeff knew I didn’t have the money to buy expensive equipment for astronomy.  So when I decided to try and make a computerized mount out of a Celestron CG5 with a Meade Autostar, we spent HOURS trying to design the motor mounts and gear system.  It looked like something Rube Goldberg would draw.  When I told him of my desire to do variable star studies, he even offered to send me his SBIG camera.

I admire Jeff so much.  He taught me how to think better.  He advanced my astronomy knowledge.  He taught my son how scientists think and discover.  But my son and I were not alone in the gift of knowledge from Jeff.  As a science and astronomy popularizer and educator, Jeff taught many classes at various science centers and schools.  Like all gifted teachers, Jeff had a depth of knowledge that allowed him to take complex concepts and reduce them to understandable levels so everyone in the audience could take away new knowledge.  Even when challenged by, shall we call them fundamentalist thinkers, Jeff addressed their questions with respect and courtesy.

Jeff was also a photographer.  I recall how enthusiastic Jeff was to take a portrait of my family on a rare occasion when my parents, both my brothers and their families were in Anchorage.  It is an amazing picture.

I am a better person because of my friend Jeff.  He taught me to believe in myself, my abilities and my dreams.  As they say on NPR, “This I Believe.”