Editorial
We're well into Winter now - as this editorial is being "created" we are less than one week away from Midwinter's day...in fact, Canopus will probably go to press on the 21st of this month. The early evening sky is still quite magnificent and the view presented on the evenings of 16 and 17 June, with the thin crescent Moon and Venus, was quite beautiful. Nova Vela seems to have diminished in brightness fairly quickly after showing much promise at it's discovery last month - we hope most of you had a chance to see this good naked eye occurrence. It's now below normal naked-eye limits, but keep watching.
Bill Wheaton, who is currently taking a well earned vacation, has submitted an article on yet another discovery by the 2MASS project at JPL…Methane Dwarfs. This will entail the allocation of another class letter for identification. ( the alphabet is rapidly depleting ). We actually have a story this month on "Rain Making" - clouds being one of an Astronomer's favourite heavenly objects - sorry, that should read least favourite!!!
Eben van Zyl's article on the cores of our Planets has much food for thought and we have a couple of moon shots from a member-in-waiting who will be joining us after the AGM. These were taken on good old celluloid and scanned in for publication. Thanks Michael
Melvyn regales us with his story of a trip to Nylsvlei and Brian has submitted several pieces including the "Rain Making" one mentioned above, a bit on the telescope making class and as always, the star calendar for the months of July and August. Please make note of a special movie showing on Monday 19th July. Come along and enjoy the product of the endeavors of some of our Northern Hemisphere colleagues.
REMEMBER: The 14th July is our Annual General Meeting. Please be there for the various reports and to vote for the committee that YOU would like to steer us into the last year of the millenium.
The Editors
Chris chris@aqua.co.za,
Ray raymondb@is.co.za
Lori barbour@global.co.za