Professor Brian Warner's Talk

As I felt that we are miles behind our Antipodes friends in photometry activities, I suggested to Professor Warner that he address the Johannesburg Centre on the recent amateur/professional Southern PEP Conference, held in New Zealand, and on the activities of the celebrated "Centre for Backyard Astrophysics" (S&T, 1998 October). He obligingly changed his travel plans and gave us a talk on September 1. The talk proved me wrong: We are light years, not miles behind.

Professor Warner suggested that we look at the possibility of organising a Southern Africa conference on amateur photometry. This is a good idea but I think we should have a preliminary meeting to establish just how much commitment there is in our ranks to an activity which will be no pushover. I suggest that the Johannesburg Centre Committee organise a meeting, perhaps associated with a regular monthly meeting, in order to sound out members. The committee should try to ensure the presence this time of the five capable, computer-knowledgeable senior members who were invited to the Warner talk and who did not seem to be able to make it, so that we can have the benefit of their experience, knowledge and judgement.

Pretoria Centre members should be invited to the preliminary meeting, especially Sarel P Wagner. As a curtain raiser to the ASSA AGM on July 28, Sarel gave us a fascinating talk on TASS (S&T, 1998 February). TASS, the amateur sky survey, is up and running under the enthusiastic leadership of Tom Droege, who has been incredibly generous to promising beginners. Tom plans to visit South Africa next year in order to deliver one of his specialised CCD cameras. If a conference does get off the ground, it should be organised so as to include him. Perhaps Sarel Wagner has already done some work in this regard.

I am not active or computer-literate enough to take a leading part in this exciting new field but feel very strongly that we should start right now in an attempt to catch up with the civilised world, and not hide behind the usual excuses such as an unfavourable Rand-Dollar exchange rate and crime.

Danie Overbeek