Editorial

Happy New Year to all of our Readers. Here is your January 2000 issue of Canopus - not a bumper issue as was the last, but chock-a-block with notices and events for the year to come.

Our thoughts go out to the Engineers and Programmers from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the apparent 100% loss of the Mars'98 mission - both MCO and MPL are now presumed lost, although efforts to communicate with MPL still continue at present. Although the "faster, better, cheaper," guideline has meant more missions for less money, one feels that maybe a little more could be spent to build in extra redundancy for a better chance of success. For one, the Galileo mission comes to mind - now way past it's original design life, and almost finished with a secondary mission, from which a lot of useful information is being garnered. And Voyager, after all these years still active and still able to use one or two of it's instruments for some useful science. We have included the latest MPL status.

Danie's variable of the month is a little different in this issue - please read it very carefully and give him your feedback. This can be sent directly to Danie, can be done via one of Your Committee members, or even eMailed directly to the editor.

Another member has graduated from the ASSA's University of Telescope Making - Congratulations Mary! We have included a picture of your 'scope with You and John sharing the limelight.

Brian supplies the Astronomical Calendar for January and February and has also supplied a table of the major planets' rising and setting times for 2000. For this issue only the whole table has been produced on page 11, and for subsequent issues, the applicable 2 months will be added together with Brian's Astronomical Calendar. Wolf Lange has submitted a write-up on the Year End Star Party and some snipperts have been picked up from NASA and included for interest sake.

Bill Wheaton is recovering from surgery and will hopefully, one of these ( not too distant ) days, once again be in a position to provide us with his interesting and well-written articles. Get Well Soon Bill.

And once again, a plea for articles - we need them to make your magazine interesting and Informative.

The Editor

Chris chris@aqua.co.za

 The 1999/2000 Committee of the Johannesburg Centre