Editorial

Venus is brilliant in the evening sky as this editorial is being pondered upon. At the time of the last new moon at the beginning of October, it was a beautiful sight as seen from the small Western Cape hamlet of Stilbaai where your editor and his better half were unwinding after another year's stressful existence up here on the Witwatersrand. A couple of attempts to photograph the Moon, Venus and Mercury were singularly unsuccessful due no doubt to the fact that today's point and shoot cameras do not adapt easily to astronomical imaging.

The skies down in that region of the country are quite phenomenal due to the lack of indiscriminate lighting and air pollution (when not overcast that is). It is very easy to see why an area like Sutherland was chosen as the site of the national Astronomical Observatory. Until one gets closer to Cape Town, the skies are really dark and the seeing is great.

Bill Wheaton is snowed under until at least April 2001 with major work to do with the 2MASS project and will not be able to provide his excellent articles until then. Good luck with the PSFs Bill.

Brian Fraser has supplied us with the sky happenings for November and December as well as the applicable Planetary data for the same period and Trevor Gould is looking for some volunteers to help with observations of the next transit of Venus in 2004.

Danie's variable of the month article covers some strange antics of Delta Velorum and has a request for some observing to be done by the society members - read his article with special attention to the footnote thereafter.

Dave Gordon has submitted a really good article on polar alignment. As you're all aware, we in the Southern Hemisphere, although having more beautiful skies than our friends in the North, do not have their advantage of a bright Polar Star - so read this carefully and you will learn how to align your telescope to the South Celestial Pole with relative ease.

The Editor

The 2000/1 Committee of the Johannesburg Centre