Editorial

The pictures and video of the events in the U.S. of 11^th September will horrify me for as long as I live. The total lack of humanity and/or regard for life leaves me aghast - whatever is our world coming to? However, life does go on, so rather than dwell on this barbarity - let me move on to more pleasant topics.

In my last editorial, I complained about the dust in the air which caused diminished seeing and said that we needed the rain to clear the muck out of the air - well, here in Randburg, when the rains arrived a few days after that editorial, they arrived in megalitres and bucketed down for a couple of days. But I was right - the skies are much clearer and the Stars and Planets looking good again. Mars still shines brightly above us in the evening, but less so than a couple of months ago. In the morning skies, Saturn and Jupiter are still prominent but Venus is rapidly diving into the sunrise, and will soon be the evening star again.

Wolf Lange supplies the 2^nd in the series of "The A to Zee of Astronomee" moving onto the items of interest beginning with "B" and talking of "B", our friend Bill Wheaton from the Infrared Processing and Analysis Centre at Caltech ( which operates NASA's JPL ) reflects on our place in the universe after the horrendous events of 11^th September.

Eben van Zyl tells us of the circumstances surrounding the death of Stars and why this occurrence leads on to the beginnings of the next generations of Stars ( a kind of "Circle of Life" to borrow a song title from the Disney movie, the Lion King . . . . .Ed.).

Brian Fraser has supplied us with a general guide to the skies above for the next 2 months; and gives us some news regarding accommodation in the area of the total Solar Eclipse of 4^th December 2002. It looks as though all the suppliers of accommodation in the Messina area are going to make an absolute fortune in rentals over the period of the eclipse.

Trevor Gould supplies information regarding the visit to the SAFARI-1 reactor - there is a limited time in which to book your place on the "tour".

Those of you who were at the last monthly meeting were treated to a great presentation my Tony Voorvelt and some fascinating views of solar prominences taken from the new Solar Observatory which has been set up on the roof of the Physics building at Wits University.
We plan to visit this new observatory either at the end of this year, or early next year - it should be quite an eye-opener.

The Editor - chris@penberthy.co.za

 The 2001/2 Committee of the Johannesburg Centre