The summer rains have arrived with a vengeance!!!  This November has headed into the distant realms of the Guinness Book of Wetness Records. There has hardly been a clear night the whole month and our annual Star Party and Leonids watch turned out to be a bit of a "damp" squib - a very enjoyable evening all the same, but the only showers observed were those falling from the clouds and not from outer space. Not really true - we did manage an hour or so of observing before the clouds covered the skies once again.

Mars Odyssey is well and truly into the aerobraking phase of its mission, and has already observed some interesting phenomena, especially regarding a strange vortex surrounding the Martian North Pole. There is an interesting article from Space.com regarding this discovery.

Eben van Zyl turns to radio astronomy in his article "Another Turning Point in Astronomy" where he tells us of the discovery of and the further development of this branch of our special interest, while Mary MacKinnon reports back on the visit last month to the research facility at Pelindaba.

Eric Brindeau supplies another answer to Val's question regarding the Speed of Light presenting a philosophical point of view, and Brian Fraser has supplied us with a general guide to the skies above for the next 12 months. Not all of the tables he has supplied will be printed in this issue, however, they will be uploaded to our web pages as a reference for those who need more than 2 months worth of data at a time.

Also within this issue’s pages, an article from Bill Sheehan, covering the talk he gave while visiting us from the U.S. of A some couple of months back - thanks for the article Bill.

Those of you who receive this issue of Canopus are the ones who have paid your dues. There are still many members who have not done so for this ASSA year, and unfortunately we cannot continue to supply them with copies of our magazine without the funds used in the production and posting thereof.