What a view we had as the Earth lapped Mars on 27^th August.  It is quite amazing at the difference in size a couple of ( million ) kilometers makes when viewing through a telescope - even a moderately sized one and of course the views through the 26” were quite phenomenal with some of the surface features really standing out and the South Polar Cap sparkling very brightly on the edge of the disc.

Several images have been taken by members and we hope to bring these to you in these pages or at least to publish them soon on our website….and talking of our website, Chris Stewart and Lerika Cross have been working on a new look for our website, and this should be making it’s appearance fairly soon.  One of the major objectives in this re-design was user friendliness and ease of navigation.  I’m sure you’ll all find it an improvement over the original website design.

Eben van Zyl takes a different tack this month and shows us how to calculate the age of the Universe.  Brian Fraser presents the items of Astronomic Interest for October and November, and Evan Dembskey has found some more interesting astronomically oriented web sites for us to visit and enjoy.

Those of you who have received this issue are those who have paid your subs for 2003/4.  Many thanks for your promptness – it’s your subs that help us plan for the events and presentations for the membership over the next 12 months.

Please send us your requests for what you would like the committee do for you during this period.  Also, your editor’s annual plea for articles once again appears - anything remotely connected to Astronomy, or the Jo’burg Centre, will be published and the only editing that takes place is grammar and spelling - how easy can it be.  And you can be sure you will not be getting any rejection slips in the post.