Pro-am Meeting on Comets, Meteors & Meteorites

2003 May 10

Open University, Milton Keynes

A discussion meeting for all astronomers, sponsored by the British Astronomical Association and the Royal Astronomical Society

Please notify the meeting organiser of your intention to attend, so that we can provide adequate catering. Light lunches will be available for purchase.
The meeting is being held in the Berrill Lecture Theatre on the Open University Campus in Milton Keynes. There is general travel information and a selection of maps on the OU maps page. There are specific maps of the region, Milton Keynes and the Campus.

Provisional Programme

10:30    Doors open, registration, tea/coffee available

11:00    Welcome
11:05    Monica Grady (NHM), Meteorites
11:25    Neil Bone (BAA), BAA meteor observations
11:45    Iwan Williams (Queen Mary, London), Meteor streams
12:05    Andrew Elliot (BAA), Video meteors
12:25    Discussion

12:30    Lunch (lunches will be available for purchase on site)
During the lunch break there will be an opportunity to tour some of the OU laboratories. There is only space for limited numbers (10 - 15) in each group, with half hour tours at 12:30 and 13:30. A sign up sheet will be available on the day.

14:00    Jonathan Shanklin (BAA), BAA visual comet observations
14:20    David Hughes (Sheffield), Cometary size distribution
14:40    Alan Fitzsimmons (Queen's, Belfast), Recent results in ground-based imaging of distant comets
15:00    Nick James (BAA), Amateur CCD observations of comets
15:20    Discussion

15:30    Tea

16:00    Graeme Waddington (BAA), Comet orbits and Ikeya-Zhang "Random meanderings by Jove"
16:20    Brian Marsden (SAO), The George Alcock Memorial Lecture "Comets near the Sun"

17:20    Discussion

17:30    Close

  There is some space for poster displays. Please contact me if you would like to exhibit.

Exhibits

  • A display of Libyan desert glass (Brian Sheen, Roseland Observatory)
  • Cuttings from old Journals (Eric Hutton)
  • Eclipse meeting fliers
  • Observing comets book fliers
  • OU displays
  • Journal of the International Meteor Organisation

    There will be an opportunity to visit the newly opened OU observatory and sign the visitors book.