ILBA 14

This issue of our newsletter is devoted to brief reports on two recent conferences devoted to space science. One of the meetings took place in Romania and the other one in Yugoslavia.

Our colegues in Romania have organized the Second regional meeting of the South-Eastern Branch of the European Astronomical Society. It was held beginning October, and we include below a brief report on the meeting by Prof. dr. Magda Stavinschi from the Romanian Academy. The report is included “as received”.

The second regional meeting of the South-Eastern Branch of the European Astronomical Society, "New Results in Stellar Physics", was held in Timisoara (Romania) between 3 and 5 October 2002.

The South-Eastern Branch of the EAS, set up in 2000, is aimed to solve the problems of common research fields that the astronomers in this part of Europe are facing, through joint forces, within cooperation projects. The problems discussed during the meeting were related especially to stellar physics and evolution, pulsating stars, binary systems,photomet- ry of variable stars, models of stellar structure. The communications covered both the observational and the theoretical area.

Even if the distances between the neighbour countries of this part of Europe are small, some astronomers who liked to participate regretted to be unable to obtain financial support from their institutions. So, the participants were only from Hungary, Romania and Yugoslavia.The small number of participants had however an advantage:the time for discussions concerning each presentation was practically unlimited. Of course, all had time enough to visit this wonderful city of the South-Western part of Romania, to know its history and to feel the hospitality of Timisoara.

The meeting was organized mainly by the Astronomical Institute of the Romanian Academy (Timisoara and Bucharest Observatories), the Timisoara Branch of the Romanian Academy, the West University of Timisoara, with an important help from the Mayoralty of the city.

The experience of these two meetings suggests us to continue them for a better knowledge of the main topics of common research in this part of Europe. We use this opportunity to announce that the proceedings of the first regional meeting, held in April 2001 in Bucharest, "Solar Researches in South-Eastern European Countries: Present and Perspectives", edited by Georgeta Maris (Romania) and Mauro Messerotti (Italy), will appear very soon.

The XIII National Conference of Yugoslav Astronomers was held in Belgrade, on October 17-20. It was hosted, in practical terms, by the Yugoslav Chamber of Commerce, in its premises on Terazije, in the center of Belgrade. On the scientific side, work was organized by the Chair of Astronomy of the Faculty of Mathematics of Belgrade University (co-organizer Prof.dr.Jelena Milogradov-Turin), and the Astronomical Observatory in Belgrade (co-organizer dr.Georgije Popovic). The full program of the meeting is unfortunately too long to be reproduced here. However,it is extremely worth that “real” foreigners attended the conference,and one of them (Prof. F. Adams from Ann Arbor) even gave a public lecture in the Belgrade city library.

During the Conference, the Society of Astronomers of Serbia (SAS) held its electoral assembly, on which the managing board for the next three years was elected. Its president is dr.Milan Cirkovic from the Astronomical Observatory in Belgrade,and the members are: mr Andjelka Kovacevic (Mathematical Faculty), Vukota Babovic (PMF Kragujevac),prof. Olga Atanackovic-Vukmanovic (Mathematical Faculty-National Comitee ),dr Luka Ch. Popovic(Public Observatory),and dr Anatolij Mihajlov (Institute of Physics). At the time of writing of this issue of ILBA the web site of SAS has recently been updated.

The preparation of this issue of ILBA was delayed for a variety of “semi-objective” reasons,so it is appropriate to include preliminary information on the passage of the Leonids. Various amateur groups in Serbia and Croatia attempted to observe the event. Judging by reports received so far,the luckiest group was the one on Mt.Rajac (Serbia) led by Mr.Nikola Bozic from Valjevo.They had reasonably clear weather,and managed to determine hourly frequencies between 250 and 300.For details,contact Nikola at bozicn@ptt.yu .

In Subotica (northern Serbia) bad weather spoiled the event. The same thing happened in Croatia, where a group of amateurs from Zagreb went to Premantura (in Istria, on the seaside) but almost missed the event due to bad weather.

Dr Milcho Tsvetkov
Sofia Sky Archive Data Center
72 Tsarigradsko Shosse Blvd.
Sofia 1784
Bulgaria
milcho@skyarchive.org

fax:+359 2 9744 835

Dr Vladan Celebonovic
Institute of Physics
Pregrevica 118
11080 Zemun-Beograd
Yugoslavia
vladan@phy.bg.ac.yu
vcelebonovic@sezampro.yu
fax:+381 11 3162190