From VSSC100

A few words from the BAA President

Martin Mobberley

The fact that we have reached this 100th edition of the VSS Circular is a tribute to many years of hard work and enthusiasm from successive Editors, Directors, co-ordinators and contributing observers.

The BAA is, quite possibly, the premier body of amateur observers in the world, and one only has to look at the VSS observing statistics to see the evidence.

Gary Poyner's incredible 12-15,000 annual variable star estimates must surely rank him as the world's leading observer of faint cataclysmics. In addition, a dozen other UK observers contribute over 1,000 estimates per year each, and there are over 50,000 total annual estimates from a hard core of 70 VSS observers.

The VSS contains more than just visual observers though; CCD and PEP observers are doing valuable, precision work, and the recent BAA purchase of four photometric filter wheels from Norman Walker will allow more observers to indulge in this technology.

If our observing activities were not impressive enough, the VSS archive of 1.3 million observations is a resource of which we can be truly proud, and is a tribute to the work of Dave McAdam and his helpers.

Pro-Am liaison officers, including Guy Hurst and Roger Pickard (the incoming VSS Director), have also guaranteed that VSS activities are targetted to maximise the usefullness of observations to professional astronomers.

With all the ability and enthusiasm in the VSS, it is not hard to see how the Section Circular has reached this bumper 100th edition! In the capable hands of the current Editor, Karen Holland, we can look forward to many more excellent editions dropping through our letterboxes.