This meeting took place on the Saturday immediately after the HEA Workshop. It was slightly more formal than any VSS Meeting that I've ever attended, with reports from the various committee chairmen, which included the observing sections (visual, PEP and CCD for example) as well as the business side. However, the bulk of the meeting was made up of short (10 minutes with 5 minutes for questions) presentations. I gave a short presentation on the BAAVSS, pointing out that although our database may not be so large as theirs (nearly 2 million observations compared with nearly 9 million), ours does predate theirs by some 20 years! Guy Hurst then spoke on the UK Nova and Supernovae Programme following which we were surprised to hear another English voice giving a presentation.
This turned out to be Dr. Alex Murphy who is currently working in the US, and who is interested in neutrino astronomy. He would like to set up a network whereby amateurs could be advised of a potential SN by the prior receipt of neutrinos. However, neutrino detectors are unable to tell in which part of the sky a new SN will appear. Therefore, it is likely to be up to amateurs to spot any new SN first, and report it so that professionals using telescopes of all types, including those in space, can be advised of where to point their instruments. With nearly 400 years having elapsed since the last SN in our galaxy we are well overdue for another. However, Dr Murphy pointed out that as the neutrino detector with which he is currently involved has not yet been built he is hoping that any new SN in our galaxy will not go off for at least another 5 years!
Following the meeting a banquet was held in the evening at which the guest speaker was astronomer and astronaut Dr John Grunsfeld who spoke about The 1999 HST Servicing Mission and Remarks on High Energy Astrophysics. His talk was superbly illustrated with many slides and a fine video.
I had to leave at 7 am the next morning and found it a little surprising when I boarded the shuttle bus to the airport to find myself sitting next to Dr Grunsfeld. I expected such an important person to have VIP status, but apparently being an astronaut is regarded as just another job! But he did say that he wouldn't swap it for anything!