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News from AAS Newsletter 85 - June 1997


Attendees at the 28th Annual Meeting of the DDA on the steps of Lowell Observatory.

28th Annual Meeting at Lowell Observatory

The DDA held its held its twenty-eighth regular meeting on 14-16 April 1997 at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. Otto G. Franz was the local host. A total of 31 talks and 7 poster papers were presented at the meeting. Invited lectures were given by Doug Richstone (U. Michigan) on "The Propinquity of Very Massive Black Holes," and by Renu Malhotra (LPI) on "The Kuiper Belt: A Window on the Early Solar System." The banquet speaker on 15 April was Gene Shoemaker (LPI), who spoke about the danger from cometary impacts in a talk entitled "Comets and Us."

 

 

 


Invited speaker Renu Malhotra spoke on the Kuiper Belt.


Doug Richstone (U. Michigan), DDA Invited Speaker.


Relaxed at the Banquet are (from the left) Don Osterbrock, Bob Millis (Lowell), and Gene Shoemaker, the banquet speaker.

 


Frank Shu accepted the 1997 Brouwer Award from outgoing Division Chair, Chris Hunter.

Frank Shu (UC Berkeley) was presented the Brouwer Award for 1997. He was cited for superb scholarship and powerful insight in his many contributions to the dynamics of disk galaxies, stellar dynamics, interacting binary stars, star formation, and planetary rings, as well as for authoring three important books and a distinguished record of service to the profession. Shu gave the Brouwer Award Lecture, "Some Dynamical Problems in Star Formation," at the start of the 15 April morning session.

 

 

 

 


Capt.Foster presented a replica of the plaque to Kaj Strand while Ken Johnston, the current Scientific Director, looks on.

A special session honoring Kaj Strand, former Scientific Director of the US Naval Observatory, was held on the afternoon of 15 April. After talks by Steven Dick (USNO) on "Origins of the USNO Flagstaff Station and the 61-inch Telescope" and by Conard Dahn (USNO Flagstaff) on "The USNO 61-inch Telescope - an Astrometric Workhorse," the 61-inch astrometric reflector at the USNO Flagstaff Station was dedicated to Dr. Strand. In a ceremony held in the dome of the telescope, attendees included all but one of the former directors of the Station. Superintendent Kent Foster, Capt. USN, presided, and presented Dr. Strand with a replica of the dedication plaque.

 

 

 

 


Student Stipend awardees Dana Dinescu and Francis Wilkins with Chris Hunter.

For the third year, two students were awarded stipends of $400 each, on the basis of abstracts submitted prior to the meeting. The number of submissions increased sharply this year. The stipends went to Dana Dinescu (Yale) who spoke, on "Tangential Velocities of Southern Globular Clusters: New Results," and to Francis Wilkins (UC Berkeley) who spoke on "Analytic Solutions for Non-Axisytnmetric Stellar Wind Bow Shocks and Binary Wind Collisions."

 

 

 

 


Local host Otto Franz organized an excursion to the Grand Canyon. From the left, 0. Franz, D, Dinescu, A. Fiala, W. Jefferys and S. Jefferys.

The elected officers for 1997-98 are Jack Hills (Chair), Fritz Benedict (Vice Chair), Peter Sheltis (Treasurer), and Marc Murison (Secretary). The Division Committee members are (2nd year) Bob Jacobson, Jack Lissauer, Doug Richstone, (1st year), Doug Mink, Dan Pascu, and Bill van Altena. Christopher Hunter is Past Chair.

The next DDA meeting will be held in Charlottesville, Virginia, hosted by the Department of Astronomy and Leander McCorinick Observatory of the University of Virginia. Dates of the meeting are 1-3 April 1998. Phil Ianna will be the local host, and the Program Committee will consist of Fritz Benedict (Chair), Phil lanna, and Marc Murison.

 

 

All photos, courtesy of Alan Fiala.

Tremaine to Receive 1997 Brouwer Award

It was announced that Dr. Scott D. Tremaine, of the University of Toronto, was the winner of the 1997 Dirk Brouwer Award of the Division on Dynamical Astronomy, in recognition of his many outstanding contributions to a wide range of dynamical problems in both solar-system and galactic dynamics. Among his major contributions to solar-system dynamics are predictions of density waves in planetary rings and the existence of "shepherd" satellites, models of the Kuiper belt and of the Oort cloud of comets, and pioneering efforts to carry out accurate numerical integrations of the long-term evolution of the solar system. His major contributions to galactic dynamics include studies of the stability of stellar systems, of the consequences of dynamical friction, of the nature of dark galaxy halos and their effects on warps in galactic disks, of the interactions of bars with other galaxy components, and of the measurement of bar pattern speeds. With James Binney, he is the author of Galactic Dynamics, a work which has become a classic and the standard reference in this field.