_                   
                                                         |_|                  
      V   V   SSSS   OOO   PPPP                 \__      |_|      __/         
      V   V  S      O   O  P   P                   --____/ \____--            
      V   V   SSS   O   O  PPPP                    _ _ _ --- _ _ _            
       V V       S  O   O  P                      |_|_|_|  @|_|_|_|           
        V    SSSS    OOO   P                             o-o                  
                                                          /                   
      ***  N    E    W    S  ***                        <)                    

HALCA STATUS

Despite the statement in the last VSOP news that "the next attempts to restabilize the satellite will be made in February, after the present series of eclipses has ended" serious efforts have been made to bring about a speedier recovery. Unfortunately these have been thwarted by one or more of the necessary conditions for recovery not being met. The next attempt will be made on Monday January 31st. (The last issue also bore the wrong issue number, which we are forced to blame on a Y12 bug!)

VSOP SYMPOSIUM

The first VSOP symposium, "High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena Revealed by Space-VLBI", was held at ISAS last week and was a great success. The meeting was attended by more than 80 people, of whom about 50 were from overseas. The deadline for manuscripts for the conference proccedings is Friday, February 18th (less than three weeks away!). The template for manuscripts is available from /astro/halca/vsop/symposium.html.en.

The symposium successfully covered the full range of science being carried out with VSOP observations, from AGN, to studies of the inter-stellar medium, to intra-day variables, to masers, to multi-wavelength tie-ups. Participants had a chance to view short movies on the VSOP project and the development of the M-V rocket, and were treated to an entertaining history of the VSOP mission by Project Scientist "Hirax" Hirabayashi during the conference dinner.

OTHER MEETINGS

Several meetings were held at ISAS after the Symposium: the VSOP International Science Council (VISC) met on the Saturday; an all-day planning meeting for VSOP-2 -- the planned follow-on mission to HALCA -- was held on Monday 24th; and the VSOP Survey Data Analysts met on Tuesday and Wednesday to further the reduction and release of VSOP Survey Data.

AO4

A reminder that, due to the uncertainties over the timescale for HALCA's recover and the subsequent sun-angle constraints, the AO4 proposal deadline, which had nominally been set for 1 February has been postponed.

ATNF/AAO SYMPOSIUM

The annual Australia Telescope National Facility/Anglo-Australian Observatory Joint Symposium will be held in the Hunter Valley on March 16th & 17th. Recent results obtained from AAO and ATNF facilities will be presented, and oral and poster contributions are invited. More details are available from http://www.aao.gov.au/astro/colloquia/symp2000.html.

                Editors: Phil Edwards and Hirax Hirabayashi