Bob Elliott:
> What other interesting things did you learn at the
> AAS meeting?

Wow... where to start? I spent most of my time in the sessions
devoted to high energy astrophysics and related topics such as
gamma ray bursters, soft x-ray repeaters, magnetars, etc...
"where the wild things are". I also spent some time talking to
the BeppoSax guys and the people who were there representing AXAF
(now called Chandra) X-Ray observatory, about to be launched. The
display/poster-paper area was huge, and loaded with interesting
things. Very little equipment was shown, as you would expect.
What was shown was highly specialized such as large Eschelle
gratings for spectrography. Most of the "exhibitors" were people
like Lockheed-Martin, USNO, NASA (5 or 6 separate displays),
people with huge astronomical databases for online use, large
observatories like ESO South (Cerro Paranal, Chile), Keck, etc.

It was my first exposure to professional astronomical technology
and science since my undergrad days at Univ of Arizona in the mid
60's. A good deal of it was above my head but more than enough
was understandable at a detailed level due to my engineering math
background. The math notation (e.g. "dot" and "double dot") and
terminology (e.g. "DC signal" for a non-pulsing signal) used in
radio and high energy observation as well as orbital dynamics,
image and signal processing, etc. is very similar that used in
engineering. Over my career I have developed a real gut feel for
a lot of that. On the other hand, the physics of the large,
stellar scale and relativistic big-time, were difficult for me to
get except at a gross level. But that's what I wanted!! In that
area, what I learned was that neutron stars are not "mostly all
alike" as has been believed until lately -- they vary all over
the map in their characteristics. Imagine having a magnetic field
of 10**15 Gauss!!! Yikes!

--Bob

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