Foreword
The past two years of the observatory have been marked by the
expansion in the field of space astronomy. The appointment of
Dr.Esko Valtaoja as professor of space astronomy has opened up
the teaching of this field in Finland. Dr. Chris Flynn, a new
permanent Research Fellow, has brought about a major push in
the use of satellite data. Dr. Tapio Korhonen began the
grinding of the test mirror for the FIRST satellite of ESA. The
appointment of Dr. Pasi Hakala to the permanent staff from
February 1999 is expected to strengthen the same trend.
Space astronomy is an important complement to the ongoing
activities in optical and radio astronomy. On the optical side the
refurbishing of the 70-cm Schmidt telescope with a CCD camera
has brought about new observing possibilities. The
decision to operate several smaller telescopes at remote sites
will also help with the optical monitoring of quasars. The most important
of the latter is the 60-cm telescope of the Royal Academy of
Sciences at La Palma which will be transferred to the use of
Tuorla observatory for the next ten years.
In radio astronomy, the development of the VLBI facility has
continued at Metsähovi Radio Research Station of Technical
University of Helsinki. Tuorla observatory participates in this
work at approximately 30 % level of the total costs. At the
same time, the radio monitoring work has continued together
with the Technical University.
At Tuorla, a GPS satellite observing antenna was set up by the
Geodetic Institute. A seismograph from Uppsala University has
also started operation.
Tuorla observatory has continued to host the headquarters of
the Nordic Optical Telescope (NOT). The
construction of the focal reducer for NOT has begun and is
expected to be finished by the end of 1999. The staff has been
active in using the telescope; nearly one half of all
publications in the publication list of NOT has a Tuorla staff
member as one of the authors.
Dr. Hannu Karttunen won the National Award for science writing
in 1997 with his book on the history of Astronomy. Karttunen has
continued supplying the basic data for the Finnish Almanac.
With the most recent appointments, the permanent staff of the
observatory numbers 19. Temporary graduate staff currently
includes 13 scientists and graduate students; also a number of
students are working on their Master's thesis at the
Observatory.The teaching of astronomy takes place within the
Physics Department of University of Turku; most of the staff
members take part in the teaching program. Four PhD theses
have been completed in 1997 - 1998 at the Observatory.
Two major international conferences were organized during the
period: BL Lac Phenomenon, June 22-26, 1998, and Astrophysics
with the NOT, August 12-15, 1998. Preparations for the 1999
conference on Small Galaxy Groups, IAU Colloquium no. 174, are
under way.
Mauri Valtonen
Director
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