1st announce (10 Jan. 2004)

    The Osservatorio Astronomico Bellatrix (Bellatrix Astronomical Observatory) announces the organization of the:

1st Virtual Meeting on Amateur Astronomy (CVAA = Convegno Virtuale di Astronomia Amatoriale).

    INTRO. Thanks to the latest technologies, the meeting will use the internet resources, that is a server (this one) hosting the presentations and a forum (one for each presentation), where participants can post their questions, to be answered by the authors. At the end of the meeting, the forum will be "frozen", however remaining available on the web as a virtual book. The Meeting had the patronage of the Unione Astrofili Italiani, the Italian amateur national league.  

Both  professionals and amateurs worldwide can join the meeting.

The meeting will include both an International and an Italian Section. At first, it was tought for the Italian community, with a formal deadline for paper submission for Feb. 29th, 2004, and an opening day for the following March 15th. Several foreign amateurs asked if it was possible to extend it and the Organizing Committe decided to introduce an international area, english being the official language accepted. As reported below, the international section will have more convenient deadlines, as its organization started a bit later. 

    DATES. The meeting will be formally opened on March 15th, 2004. However, the international section will be opened on March 31st, 2004. The deadline for any international contribution is: March 15th, 2004. This deadline applies also to Italian amateurs wishing to present a contribution to the international area. Both abstracts and full presentations can be sent to the Organizing Committe (convegno@bellatrixobservatory.org) by now. On the opening day, the page reporting all the links to the presentations will be made available. Those sending just the abstract need to send the full work in time, accordingly with the deadline above.

    FIELDS OF INTEREST. Contributions related to any astronomical field of interest for amateurs are welcomed. A possible list follows, but people interested to submit their work in different areas are invited to contact the Organizing Committe. So far, these are the possible topics: 

- History of Astronomy

- Professionals and Amateurs joint projects

- Popularization of Astronomy

- Visual Observations (techiniques, particular observations, ...)

- Light Pollution

- CCD Astronomy

-  Digital Astronomy (webcams, digicams, ...)

- Celestial Mechanics and Computation in Astronomy

-  Observing Techniques (astrometry, photometry, spectroscopy, ...)

- Data reduction

- Astrophotography

- Research Activities (Variable Stars, Asteroids, novae, supernovae, GRBs, comets, sun, ...)

- Astronomical Software

- Astronomical Instruments

- Astronomical Observatories

- Associations.

    CONTRIBUTIONS. Authors wishing to send their contributions to the International area are asked to send their work to the Organizing Committe (convegno@bellatrixobservatory.org) - within March 15th, 2004 -  in html format (with all the files needed); the page will be linked to the meeting index.  An abstract  is welcomed if you plan to send later the full work: this will help preparing the web structure. The following page can be seen as a template for colors and fonts, but manipulating the layout as desired: 

www.bellatrixobservatory.org/article.html 

Feel free to download and edit it to match your needs. Too complex pages will be manipulated by the Organizing Committe, however with no warranty of pubblications: please, be simpler as much as possible! Most popular word processors can save in html format. In few cases, the Bellatrix Observatory can provide some help; however, for obvious time reasons, this support is an not-warranted  *last* resource. Powerpoint and similar presentations can be sent as a file to be linked to the html document, so that participants can download them on their pc. Do NOT send powerpoint files without an html version of the work: the latter is definitely necessary!  

   Manifacturers can send contributions, however avoiding advertising their own products (that is, please avoid to send a work which simply is an advertisement: an interesting application of a given product is accepted).   

    REGISTRATION. To register, both authors and participants need to submit their application here:

http://www.bellatrixobservatory.org/cvaa1registration.html 

providing the requested data (name, surname and a valid email address are mandatory). These data will be used to prepare a list of participants (without publishing the email address). Participants will be included in a mailing list announcing all the news related to the meeting. 

   The forum will require a separate registration, once the service will be made available on the opening day. This to limit unwanted "noise". 

Registration and partecipation are free of charge.

    DISCLAIMER. The Observatory is absolutely not responsible for the contents of the published contributions: the full responsability is of the authors.     

    The Organizing Commite (convegno@bellatrixobservatory.org) is available for any question.

Hoping that this meeting will be fruitful and enjoyable, I wish to you the very best.

Bellatrix Observatory.

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