Summer 1997

 MIRA Invited to Kyoto

 Every three years the International Astronomical Union (IAU) meets to discuss a wide range of topics of current interest in astronomy.  This year's meeting is in Kyoto, Japan; and no one at MIRA had made any plans to attend.  However, the Commission on Spectral Classification decided to have a day-long symposium on automatic classification of stellar spectra and invited MIRA's Dr. Bruce Weaver to make the second invited talk.

This was quite an honor but, by the time the invitation had arrived, the deadline for applying for travel funds from the American Astronomical Society (AAS) had long passed.  Neither MIRA or Bruce felt that the trip was affordable, but the Chairman of the Commission persisted.  Suitably impressed, the President of the AAS managed to find enough travel funds to cover the airfare! MIRA will pay for the registration and Bruce is paying for the living expenses (which are not cheap in Japan).

IAU meetings are run in a manner similar to three-ring circuses: several smaller meetings are going on simultaneously.  While only a fraction of the IAU attendees will be interested in automatic classification, it does provide a chance to inform astronomers from other parts of the world about our breakthroughs on a problem that has stumped astronomers for decades.  In particular, European astronomers are more interested in this problem than are their American counterparts.
Needless to say, Bruce is now busy preparing his presentation and learning how to say, in Japanese, "Is that slide upside down?"