1. Short News
2. The 8th Hellenic Astronomical Conference
3. Hel.A.S. Annual Membership Fee
4. Greece and ESO
5. Upcoming Astronomy meetings in Greece
6. About this Newsletter

We would like to congratulate Dr. Kosmas Gazeas who recently
obtained his PhD from the Dept. of Physics of the Univ. of Athens
under the supervision of Prof. P. Niarchos. The title of his
dissertation was “Photometric and spectroscopic study of contact
binaries of W UMa type – Physical parameters and evolution
model”. Dr. Gazeas also moved as a visiting researcher, at the
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, in Cambridge, MA, USA.

We would like to congratulate Dr. Markos Georganopoulos who has
been appointed to the position of Assistant Professor in the Joint
Center for Astrophysics of the University of Maryland at Baltimore
County and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. He has also been
elected an affiliated member of the science team of the Large Area
Telescope of GLAST, NASA’s Gamma-ray observatory to be launched later
this year

We would like to congratulate Dr. Anastasia Niarchou who recently
obtained her PhD from Imperial College under the supervision of
Dr. Andrew Jaffe. The title of her dissertation was “Low power in
the Cosmic Microwave Background and its implications for the
topology of the Universe”.

We would like to congratulate Dr. Panos Patsis who was awarded a
Fulbright Research Grant to visit for two months the Southwest
Research Institute at Boulder, CO, USA.

We wish to remind all Hel.A.S. members that the registration
deadline for submission of abstracts for the upcoming 8th conference
of Hel.A.S. is on Thursday May 31st 2007. Please submit your abstracts by visiting
the conference web page at:

http://www.ee.duth.gr/hac/

Individuals who submitted their abstracts by e-mail directly to the convenors should also upload them to the conference web site.

Over the past few weeks the Secretary and Treasurer of the Society
contacted by e-mail and phone a considerable number of the members
of Hel.A.S. within Greece who had outstanding payments of their
annual membership fee to the Society. Those members were requested
to pay their past membership fees within a reasonable time. Members
of the Society who work abroad will be contacted for the same reason
later in the summer once the Society is able to accept online
payments using a credit card.

Two were the principal reasons behind this effort.

The first and foremost is the application of the Constitution of
the Society. According to Article 13 of the Constitution, the
Governing Council (GC) of the Society may remove the membership
status from an individual if he/she has not paied his/her annual
membership fee to the Society for more than 2 years.

The second is more practical and it is related to that fact that
the Society after a presence of nearly 15 years has a well
defined professional shape a goals. Furthermore, after several years
of rapid expansion in membership, as it often happens in many
professional Societies, a number of the members may have explored
different professional endeavors or have developed interests which
may not be fully addressed by the Society. The GC of Hel.A.S. would
like to know who these members are and examine what it could do so
that they feel that their needs are met.

The GC of Hel.A.S, collaborating closely with the Greek National
Committee for Astronomy is doing its best to promote Astronomy
within Greece, as well as to represent the professional image of
Greek astronomy within Europe. It also tries to provide to all
members of the Society the best service possible and it is open to
suggestions from all members on how to improve them. The recent
“upgrades” on the content of Hipparchos and the web page of the
Society are some of the steps already taken towards this
direction. As the governing body of the Society though, it is also
responsible for applying the Constitution.

We would thus like to request all members to please review the
Constitution of the Society which is available at:

http://www.helas.gr/gr/const.php

All members who are uncertain on whether they have payed their
annual membership fee for 2007 or earlier years, are also strongly
encouraged to contact the Treasurer of the Society Prof. Apostolos
Mastichiadis at: treasurer@helas.gr or +30 210 7276909 to request
an update on their status.

For more information on these topics feel free to contact the
Secretary Prof. V. Charmandaris at: secretary@helas.gr or at +30
2810 394245.

As we are all aware, joining the European Southern Observatory (ESO) is
the primary science priority for the Greek Astronomical Community.
The future benefits of joining ESO have been analyzed in detail in
the 1998 report of the External Committee of Experts on “Astronomy
in Greece at the Gates of the 21st Century” chaired by Prof. Yervant
Terzian. The report is available at:

http://www.astro.noa.gr/gnca/NEWS/ca-report2000.htm

The same topic, as well as the relative financial issues, are also
discussed in an article of Dr. E. Kontizas in the December 2001
issue of Hipparchos, available at:

http://www.helas.gr/hipparchos/ipparx10.pdf

In order to revive our efforts towards achieving this goal, the
Secretary of Hel.A.S. is taking the initiative to request
suggestions from all members of Hel.A.S. who have specific ideas on
what would be the best strategy to convince the Greek Government to
allocate the necessary funds to join ESO. All members who are
interested in contributing some of their time and ideas on this are
requested to contact the Secretary by e-mail or by phone. More detailed
plans on possible actions will be discussed during the Hellenic
Astronomical Conference in Thassos.

The following meetings will take place in Greece. Please check the corresponding web page or contact the organizers by e-mail for more information.

• 
  Bursts, Pulses and Flickering: Wide-field monitoring of the dynamic radio sky
  
  Kerastari, 12 – 15 June 2007
• Community of European Solar Radio Astronomers (CESRA) Workshop
  
  “Solar Radio Physics and the Flare-CME Relationship”
  
  Ioannina, June 12-16, 2006
• 3rd Coronal Loops Workshop
  
  Santorini Island, 18 – 21 June 2007
• Extreme solar Systems
  
  Santorini Island, 24 – 29 June 2007
• X-ray Surveys: Evolution of Accretion,
  Star-formation and Large Scale Structure
  
  Rhodes Island, 2 – 6 July 2007
• 8th Hellenic Astronomical Conference
  
  Thasos Island, 13 – 15 September 2007
• Chaos in Astronomy
  
  Athens, 17 – 20 September 2007
• Solar Extreme Events 2007 International Symposium:
  Fundamental Science and Applied Aspects
  
  Athens, 24 – 27 September 2007
• 5th Conference of Greek Amateur Astronomers
  
  Patras, 5-7 October 2007

This Newsletter was sent to all members of Hel.A.S. who have e-mail access.
The next edition of the Newsletter will be mailed around July 1st 2007. Please send your
announcements (e.g. appointments/departures, job openings, research opportunities, awards,
conferences in Greece) or comments before June 25, 2007. If you do not wish to receive future
issues of this Newsletter or the e-mail address to which it was sent is not your preferred one,
please inform the Secretary of Hel.A.S.