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Visitors and Seminars

The Observatory maintains an active research visitors programme, encompassing students, post-doctoral research assistants and more senior researchers, and hosts a research seminar approximately once per week during the academic year. The calendar year 1998 saw working visits from 9 astronomers of post-doctoral status or higher, with additional visits by three Ph.D. students based elsewhere. During 1998 Observatory staff also supervised 6 school work experience students, 4 A-level summer students under the Nuffield scheme, 4 QUB undergraduates on project work, 1 Trinity College Dublin (TCD) final-year undergraduate project, and 5 other undergraduates on miscellaneous summer work. The programme of research colloquia for 1998 (numbering 33 separate talks) is listed in Appendix C. It is notable that more than 20 of these seminars were provided by external speakers.

A further aspect of the visitors programme is the high frequency of visits by members of the public and by small groups. Observatory tours are usually conducted by the Librarian, who in 1998 showed approximately 1000 individuals from more than 16 countries around the Observatory. This number is up by 100% compared to the previous year, a remarkable result which suggests heightened public interest in astronomy in Armagh City and District, and indicates the success of the Armagh Observatory's `open door' policy to attract members of the public, groups and societies.

It is recognised, however, that visitor numbers should be kept under review, and that they should not increase to the extent of impeding or interfering with the primary research activity and objectives of the institution. A new policy of attracting electronic visitors (`e-visitors'), via the Observatory's web-site (http://www.arm.ac.uk/), was introduced during the year, and it is anticipated that steady improvements in the number of visits to the Observatory's web pages will take place in future years. The number of e-visits is already measured in tens of thousands per year.

Visitors during 1998 included nearly 20 group tours, ranging from specialist groups and societies (e.g. the Armagh and District Radio Club, the Clerical Reading Society, Astronomy Ireland, and the Irish Astronomical Association), to school children (e.g. the Heartstone Project, the John Scottus School, Dublin) and local groups (e.g. the Armagh and Dungannon Soroptimists, the Armagh Natural History and Philosophical Society etc.). In addition, the Observatory received a number of VIPs, including Mr Lembit Öpik MP, a party of senior civil servants from Bangladesh, Professor George Bain (QUB Vice-Chancellor) and Professor John Brown (Astronomer Royal for Scotland).