IAU Symposium #339 on Time-Domain Astronomy
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This month I visited South Africa (and the African continent for the first
time!) to attend the
Southern Horizons in Time-Domain
Astronomy meeting in
Stellenbosch.
The programme featured an exhaustive roster of hot topics in the transient
realm right now — from kilonovae through FRBs to supernovae and stellar
pulsations.
A wide range of instrument development activities were reported, both
world-wide and in South Africa, which is of course the host of the
Southern African Large Telescope (SALT)
and the Square Kilometer Array precursor
MeerKAT
As well there were workshops on relevant topics including astroinformatics
and machine learning.
The setting, in the midst of SA's
wine regions was pretty hard to beat,
and the chance to visit Cape Town — surely one of the most geographically
stunning cities in the world — was a nice bonus.
The program and most of the talks are now online so check it out!