COMMISSION 27 OF THE I. A. U.
         INFORMATION BULLETIN ON VARIABLE STARS
                     Number 2222

                                   Konkoly Observatory
                                   Budapest
                                   1982 November 4

                                   HU ISSN 0374-0676




                              ANNOUNCEMENT
Appended, in toto, is a letter relating to the planned reconstitution of a
                             WG on Supernovae

  Commission 28 is planning to reinstitute a Working Group on
Supernovae. The previous one formed in 1961, moved under the
auspices of Commission 27 (Variable Stars) in the early 70's
and largely ceased to function with the death of its founder,
Fritz Zwicky, in 1974. Vera Rubin, as president of Commission
28, has asked me to act as Interim Chairman of the revived working 
group until formal arrangements can be made at the 19th
General Assembly in New Delhi.
  It seems to me that the working group could serve two major
functions, roughly parallel to those of other IAU WG's:
  1. To act as an advocate of supernova searches and supernova
researches both within the astronomical community and with respect
to the external powers that control observing time, computing
time, and funding. The automated searches operating or soon to
be operating in Cambridge (UK), New Mexico, Berkeley, and probably
other places I do not know about will naturally much increase
the demand for observing time to obtain follow-up data and for
computing power to analyze and interpret it.
  2. To provide a coordinating service among those programs
currently and soon to be engaged in supernova searches and those
individuals and institutions equipped to provide light curves,
spectra, and other data at radio, infrared, X-ray, and 
ultraviolet - not to mention optical - wavelengths.



  Both your advice and your assistance would be very much
appreciated. If you are involved, in any way, in supernova research,
or if you can think of specific ways that a working group could
facilitate your activities, or if you are willing to be an active
member of the group, please let me know. I will try to reach
members of other relevant commissions (High Energy Astrophysics,
etc.) with messages similar to this one. But do, please, share
this with anyone you think might be interested and let me know
if there are people or institutions involved in supernova work
that I may not know about.





                VIRGINIA TRIMBLE
Astronomy Program            Department of Physics
University of Maryland       University of California
College Park MD 20742        Irvine CA 92717
301-454-5822                 714-833-6948
July to December each year   January to June each year