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Hingene - Belgium, 3-5 October 1986

  • 6th meeting
  • Local organizer: Paul Roggemans.
  • 50 participants from 8 countries: Belgium (18), Denmark (1), Germany (11), Hungary (1), Italy (1), the Netherlands (14), Sweden (1) and U.K. (3).
  • 16 presentations of which 15 were included in the Proceedings.
  • IMW 1986 Proceedings (ISBN none): 80 pages (ed. Luc Vanhoeck).
  • Contents: Meteor stream evolution - telescopic observations - meteor work in Sweden - meteor work in the U.K. - meteor work in Hungary - ZHR correction factors - very high meteor rates - Geminids 1985 - Perseids 1985 - large-format cameras - PMDB - prediction techniques - radio meteor work - quanta and meteor science.
  • Participation fee 25 Euro.
A youth hostel "t'Laathof" in Hingene offered us the weekend at an historically low fee of just under 25 Euro. To get this low fee, all residents, including the professional astronomers, were registered as 'children'. Special attention was paid to the publicity for this edition in many astronomy journals and this proved to be successful. The International Halley Watch raised interest from professional astronomers in amateur meteor work and the IAU sent Drs. Bertil Lindblad and Ian Williams to participate in it. Further international observing campaigns encouraged the agreement on standardized observing and reporting methods: the hot topic of this event. A marathon round-table debate monitored by two chairmen and advized by two professional astronomers resulted in the Handbook for Visual Meteor Observations, the source of the later IMO-standard observing and reporting methods.

Acknowledgement: We thank Casper ter Kuile for providing photographs of the 1986 event.
Memorial: Luc Vanhoeck, editor of the 1986 Proceedings, passed away on 27 February 2005 after a long illness.
High resolution images can be obtained on request for the photos in the gallery.