- 16th meeting
- Local organizers: Dragana Okolic, Vladimir Lukic (Petnica Science Center).
- 69 participants from 12 countries: Belgium (5), Bulgaria (8), Croatia (2), Germany (6), Italy (2), Japan (1), the Netherlands (1), Romania (5), Serbia (33), Slovakia (2), Slovenia (2) and U.K. (2).
- 16 presentations of which 15 were included in the Proceedings.
- IMC 1997 Proceedings (ISBN 978-2-87355-009-7): 109 pages (eds. André Knöfel, Alastair McBeath).
- Contents: Perseids 1997 - eta Aquarids - Ursids 1996 - fireballs - telescopic observations - combined video and radar observing - meteor mythology - meteor speeds from Hough transforms - meteors and computers, internet.
- Participation fee 70 Euro.
The selection of the 1997 IMC location in Serbia (in a coquetish university
science campus) caused some commotion due to the war circumstances in the
1990's. IMO as an apolitical society of individual persons decided to have its
IMC in Serbia where a large number of very active young meteor observers were
isolated and unable to get to an IMC elsewhere. The magic of the IMC-spirit did
its work. Video meteor observations got a lot of attention at this IMC and the
Video Commission was established. An excursion was made to an old nunnery (that
resisted a long time ago during the Ottoman occupation) and to the Fat Hill (a
"sacred" place - at 1400m altitude - for the Serbian meteor observers), and
beside the excursion, fewer lectures than at other IMCs provided plenty of time
for personal talks and friendships. Three eastern special souvenirs: the beauty
and kindness of the student girls from Belgrade University (volunteers in
organizing this IMC), the first Romanian Astroshow of poetry and arts (including
a large exhibition and an astropoetic drama) in the second evening, and a
Bulgarian humorous astrosketch in the third evening. In 1997 participants got
for the first time an IMC T-shirt as a souvenir.
Acknowledgement: We thank Valentin Grigore and Valentin Velkov for
providing photographs of this 1997 IMC and Valentin Velkov for helping to
identify the persons on the photographs.
Memorial: we remember the
tragic death of Joze Prudic on 2 December 1997.
