The history of the IMC-tradition

Since the founding of the International Meteor Organization the International Meteor Conferences have guaranteed the vital personal contacts between members. In recent years a belief that the IMCs started with the IMO gained popularity. However, the IMCs grew out of a much older initiative: the Meteor Seminars of 1979 and 1980. A review of the IMC history was published in the August 2006 issue of WGN and this article is available in PDF format: "The 25th International Meteor Conference".

The scientific results presented and discussed at the conference are preserved to a large extent in the IMC Proceedings, most of which are available online in PDF format. Another aspect of these events, the legendary magic IMC spirit, cannot be captured in words, it can only be fully experienced live. The scientific resources and human contact at an IMC are extremely rich, providing the individual participant with an overwhelming sensation. As years go by and memories fade, the descriptions and photo galleries here will provide lasting souvenirs of the IMCs. The galleries serve as a collective photo-album with images of the IMC locations and, of course, especially of the people, answering questions like "Who are we? Who makes up IMO? Which people are behind the names mentioned in publications?". These pages put a human face to well-known authors and observers in the meteor world. They also offer a glimpse of the magic atmosphere that people share at an IMC, and it is hoped this will encourage more to sample the delight that is an IMC. Further pictorial records are most welcome, especially for early IMCs and those showing participants not already represented.A selection was made from many hundreds of available photographs to give a good coverage of each IMC. If you have photographs which you consider valuable to complete these galleries, or if you can help to identify individuals on the photographs, or if you notice errors, please contact Paul Roggemans. Help us to identify persons on the photographs, to improve descriptions, to correct errors and to expand this overview.

A next release of these pages is scheduled for end 2009.

This overview was prepared by Paul Roggemans and Casper ter Kuile, at the occasion of the 25th IMC in Roden. We thank all photographers who made images available for the galleries: Rainer Arlt, Luc Bastiaens, Bernd Brinkmann, Bogdan Cristian Călin, François Colas, Gisela De Smedt, Roberto Gorelli, Valentin Grigore, Axel Haas, Henry Hendriks, Carl Johannink, Javor Kac, Stanislav Kaniansky, Katya Koleva, Detlef Koschny, Leonard Kornos, Antonio Martínez, Adriana Nicolae, Jos Nijland, Urška Pajer, Urijan Poerink, Jean-Louis Rault, Mihail Robescu, Paul Roggemans, Galina Ryabova, Hans-Georg Schmidt, Péter Spányi, Enrico Stomeo, Casper ter Kuile, Mihaela Triglav, Jean-Marc Wislez, Jérémie Vaubaillon, Valentin Velkov, Xiang Zhan and Peter Zimnikoval. We thank Malcolm Currie, Andrei Dorian Gheorge, Urška Pajer and Alastair McBeath for proofreading and rewriting the summaries for each IMC.

More details and photographic souvenirs for each past IMC can be found on the next pages: