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!

Labels: 2017, /meetings