The GEOS meeting was held at the Observatoire de Haute Provence from May 28 to May 31, 2003. This meeting marked a further return to the OHP, following previous GEOS meetings held at the observatory in 2000 and again in 2002, confirming the role of the OHP as a recurrent venue for GEOS activities over several years.
The meeting was organised late and therefore attracted a limited number of participants.
During this renewed meeting at the OHP, a series of scientific, technical and organisational topics were presented by members of the group and by professional astronomers:
- NSV 7366 (Bernard Nitschelm)
- Recent visual results (Jacqueline Vandenbroere)
- Ethernet, CCDs and telescopes (Denis Grandclaude)
- Introduction of SRtype stars into the GEOS research programme (discussion)
- Comparison of results obtained at Jungfraujoch with Hipparcos data (Bernard Nitschelm)
- Difficulties in completing ongoing studies (discussion)
- Initiation of young people into variablestar observing (Bernard Nitschelm)
- GSC 13101940 Tau (Michel Dumont – Jean-Claude Misson)
- The 80cm and 120cm telescopes at the OHP and their possible use by GEOS (Denis Gillet)
- Project of a spacebased interferometric hypertelescope (Frank Martinache)
- Dilutedoptics interferometric telescope under study at the LISE laboratory (Hervé Le Coroller, with brief interventions by Antoine Labeyrie)
- Radialvelocity measurements with the Swiss 1m telescope and the CORAVEL spectrograph, including measurements of Jupiter and Arcturus (Yves Debernardi)
As in previous meetings held at the OHP, particular attention was paid to practical aspects of instrumentation. Participants were introduced to the operation of the 80 cm telescope, which was used visually during the night of May 30–31, 2003. The CCD camera of this telescope was out of operation and not scheduled for replacement, leading to discussions on alternative solutions for CCD observations, including the use of portable CCD cameras. Requests for observing time on the 120cm telescope were also discussed.
The GEOS Priority Research Programme was slightly modified: VZ Cam was removed, and FG Boo and VZ Sge were added. The meeting concluded with the observation that attendance had been limited, and that earlier announcement of future meetings would allow more members to participate.
