The following update on the High Energy Stereoscopic System (H.E.S.S.) project was received from Dr Heinz Völk of the Max-Planck-Institut für Kernphysik in Heidelberg.

Phase I of the H.E.S.S. project on the farm "Goellschau" in Namibia will consist of four telescopes, each with a 108m2 mirror area. The mechanical mount of the first telescope is almost finished on site (Fig.1) and the individual mirrors will be installed soon. The mechanics for the second telescope are being moved to the site and worked on there. The first large focal plane detector ("camera") is in its final production and test phase and will be shipped from France to the site later in 2001. Consequently, test observations and initial scientific operations with the first telescope will commence in 2002.

The official H.E.S.S. Website is: http://www-hfm.mpi-hd.mpg.de/HESS/HESS.html

During February 2001, a group from South Africa consisting of Carina Rubin and Anne Rogers from Aland Pictures, Thebe Medupe from the South African Astronomical Observatory in Cape Town and three other staff, in collaboration with Professor Mosalam Shaltout from the National Research Institute of Astronomy and Geophysics in Helwan, Egypt, went to a region in the south of the western desert of Egypt (Sahara), about 100 km north-west of Abu-Simbel. The purpose of the journey was to make a feature-length documentary on African-based skylore, astronomy and cosmology from pre-historical times to the space age. The journey was organized by the senior geologist in the Sahara, Dr. Bahai El-Essawi, former chairman of the board of directors of the Egyptian Authority of the Geological Survey.

The film, named "Cosmic Africa," covers ten African countries including Egypt, South Africa, Swaziland, Mozambique, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Ghana and Mali.

In Nabta, there are six megalithic alignments extending across the sediments of the playa, containing a total of 24 megaliths or megalithic scatters. Like the spokes on a wheel, each alignment radiates outward from the complex structure. According to an analysis by Professor Kim Malville of Colorado University, USA, these lines coincide with the rising positions of three prominent stars from the period 4800-3700 B.C., namely Sirius (the brightest star in the night sky), Dubhe (the brightest star in Ursa Major), and stars in the belt of Orion. He concluded that these megalithic alignments may not have been designed as sighting devices to establish calendrical time, but that rather they may have commemorated a perceived connection between heaven and earth, which was especially vital at the time of summer solstice and the monsoon rains. Also, there is a small circle of megaliths for establishing calendrical time which contains four windows. Two are aligned north-south, and the other two are aligned north-east - south-west, along a line inclined 28° to the east-west axis.

M Shaltout

The Third World Organization for Women in Science (TWOWS) fellowship programme is for female students from Sub-Saharan Africa and Least Developed Countries (LDCs) who wish to pursue postgraduate training leading to a doctoral degree at centres of excellence in the South (developing countries), outside their own country.

The general purpose of the scheme is to contribute to the emergence of a new generation of women leaders in science and technology and to promote their effective participation in the scientific and technological development of their countries.

The specific aims of the scheme are:

• To improve access to educational and training opportunities in science and technology for young and talented women graduates from Sub-Saharan Africa and LDCs;
• To increase the scientific productivity and creativity of women scientists in Sub-Saharan Africa and LDCs;
• To empower a new generation of talented women to assume a leadership role in science and technology and their application to sustainable development.

LDCs in Africa are Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Togo, Burundi, Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Niger, Tanzania, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gambia, Mauritania, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Lesotho, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan, Uganda, and Zambia.

For more information, please contact TWOWS online at http://www.ictp.trieste.it/~twas/TWOWS.html or by email at info@twows.org. The deadline for applications is 30 May 2002.

The 10th United Nations/European Space Agency Workshop on Basic Space Science "Exploring the Universe: Sky Surveys, Space Exploration, and Space Technologies," was held at the University of Mauritius from 25-29 June 2001.

This workshop continued the series of United Nations/ESA workshops on basic space science organized for the benefit of developing countries in India in 1991 and Sri Lanka in 1996 for Asia and the Pacific; in Colombia and Costa Rica in 1992 and Honduras in 1997 for Latin America and the Caribbean; in Nigeria in 1993 for Africa; in Egypt in 1994 and Jordan in 1999 for western Asia; and in Germany in 1996 and in France in 2000 for Europe. The main objective of the workshop was to provide a forum to highlight recent scientific results obtained using ground-based and space-borne observatories in studies of the stars and the far reaches of the universe.

The workshop sessions focused on:

1. sky surveys;
2. solar/planetary systems to galactic/extragalactic systems;
3. data manipulation, databases and multi-wavelength analysis;
4. education with and networking of telescopes with special reference to the southern hemisphere and
5. utilization of space science and technologies and their benefits to society. Poster sessions provided an opportunity to focus on specific problems and projects in basic space science.

Researchers and educators from developing and industrialized countries in all economic regions were invited by the United Nations and ESA to participate in the workshop. Funds provided by the United Nations, ESA and the University of Mauritius were used to cover travel and other costs of participants from developing countries. Some 65 specialists in basic space science attended the workshop. The following 28 member states were represented at the workshop: Austria, Canada, Chile, China, Denmark, Germany, Ethiopia, France, Egypt, Hungary, India, Italy, Japan, Mauritius, Mexico, Norway, The Netherlands, Sri Lanka, Romania, Russian Federation, South Africa, Spain, Syrian Arab Republic, Uganda, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, United States of America, Yemen and Zambia.

The important initiatives arising from previous UN/ESA Workshops on Basic Space Science and their fruitful promotion in Africa were noted by the participants. The importance of the regional Centres for Space Science and Technology Education, affiliated to the United Nations, was noted by the participants as providing the essentials for promoting various programmes in space science and technology. The technical gains, technological challenges, and spin offs of space exploration to both the industrialized and developing nations are enormous.

Space exploration by individual developing nations alone is very often difficult to achieve. Cooperation between developing and industrialized nations is essential, particularly taking note of the fact that the international space community is witnessing a large influx of data from different space probes where space scientists from developing nations can contribute in an important way.

The importance of sky surveys was noted by participants. In particular, the emerging need for multi-wavelength astronomy, ranging from radio, infrared, optical, X-rays to gamma rays, including neutrino and gravitational wave astronomy, provides a rich platform through which astronomers from developing nations will be encouraged to carry out research, training, and education. A south-south collaboration involving the Indian Ocean Rim and African countries can be envisaged; for example, collaboration between the MRT (Mauritius) and SALT (South Africa) could be explored. Participants welcomed the establishment of an international implementation committee (WIC) for the WSO/UV and the progress made in discussions among several space agencies and interested countries.

The establishment of an African Institute of Space Science (AISS) as a distributed organization, which would act as a source of vision and strategy to promote the development of basic space science throughout Africa, would be a major step towards extending the participation of the developing countries in Africa in basic space science, and would possibly accelerate the spin-off benefits into society. The AISS could benefit from the previous experience obtained in the various regional Centres for Space Science and Technology Education, affiliated to the United Nations. Participants further recommended that African Governments intent on fostering space science programmes should give due consideration to AISS, as appropriate to their needs, and that serious consideration should be given to the possible benefits of affiliating national programmes to AISS.

The participants noted that many countries affiliated to the NORT project are progressing in terms of education by developing youth programmes, scientific clubs, secondary schools programmes, and courses at university levels. Participants observed that the coordinated effort, under the auspices of the United Nations, serves as a catalyst to promote the development of space technology in developing nations and to enable cooperative efforts between nations, which minimize the investment required by individual nations.

Participants noted that the cost of space technology has decreased considerably during the past decades and that governments of developing countries should be encouraged to fund space programmes for their respective nations. Participants also recommended that developing countries should implement curricula to prepare their people to operate space programmes. They also recommended the consideration of low-cost nano-satellites as a viable start-up for space projects for developing countries.

Further information on the Mauritius Workshop may be obtained from UN document A/AC.105/766.

Menzi Mchunu, a graduate from the University of Zululand, has been awarded a fellowship to study astronomy and astrophysics at Rutgers University in the USA. In preparing for his future studies in the United States, Mchunu temporarily joined the Science Education and Liaison Division at the South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO) in May this year to work on various research projects before leaving for Rutgers at the end of August. He is the first recipient of the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) Graduate Fellowship for doctoral studies abroad. The fellowship is sponsored by the National Research Foundation (NRF) in South Africa, the Graduate School New Brunswick (GSNB), and the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Rutgers University.

The aim of the fellowship is to help develop the next generation of science leaders in South Africa and to train astronomers who will make use of SALT's capacity to perform world-class astronomical research. Recipients of the award will also have to help extend the educational and tech-nological benefits of the SALT project to South Africans. Menzi used to walk 16km daily from his home in St Faiths to Mqhakama High School, from where he matriculated in 1993. He went on to obtain a first-class BSc from the University of Zululand, majoring in physics, mathematics and computer science. He stayed on at that University as a laboratory assistant, and also taught physics whilst studying for his Honours degree, which he obtained with distinction in 1999.

He has won several prizes, including the Best Physics and Best Computer Science Merit awards, and in 1995 he was selected to visit NASA.

African Skies/Cieux Africans is now available online via the NASA Astrophysics Data System. The Astrophysics Data System (ADS) is a NASA-funded project whose main resource is an Abstract Service, which includes four sets of abstracts:

• astronomy and astrophysics/ planetary sciences/solar physics;
• instrumentation;
• physics and geophysics; and
• Los Alamos preprint server.

Each dataset can be searched by author, object name (astronomy only), title, or abstract text words.

Full text articles for all past issues of African Skies/Cieux Africains are now available on the ADS. To access the ADS service, link to: http://adswww.harvard.edu/.

We will illustrate a simple use of the ADS database by extracting a listing of all previously published articles in African Skies/Cieux Africans. From the ADS homepage, select the "Browse Library" button to view a list of ADS services. Selecting the "Journal/ Volume/Page Service," opens a dialogue screen which prompts the user for the journal title, volume and year. If one submits a query by entering "African Skies" in the Journal Name field, and leaving all other fields blank, this service returns 56 abstracts for the articles published in previous issues (1-5) of African Skies/Cieux Africains. The listing also shows whether full text and/or scanned versions of the articles are available. To facilitate browsing the scanned articles online, it is possible to view thumbnail images of the pages, as shown in Figure 5.

As internet access becomes more ubiquitous in Africa, services such as the ADS will break the isolation of African scientists by providing access to current scientific literature. For this reason, a future issue of African Skies/Cieux Africains will feature the ADS, with an in-depth article on how to make the most of this free service.

The Working Group on Space Sciences in Africa has commenced an initiative called the African Network for Education and Research in Astronomy (ANERA). This initiative aims to facilitate access by African space scientists to the existing facilities on the continent, and to create a network for education and research. A pilot project to initiate this network was funded by UNESCO under the aegis of the UNESCO Pilot African Academic Exchange Programme (MINEDAF). In July 2000, an Announcement of Opportunity was circulated to regional coordinators of WGSSA for distribution in their regions. This elicited a response from a number of applicants. The applications were processed by UNESCO, and three Fellowships were awarded to WGSSA applicants. In February 2001, the first two Fellows, Messrs Simon Anguma (Uganda) and Peter Kalebwe (Zambia) arrived at the host institution for the pilot project, the South African Astronomical Observatory, to commence their six-month Fellowship. They were joined in May by Dr Legesse Kebede (Ethiopia). The three Fellows gained extensive experience in observations and data analysis, and they also collaborated in the development of curricula for the introduction of astronomy in their home institutions. The Fellows returned to their home institutions with plans for introducing astronomy education and research in their countries. They will continue to network with each other and with the many scientists and educators they met during the next phase of this project in their home countries.

It is now two years since the South African government officially gave the 'green light' for construction to proceed on the Southern African Large Telescope, which, when completed in late 2004, will be the largest single optical telescope in the Southern Hemisphere. SALT is a 10-m class telescope for optical/near-infrared astronomy based on the design of the Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET) at MacDonald Observatory, Texas. The SALT partnership includes South Africa, Poland, USA, UK, Germany and New Zealand. In future, it is hoped that one or more African countries will join the SALT partners.

Site work began at Sutherland in November 2000 and the first phase of the facility building construction is completed. This includes the ring-wall, the interior fitting out of the ground level rooms, and the CCAS (Centre of Curvature Alignment System) tower. The next step will be the installation of the dome, which will occur after the bottom part of the telescope structure and the mirror support truss are in place in April 2002. The second phase will include completion of all interior rooms, electrical fittings and installation of some plant equipment.

All the major contracts for SALT subsystems have now been awarded, excepting the mirror alignment and maintenance system, and miscellaneous small contracts for payload subsystems. While ~40% of SALT's funding is being provided by the South African government, it is expected that ~60% of contracts will be awarded to South African industry, a net benefit to the country. Further information is available on the SALT website at http://www.salt.ac.za.