Nelson to be all eyes for three nights

If anything astronomically unusual happens in the night sky over Nelson during the next few days there is no chance of it going unnoticed.

Not with 85 people in town for the Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand conference, starting tomorrow.

The three-day annual conference is being held in Nelson for the first time and will be exploring the contribution of amateurs to astronomy.

Grant Christie and Jennie McCormick of Auckland will attend the conference ; last month they used backyard telescopes and collaborated with international astronomers to co-discover a planet.

The conference will also be addressed by the world's first blind astrophysicist, Kent Cullers of the United States.

A character in the movie Contact was based on Dr Cullers, who works for the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute in California.

- nzpa