Jean Meeus is a Belgian meteorologist and astronomer. Born in 1928, Jean Meeus studied mathematics at the University of Louvain (Leuven) in Belgium, receiving the Degree of Licentiate in 1953. From then until his retirement in 1993, he was a meteorologist at Brussels Airport. His special interest is in spherical and mathematical astronomy. He is the co-author of "Canon of Solar Eclipses" (1966 and 1983), and "Canon of Lunar Eclipses" (1979).

Dr. Hawking was a British theoretical physicist and cosmologist, and Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University. He was a leader in the study of some of the most fundamental problems in physics and astronomy, notably the nature of gravity, its relation to the other forces and to quantum and particle physics, and its application to cosmology. One of his discoveries is that black holes should radiate as if they were hot bodies. Among Dr. Hawking's many honours was his election as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1974.

Reverend Robert Evans, an Australian amateur astronomer, holds the world record for visual discoveries of supernovae: 42, more than the combined total of all other visual observers combined! Most of these were found using Newtonian telescopes of 10-, 12-, and 16-inch aperture from his backyard.

Dr. Audouin Dollfus was a French astrophysicist who for many years was Head of the Laboratory for Physics of the Solar System at Meudon Observatory in Paris. He is a leading planetary observer. In the 1950s, Dollfus made several balloon flights for high-altitude observations of the Sun and planets, including the first stratospheric ascension in France. He was one of the first to notice brightness ripples in the rings of Saturn. In 1966, when the rings of Saturn were edge-on, he discovered the 10th satellite of Saturn, Janus, orbiting just outside the bright ring system.

Dr. Crawford, a native of Pennsylvania, is Emeritus Astronomer at Kitt Peak National Observatory and National Optical Astronomy Observatory in Arizona. From 1963 to 1973, he was Project Manager of the 4-metre Mayall Telescope at Kitt Peak, and of its twin, the Blanco Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. His research involves galactic structure, stellar photometry, observational instruments and techniques, and light-pollution abatement. Dr.

Ralph Baldwin was a native of Michigan and a graduate of the University of Michigan. Due to a position as a part-time planetarium lecturer, he developed an interest in lunar topography. During the 1940s, he formulated the principles of current lunar geology: that lunar craters are the result of impact events, not volcanism; that the lack of active lunar erosion means that the craters are very old; that Earth should have been bombarded in the same way; and that there should be impact structures, large and small, still preserved on Earth.