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Second Whole Earth Telescope Workshop2-5 August 1993, Moletai Observatory, Lithuania One important result of this workshop was the establishment of the Council of the Wise (CoW).
Second WET Workshop Proceeding's IntroductionThe Whole Earth Telescope, or WET, is an existing telescope, which comes into life one or two times every year. It consists of astronomers who travel to telescopes at the selected longitudes around the Earth and observe the same stars with functionally equivalent instruments. The observations are coordinated from the Texas headquarters and the stars observed are pulsating white dwarfs or other objects for which a long, nearly continuous, lightcurve is needed. The WET has been in function since 1988 and a total of 9 observing campaigns have been organized. Exceptional scientific results of great importance have been obtained with a modest funding and great enthusiasm. So far the participants have had little time to communicate with each other and the scientific community about the WET itself. We have concentrated on perfecting our equipment, traveling to remote places, reducing and analyzing the data and publishing fundamental scientific results. The first WET Workshop was held in Austin, Texas in November 1991. It was also a celebration of the 65th birthday of Professor E R Nather, the founder of the WET. An attempt to make proceedings was aborted because of pressing scientific activities. For the second WET Workshop, held at the Moletai Observatory in Lithuania, we have decided to publish the proceedings in the new journal, Baltic Astronomy, which has kindly accepted our contributions. In these proceedings, we have also included two papers, originally given at the first WET workshop and three speeches delivered at the banquet in honor of E R Nather during that workshop. We hope these proceedings can create an image of what a wonderful instrument WET is, what excellent science can be done with it and how the people behind it think and work. In this way it may serve as a chapter in the history of astronomy. We thank the Institute of Theoretical Physics and Astronomy in Vilnius for their hosting the workshop and the University of Tromso and the Nordic-Baltic Scholarship program for providing funds for the workshop, as well as for editing and publishing these proceedings.
Edmundas G. Meistas
Jan-Erik Solheim
Group Photo of Participants in the 1993 WET Conference at Moletai Observatory, Lithuania
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