| Description: | The first meeting of the board of the Stichting Radiostraling van Zon en Melkweg (or Netherlands Foundation for Radio Astronomy, the predecessor of ASTRON) took place in Utrecht on 26 October 1948. All the board members who attended are shown. Oort, Van de Hulst (both from Leiden), Minnaert and Houtgast (both Utrecht) were astronomers. Casimir (who attended in the place of his colleague H. Rinia) and Stumpers worked for Philips, the geophysicist Veldkamp was at the Meteorological Institute in De Bilt (his colleague Vening Meinesz was unable to attend), and De Voogt (a radio engineer) was the head of the radio service of the Post Office.
Among the topics discussed at the meeting, Oort sketched the immediate research goals for studies of the Milky Way, which included both an attempt to detect the 21 cm HI line, and a plan to map the continuum radiation at a longer wavelength, with an angular resolution of 1 degree. Minnaert discussed the plans for solar observations, emphasizing the importance of radio outbursts. |
