Executive Summary

This report provides background information about the Armagh Observatory and a summary of the Observatory's principal achievements in research and other areas during the reporting period, which is the Calendar Year 2003. For convenience, all financial matters in the report are taken to refer to the corresponding Financial Year 2003/2004, i.e. 1 April 2003 to 31 March 2004.

Staff at the Observatory attracted external income totalling £284,000 during this period (£270,000 in external grant receipts), and have again published more than 30 papers in refereed scientific journals during the year. This is a fraction of their total research output. In the same period, staff made 69 presentations at specialist and non-specialist meetings both locally and abroad, and maintained an extremely active programme of seminars and internal colloquia at the Observatory (a record of 38 such talks). They attracted 225 identified media citations in various mass-media including the national and international press, radio and television, significantly above the current target of 200 for the fifth year in a row.

The scientific research carried out by Armagh Observatory staff continues to present a positive image of Armagh and Northern Ireland on the world stage, and the Observatory continues to be a significant information resource for the general public. The Observatory's principal web-sites (http://star.arm.ac.uk/, http://climate.arm.ac.uk/ and http://arpc65.arm.ac.uk/ $\sim$ spm/) continue to attract strong interest from the public and an exceptional number of page requests (i.e. `hits'), Distinct e-Visitors (DEVs; i.e. the number of distinct hosts served by the Observatory's web-site, not counting repeat visits), and web-traffic (i.e. the total volume of data transferred from Armagh). During calendar year 2003 these indicators of ICT activity were recorded as 5.6 million hits, 335,000 DEVs, and a volume of 284GB data transferred, respectively. Allowing for loss of recorded figures during an in-year upgrade of the computer system, the annual figures are estimated as approximately 8 million hits, 470,000 DEVs, and 400GB data transferred.

Table 1: The yearly trend of various performance indicators versus calendar year, including the total DCAL grant income received in respect of the corresponding financial year, including slippage funding, and the total announced budget for 2004/2005, including the recently announced £20,000 for DDA work. The number of Distinct e-Visitors for 2003 has been estimated from recorded information relating only to the period June-December 2003 for the Observatory's principal web-site, owing to loss of earlier data during the year. Targets for calendar year 2004 (financial year 2004/2005) are expressed in round figures.


	External	Refereed	Identified	Distinct		Total DCAL
Calendar Year	Grant Income	Journal	Media	e-Visitors	RAE Grade	Grant Income
	(£000s)	Publications	Citations	(DEVs)		(£000s)

1992			-		4	457.3
1993	35	13	-			445.0
1994	58	22	11			425.6
1995	172	19	14			468.5
1996	264	45	45		4	480.0
1997	275	42	108	66,000		473.2
1998	195	43	147	80,000		443.0
1999	293	32	233	134,000		458.5
2000	212	31	233	174,000		538.5
2001	221	32	302	318,000	4	713.5
2002	306	33	267	354,000		733.5
2003	270	34	225	470,000		781.5
2004 Targets:	250	32	200	500,000		686.5

Table 1 shows the yearly trend of various performance indicators. Whilst continuing to devote considerable effort to the programme of restoration of several historic telescopes and telescope domes, so improving the fabric of the main Grade A listed building, Armagh Observatory staff have maintained a substantial level of research activity, for example increasing their total number of refereed journal publications per year for the fourth year in a row.

The Observatory has also maintained an exceptionally high public profile at national and international level, work which reflects not only the strength of public interest in astronomy and space science, but also the activities of the Observatory's staff and those of its core funding agency, the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure (DCAL), presenting both in a very positive light. The Armagh Observatory thus makes a valuable contribution to projecting a positive image of Armagh City and District -- and of Northern Ireland -- on the world stage.

A notable achievement during 2003 was the Observatory's involvement in arrangements for the National Astronomy Meeting and UK Solar Physics Meeting 2003, held in Dublin Castle and Trinity College Dublin from 7-11 April 2003. With almost 600 participants this was the largest astronomy meeting ever held in Ireland with the exception of the IAU General Assembly in 1955. There were more than 65 formal and less formal scientific sessions (see http://star.arm.ac.uk/nam2003/ for details), many held as part of a four-strand parallel programme of specialist talks and discussion meetings. Apart from the breadth of subjects covered and the quality of the presentations, the meeting was noteworthy also for the strong interaction and a high level of scientific exchange between participants.