In the week of 4-8 February, UCT Astronomy is hosting a large international conference on Galactic and extragalactic novae. This meeting, named "Stella Novae: Past and Future Decades", is the 4th international conference in a series of conferences on classical novae. It follows "Novae and Related Stars" in Paris (1976), "Physics of Classical Novae" in Madrid (1989), "Classical Nova Explosions" in Sitges (2002) and brings together 90 experts and young emerging researchers from around the world to discuss their latest research in understanding the evolution scenarios of the binary systems in classical novae, the physics of the nova explosion, understanding the energetic feedback of the nova ejecta into the interstellar medium, multi-wavelength observations and modelling of the nova outburst and the relation between novae and type Ia supernovae.

The program includes a public lecture on campus by Prof Steve Shore on "Exploding stars! Novae, supernovae and gamma-ray bursts" on Tuesday evening (5 February at 19:30 in the NSLT on upper campus). All are welcome to the public lecture.

See the conference web site for further details: http://www.ast.uct.ac.za/stellanovae2013