Balfour Stewart Auroral Laboratory, Department of Meteorology, University of Edinburgh, fl 1965 - 1973

The British Astronomical Association Aurora Section encourages observation of the aurora and of the noctilucent clouds that are visible in the period May - August in the northern hemisphere. It is involved in the recruitment and training of observers, and collection, analysis and reporting on the occurrences of auroral events. The present observer network comprises members of the British Astronomical Association and other astronomical societies, individual observers, professional meteorologists and ships' officers at sea, with observations collected from Canada, the United States, Iceland, The British Isles and other European countries. Details of observations are exchanged regularly with the Royal New Zealand Astronomical Society Aurora Section, which co-ordinates observation of phenomena in the Southern Hemisphere.

The Association became involved with noctilucent cloud studies (NCS) in 1964 when James Paton, late director, initiated an annual report in Meteorological Magazine . This work was undertaken under the auspices of the Balfour Stewart Auroral Laboratory, which was based in Edinburgh University Department of Meteorology, with a geophysical unit of the British Antarctic Survey, from 1965 - 1974. It was continued by staff in the Department of Meteorology after Paton's death in 1973, and in 1983 was taken over by the officers of the Aurora Section of the British Astronomical Association.

James Paton had joined Edinburgh University Department of Natural History in 1928, and in 1944 became their first lecturer in meteorology. When a separate Department of Meteorology was created there in 1964 he was appointed head of department, a role in which he remained until his death in 1973. An active member, and for several years, director, of the British Astronomical Association Aurora Section, he published many works on auroral and noctilucent cloud phenomena. Dr Douglas H. McIntosh was appointed his successor in the Department of Meteorology, and after his retirement in 1982, the position of head of department was held by the senior academic staff in three-yearly rotation. The last Head of Department was Professor Bob Harwood who relinquished the position on 1st August 2001, when the Department became the Institute for Meteorology.

A short biographical sketch of James Paton is given in Royal Meteorological Society, Weather, 54 (Sept 1999), 275.

Brief details about the British Astronomical Association's interest in and development of noctilucent cloud studies research are given in David Gavine, Noctilucent Clouds over Britain and Western Europe, 1992 - 1994, Journal of the British Astronomical Association, 106 (1996), 285 - 287.

From the guide to the Papers of the Balfour Stewart Auroral Laboratory, 1931 - 2001, (University of Aberdeen)