PLANET, the Probing Lensing Anomaly NETwork, is an international teamconducting observations of on-going gravitational microlensingevents from five sites in the southern hemisphere. Our primary goal is todetect or to put constraints on sub-stellar companions of M dwarfs from the galactic disk. We report the current status and discuss the future prospects.A 2 m robotic telescope at Dome C which would benefit from continuous coverage and dream like seeing (median of 0.27 arcsec) is currently the best option for aground based aggressive search for Earth-mass planets in the habitable zone.

Due to their extremely small luminosity compared to the stars they orbit, planets outside our own Solar System are extraordinarily difficult to detect directly in optical light. Careful photometric monitoring of distant stars, however, can reveal the presence of exoplanets via the microlensing or eclipsing effects they induce. The international PLANET collaboration is performing such monitoring using a cadre of semi-dedicated telescopes around the world. Their results constrain the number of gas giants orbiting 1–7 AU from the most typical stars in the Galaxy. Upgrades in the program are opening regions of “exoplanet discovery space” – toward smaller masses and larger orbital radii – that are inaccessible to the Doppler velocity technique.

We review the current status and future prospects of the PLANET collaboration, an international team of astronomers performing high-precision photometric monitoring of microlensing events. Our photometric precision and sampling is characterised and the suitability of the database for variable star studies is discussed. Preliminary results on K-giant stability are presented.

Our recently obtained HST WFPC2 images of N63A reveal shocked cloudlets in the SNR interior. The study of N63A helps us understand the structure and evolution of SNRs in a cloudy medium.

Power, like the diamond, dazzles the beholder, and also the wearer, it dignifies meanness; it magnifies littleness; to what is contemptible, it gives authority; to what is low, exaltation. Power will intoxicate the best hearts, as wine the strongest heads. No man is wise enough, no man good enough, to be trusted with unlimited power.

Charles Colton, Lacon

Thebaid is about power. On this cardinal theme Thebaid reflects, its focus emphatic, its message incisive. (Virtually) every event is related in some way to the unfavourable aspects of the exercise of power. Prominent is the issue of its pursuit and abuse, the consequent suffering and impotence of its victims. As Statius observes of monarchal power in connexion with Adrastus, the least objectionable regent in Thebaid, agit miseranda potestas inuigihre malis (‘distressing power compels him to be vigilant against ill fortune’, 8.262f.).