Introductory Talk

Abstract

The idea to organize a Conference on high S/N spectroscopy came to me several years ago, in the beginning of the eighties, when the first tracings of Reticon spectra of 8 and 9 magnitude stars were published. I suddendly realized that the quality of those spectra was comparable to those we find in the at lasses of the Sun, Procyon, Arcturus and of a very few other very bright stars. I thought at that epoch, probably at the top of Mauna Kea, that when high-resolution spectroscopists will have collected enough high S/N results, then, time would be ripe to discuss the impact of these results on our Knowledge of Stellar Physics.