News from the Society for Astronomical Sciences
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Society for Astronomical Sciences Newsletter January 2018 News from the Society for Astronomical Sciences Vol. 16 No.1 (January, 2018) Invitation to the Society for Astronomical Sciences 2018 Symposium and ALPO Annual Meeting The SAS Program Committee invites you to participate in the Society for Astronomical Sciences’ 37th Annual Symposium. The Symposium is the premier annual conference devoted to small-telescope astronomical re- search. This year will be a joint meet- ing with the Association of Lunar and Planetary Observers (ALPO). The Symposium brings together ama- teur astronomers who are engaged in scientific research, professional as- tronomers, educators and students for in-depth discussions of topics related to small-telescope research. It is an Technical Presentations: Friday and Call for Papers: 2018 SAS excellent venue for presenting recent Saturday (June 15-16) will be the results, discussing targets of observa- Technical Sessions, including paper Symposium and ALPO tional campaigns, describing instru- presentations and poster sessions. 2018 Conference mentation and data reduction/analysis Presentations and Posters will span methods, developing collaborations, the wide range of topics of interest to Papers are solicited on all aspects of and bringing together the community the small-telescope research commu- astronomical science that are (or can of practice to share expertise and ex- nity: solar-system objects, variable- be) pursued by observations with small perience. Almost any topic related to stars, and binary stars; instrumentation telescopes (less than 1-meter aper- astronomical research using modest for photometry, astrometry and spec- ture), such as telescopes is of interest to SAS. You troscopy; and related subjects. Investigations of variable stars, need not be an expert to benefit from eclipsing binary stars, double participating in the Symposium: one You can read the Proceedings from recent SAS Symposia, and view vide- stars and stellar systems goal of SAS is to provide a mentoring Investigations of exoplanets, as- environment, to enable you to make os of many recent Presentations, on the SAS website teroids and other solar system ob- valuable contributions to astronomical jects science. (www.SocAstroSci.org). Progress, status, and planning for Date & Location: The 2018 SAS Sponsors: SAS Sponsors – develop- upcoming events such as the Symposium will be held on Thursday- ers, suppliers, and retailers of astro- eclipse of VV Cephei and the Friday-Saturday, June 14-15-16, 2018 nomical equipment – will be on hand launch of TESS. at the Ontario Airport Hotel, Ontario with displays of their featured prod- Instrumentation for photometry, CA. ucts. astrometry, spectroscopy, polar- imetry, and fast-cadence observa- Workshops: Educational workshops Registration: Symposium Early Reg- istration will open February 15, 2018. tions (e.g. occultations) are being planned for Thursday (June Investigations of atmospheric ef- 14). Details will be on the SAS web- The registration link will be on the SAS website (www.SocAstroSci.org). fects, light-propagation and scat- site soon. tering, light pollution monitoring 1 Society for Astronomical Sciences Newsletter January 2018 Innovative use of astronomy in The following candidates will be pre- were registered for the Workshop, then undergraduate education. sented to the Membership for election the recording is free. If you were not a as Directors, to serve from June 2018 registered attendee, then the price is Format: Papers for Presentation con- through June, 2021: $25 per workshop. Contact Bob sist of a 20-minute presentation (in- Buchheim ([email protected]) for Robert Buchheim (President) cluding Q&A), and a written paper that the details. Robert Stephens (Treasurer) is published in the Symposium Pro- Robert Gill (Secretary) Keeping in Touch: The SAS Yahoo ceedings. Jerry Foote group (“SocAstroSci”) is a good way to Papers without Presentation are in- John Menke keep in touch with the members and cluded in the Proceedings, without oral Wayne Green participants. presentation. Dr. John C. Martin Kudos, Criticisms, or fresh Ideas? We Poster Papers will be on display Under SAS Bylaws, members may are looking forward to seeing you at throughout the Symposium, and can nominate additional candidates at the SAS-2018! be included in the Symposium Pro- meeting. If you intend to nominate a If you have any questions or ideas for ceedings book. candidate, please inform the Secretary (Robert Gill) before the June Symposi- the Symposium, ideas for Workshops Important Dates: um. If no alternate candidates are or Technical topics that you would like to see, or comments on any other sub- Abstract submission begins: January nominated, then those listed above may be approved by voice vote. jects related to the Symposium, please 15, 2018. share them with the Program Commit- Abstracts should be sent to: pro- tee at [email protected]. [email protected]. Indicate whether you propose a Paper with Reminders to the SAS Presentation, Paper without Presenta- Membership ... tion, or Poster. A Target for Your Observ- Membership Renewal: Even if you ing Schedule Abstracts due: March 15, 2018 can’t attend the annual Symposium, we value your support of the Society 113 Amalthea: This asteroid was Authors will be notified of acceptance for Astronomical Sciences, and your reported as a binary, based on a single by March 22. interest in small-telescope science. “miss” chord (plus 7 positive occulta- Final papers due: April 26, 2018 tion chords) observed during the occul- As an SAS member, you will receive a tation of March 14, 2017. Symposium Early Registration opens: bound copy of the Proceedings even if February 15, 2018 you cannot come to the Symposium. A confirmation of this observation would be valuable. The occultation You may propose more than one pa- Symposium Proceedings: Published predicted for 2018-04-14 (UT date) will per for presentation, but normally only proceedings from all recent Symposia be a tricky observation, with the target one Presentation per author will be are freely available in PDF format at quite low in the sky, but worth the ef- scheduled. There is no limit to the the PUBLICATIONS tab of the SAS web- fort. Details of the event are available number of Posters or Papers without site (www.SocAstroSci.org). from IOTA at Presentation. Symposium Videos: If you missed a http://www.asteroidoccultation.com/20 You can see the scope and content of recent Symposium, you can still watch 18_04/0414_113_54752.htm presentations from the 2016 Symposi- many of the presentation videos on the um by downloading the Proceedings SAS website at the PUBLICATIONS tab. from the SAS website Workshop Videos: Video recordings of (www.SocAstroSci.org) and viewing most of the Workshops from recent the videos of presentations (see be- years are available from SAS. If you low) Triennial Election of SAS Committee SAS is a non-profit public benefit cor- poration incorporated in California, which is managed by a Board of Direc- tors (numbering no more than 7 per- sons). The Directors are elected by the membership, for 3-year terms. The 2018 Symposium will include a brief business meeting to elect 7 Direc- tors to hold office for the next three years. 2 Society for Astronomical Sciences Newsletter January 2018 Remote Telescopes & Ed- BAA-AAVSO Joint Variable Preview: Narrow-Band Im- ucation Conference Star Meeting aging of H II Regions Here’s an opportunity that will probably The British Astronomical Association The search for highly supersonic be of interest to some of you. Summer meeting this year will feature shock-waves inside HII regions ap- a joint session with the American As- pears to be a potentially fruitful Pro-Am The 2nd annual Conference on Robot- sociation of Variable Star Observers. collaboration area. Such waves can ic Telescopes, Student Research and The meeting will be held July 7-8, be produced by stellar winds, jets and Education (RTSRE) will be held in 2018 (Saturday and Sunday) at the outflows powered by forming young Hilo, Hawai’i from July 23-25, 2018. University of Warwick in Coventry, stars (Herbig-Haro objects), known This conference series focuses on England. classes of stellar eruptions such as building a sustainable community FU-Orionis events, supernovae, or around the educational, technical, and The BAA Summer Meeting takes place new classes of explosions such as student research uses of robotic tele- on Saturday, the BAA/AAVSO Variable stellar dynamical interactions or mer- scopes. The conference will be co- Star Meeting on Saturday and Sunday. gers in compact stellar systems. located with the interNational Astron- While the two meetings run inde- omy Teaching Summit (iNATS) from pendently in adjacent lecture theatres, Ultra-deep narrow-band H-alpha, July 25-27, 2018 providing worldwide there are plenary sessions bringing [OIII], [SII], [OII] images of all HII re- networking opportunities and hands-on both groups together at the beginning gions would be useful, to search for workshops designed to expand educa- and end of Saturday. Note that it is shocks similar to those seen in Ou4. tors’ teaching strategy toolkit and possible to attend the Summer Meet- The goal is to reach surface brightness aimed at innovative astronomy profes- ing on Saturday and the second day of (sensitivity to emission) as faint or sors, teachers, and outreach profes- the Variable Star meeting on Sunday. fainter than 1E-17 erg s^-1. Doing so sionals. probably requires exposure of tens of You will find program and registration hours per field, per filter, but many Find more information at the RTSRE information at astro-imagers are doing that already. website: https://rtsre.net/ https://britastro.org/summer2018 Ultra-narrow-band filters with band- widths of order 10 to 30 Å (rather than the usual 80 to 100 Å) and slow f/ratios Northeast Astro-Imaging (higher than f/10 to avoid bandpass Conference shifts) would help to eliminate broad- band emission from stars and scat- This annual gathering will be held April tered light in the nebula.