Astronomical Society of Australia

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The Astronomical Society of Australia (ASA) [1] is the professional body representing astronomers in Australia. It was established in 1966 and is incorporated in the ACT. Membership of the ASA is open to people capable of contributing to the advancement of Astronomy or a closely related field. This means that the members are mostly active professional astronomers and postgraduate students. However some retired astronomers and distinguished amateur astronomers are also members, and several organisations are corporate members of the Society. The Society currently has around 400 members.

The Society has adopted a structure in which topical interest groups may be formed, known as Chapters. Currently there are two Chapters:

the Australian National Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics (ANITA) [2], a virtual institute which aims to raise the profile of Australian theoretical astrophysics, and
the Education and Public Outreach Committee (EPOC) [3], serving to advance the level of public awareness of the excitement of astronomy.

The ASA is Trustee of the Foundation for the Advancement of Astronomy (FAA) [4]. The FAA is a tax-deductible Foundation intended to enhance the ASA's efforts to promote Astronomy and related fields in Australia, and to recognise and support excellence in those fields. The purposes of the FAA are very broadly defined to allow the support of prizes, scholarships, research and facilities.

The ASA's journal is the Proceedings of the Astronomical Society of Australia (PASA) [5]. It is an ISI-listed, fully refereed journal for new and significant research in astrophysics. PASA is published on behalf of the Society by CSIRO Publishing.

[edit] External links

ASA web site is primarily intended to provide information for the professional astronomy community.
The ASA also maintains the Astronomy Australia web site which provides information on astronomy in Australia for the amateur astronomy community and the general public.