2021 Symposium on Telescope Science

SAS-2021 Symposium: Invitation and Call for Abstracts

The purpose of the SAS Symposium is to encourage research using small-telescope observations and amateur-professional collaborations in astronomy. Targets of interest include asteroids, solar system objects, exoplanets, variable stars, novae and supernovae, and related topics such as instrument design and characterization, and data analysis methods. Everyone with an interest in small-telescope research is welcome -- amateur astronomers, students, educators, and professional astronomers. If you want to see how small-telescope observations and measurements are contributing to astronomical science, learn more about photometry, astrometry, spectroscopy and the newest hardware, software and analysis techniques, this is the conference for you!

The Agenda of papers for SAS-2021 is available at SAS-2021 Agenda

Online Symposium: The 2021 SAS Symposium will be held online. This will not be a typical “sit and watch presentations” affair. Our format is aimed at facilitating broad audience interaction and wide-ranging discussions. All papers and posters will be presented as recorded videos; both the videos and the papers will be available for you to view/read about a week before the associated “live” session. At each live session, the agenda will be:

• 45 minute “opening reception” (bring your own drink and snacks)
• 60 minute discussion of the papers assigned to the “live session” (2-minute summary by the author, followed by 8-minute Q&A from the audience)
• Open a few “breakout rooms” for open-ended discussion of any topic related to the subject of the session’s papers.

We anticipate 3 “live sessions”, but more sessions may be added, depending on the number of papers accepted. On-line Symposium Technical sessions will be held on:

Tuesday June 15 6PM PDT = 9PM EDT = 0100 June 16 UTC

Saturday  June 19 11AM PDT = 2PM EDT = 1800 June 19 UTC * (we have scheduled this session to be convenient for UK and Europe)

Tuesday June 22 6PM PDT = 9PM EDT = 0100 June 23 UTC

The “opening reception” for each session will begin 45 minutes prior to the strt of the Technical Session, on each dat.

The “breakout room” discussions will open one hour after the start of each Technical session, and will stay open until the attendees call it quits.

Call for Papers was issued in the Dec 2020 Newsletter. Papers are solicited on all aspects of astronomical science that are (or can be) pursued by observations with small telescopes (less than 1-meter aperture), such as

• Investigations of variable stars, eclipsing binary stars, double stars and stellar systems

• Investigations of asteroids and other solar system objects; and exoplanets

• Progress, status, and planning for upcoming events such as the TESS follow-up initiative and the anticipated outburst of T CrB.

• Instrumentation for photometry, astrometry, spectroscopy, polarimetry, and fast-cadence observations (e.g. occultations)

•Investigations of atmospheric effects, light-propagation and scattering, light pollution monitoring

• Innovative use of astronomy in education.

Format: Papers for Presentation consist of a 20-minute recorded presentation and a written paper that is published in the Symposium Proceedings.
Papers without Presentation are welcome, and will be included in the Proceedings, without a recorded presentation.
Poster Papers are welcomed and can be included in the Symposium Proceedings book.
Authors of all papers are expected to participate in the “live” session scheduled for discussion of their paper. We will try to accommodate reasonable schedule requests in this regard.

Important Dates:

Abstracts are due March 28. Submit abstracts to program@socastrosci.org, and please indicate whether you are proposed a Paper with Presentation, Paper without presentation, or Poster. You will be notified of acceptance within a week of submittal.
Final Papers and Recorded presentation are due by May 15.
Presenters must register for the Symposium!
You may propose more than one paper for presentation, but normally only one Presentation per author will be scheduled. There is no limit to the number of Posters or Papers without Presentation.
You can see the scope and content of presentations from recent Symposia by downloading the Proceedings from the SAS website and viewing the videos of presentations from recent Symposia.

Symposium Registration is now open:  use the link above to register.  Registration price is $20 for SAS members, or $40 for non-members.