Newsletter of Commission 28, October 2000

Dear Members of Commission 28,

This is the first newsletter from the new President, which summarizes the information you may want from the 24th General Assembly in Manchester. I am very grateful to Virginia Trimble for her tremendous help in preparing this newsletter.

     With best wishes,

     Sadanori Okamura

Attendance: F. Bertola, J.R. Bond, R. Davies, R. Ekers, M. Feast, J. Felten, L. Gurvits, R. Hunstead, E. Khachikian, P. Lilje, C. Lineweaver, M. MacCallum, J. Mould, J. Narlikar, S. Okamura, B. Partridge, J. Peacock, S. Refsdal, B. Roukema, P. Shaver, S. Simkin, A. Szalay, V. Trimble, B. Tully, M. Wanas, R. Williams

This was a joint meeting of Division VIII and its two Commissions, 28 and 47. The reports and approval of new officers of the two Commissions took place first, and are reported separately in this volume.

Division VIII Officers, Triennium 2000-2003

The Division VIII Board includes the President, vice President and past President of each of the two Commissions, and a Division President who is nominated by the Board. These appointments were approved at the meeting. In addition, three additional nominations were made and approved at the meeting. The new Board of Division VIII is as follows:

PRESIDENT:	V. Trimble
BOARD:	F. Bertola (Division President-Elect; past President Commision 28) M. Birkinshaw (Division webmaster) S. Lilly (vice President, Commission 47) S. Okamura (President, Commission 28) J. Peacock (President, Commission 47) E. Sadler (vice President, Commission 28) P. Shaver (past President, Division VIII) A. Szalay (past President, Commission 47)

Scientific Meetings

A summary was presented of the scientific meetings that had been supported/sponsored by Division VIII and its two Commissions over the past triennium: 11 Symposia, 5 Colloquia and 3 Joint Discussions. Of these, the following took place at the General Assembly in Manchester:

Symp. 201:	New Cosmological Data and the Values of the Fundamental Parameters
Symp. 204:	The Extragalactic Infrared Background and its Cosmological Implications
Symp. 205:	Galaxies and their Constituents at the Highest Angular Resolutions
JD 8:	Oxygen Abundances in Old Stars, Implications to Nucleosynthesis and Cosmology
JD 9:	Cold Gas and Dust at High Redshift
JD 10:	Cluster Mergers and their Connection to Radio Sources

The following four meetings are supported for 2001:

• Extragalactic Star Clusters (E. Grebel; Pucon, Chile)
• Planetary Nebulae (M. Dopita; Canberra, Australia)
• Cosmic Masers (V. Migenes; Rio de Janiero, Brazil)
• AGN Surveys (A. Mickaelian; Byurakan, Armenia)

Discussion

A number of points were raised for general discussion:

1. Communications. A renewed effort will be made to reach all members of both Commissions by e-mail, so that regular newsletters can be sent, and a new and more comprehensive website will be established. Susan Simkin agreed to act as email coordinator.
2. Organization of the Division. As in previous years, it was decided to leave the Divisional structure unchanged, with no new Commissions proposed. The intention of Div XI to establish a new Commission on Astroparticle Physics was supported. The possibility of creating new Working Groups was discussed, and will be further explored in upcoming newsletters.
3. Reports on Astronomy. The continuing need for such reports as reference sources for both researchers and historians was generally agreed, and possible formats were discussed.
4. Format of the General Assembly. There was a brief discussion about the structure of the General Assembly, in particular whether somewhat more time should be made available for meetings organized by the Divisions and Commissions.

The President thanked the Board members for the pleasant and productive collaboration over the past triennium, and welcomed his successor Virginia Trimble and the new members of the Board. He also thanked the General Secretary, Assistant General Secretary and IAU Secretariat for their help on administrative matters. In turn, the participants of the meeting thanked the President for his efforts over the past three years.

The meeting was held jointly with Commission 47 and Division VIII. For matters of common interest see the Division VIII report.

The President remembered with sorrow the following members deceased since the Kyoto General Assembly: David Emerson, Jean Heidmann, Erik Holmberg, Wilhelmina Iwanowska, Vijay Kapahi, Gabriel Kojoian, Paul Kustaanheimo, Barry Lasker, Paris Pismis de Recillas, Dennis Sciama, Bjoern Sundelius, Richard White.

A list of 86 new members to be admitted to the IAU at the General Assembly, who had expressed desire to be members of Commission 28, was approved. To this list the name of Areg Mickaelian (Armenia), already an IAU member, has to be added following his request to the President.

Members of the Commission before 1997 GA were 668, and 97 new members were approved at 1997 GA, totaling to 765. The three-year effort, carried out by the Vice President, to update the membership of the commission resulted in the following:

Those who want to be members	642
Those who no longer wish to be members	46
Letter and/or e-mail not returned, but no answer	47
Unable to reach by either letter or e-mail	14
No entry in the IAU member list	5

The following officers for the triennium 2000-2003 has been approved:

Sadanori Okamura	Japan, President
Elaine Sadler	Australia, Vice President
Chantal Balkowski-Mauger	France
Francesco Bertola	Italy
James Binney	UK
David Burstein	USA
Pieter de Zeeuw	Netherlands
Anthony Fairall	South Africa
Timothy Heckman	USA
Simon Lilly	Canada
Zhen-Long Zou	China PR

The President expressed his appreciation for the outgoing members Sandip Chakrabarti (India), Michael Feast (South Africa), John Huchra (USA), Virginia Trimble (USA), Richard Wielebinski (Germany) and welcomed the new President and the new members of the OC.

A discussion has taken place on how to name newly discovered companions to M31. It has been decided to wait for the recommendations from the IAU Task Group on Astronomical Designations.

25th General Assembly: 13-26 July 2003 in Sydney, Australia

26th General Assembly: 2006 in Prague, Czech Republic, exact dates TBD

The Executive Committee voted unanimously to associate the IAU with this new prize in Cosmology, to be given in 2000 (to P James E Peebles and Allan Sandage) and each year thereafter (normally a single prize of $150,000), accompanied by one or more fellowships in cosmology and related sciences to be award to one or more young astronomers from developing countries to enable them to work with colleagues in more developed countries. The IAU will, in the future, appoint 4 of the 7 members of the committee to select winners. Deadline for applications or nominations for the first round of fellowships (to be awarded early in 2001) will be quite soon, so be thinking of a young colleague who might be eligible.

LETTERS OF INTENT for symposia and joint discussions for the Sydney GA have the same deadline (the LOC has to pay by the room for convention facilities and wants a preliminary decision from the Exec Comm meeting of June 2001 on roughly how many of each there will be and for how many days). Symposia can run 3-4 days (3 or 3 1/2 being preferred) and JDs 1/2, 1, max 1.5 days at the GA. Free standing symposia and colloquia can run 3-5 days; colloquia tend to be a bit shorter than symposia.

Planetary Nebulae, Canberra	19-23 Nov
Extragalactic Star Clusters, Pucon Chile	12-16 March
Cosmic Masers, Rio de Janiero	5-10 March
Stellar Atmospheres, Uppsala Sweden	late June
Pulsating stars and stellar astrophysics, Leuven BE	26-31 July
AGN Surveys, Byurakan Armenia	19-23 June

Future Large Scale Facilities (both ground and space) - chair is probably Richard Scillizzi.

"new messenger astronomy" (this is not the name - it includes dark matter, neutrinos, gravitational radiation, very high energy cosmic rays and gamma rays, etc) Initial organizing by G.Srinivasan, the new President of Div IX (High Energy Astrophysics & Astronomy from Space)