[Bolts_Tweed (Mark)]

I am excited to announce the dates are set and the venue booked for the inaugural Australian Astro Imaging Conference (aaic2011) to be held at the Crowne Plaza Hotel Surfers Paradise on 15th to 17th July 2011. Note this is the weekend before Astrofest starts – I’ve tried to make it possible for one trip to Queensland if you want to attend both. The contract with the hotel is signed and it definitely all systems go.

The theme of the conference is Astro-Imaging for all levels and I have arranged speakers to cover a range of imager abilities. Further most of the presentations will be instructional providing an opportunity for all of us to improve our skills. The conference is separated into two sections. The first section will be workshops on Friday 15th July. The workshops (45 minutes each) will be conducted by Ken Crawford and Rogelio Andreo with topics yet to be announced. There will also be additional workshops being run to cover more basic imaging techniques and methods by myself, amongst others. Rogelio has agreed to attend and he is very excited, there is however a slight question mark over a planned trip to Spain for a similar time so confirmation of his attendance will happen soon. There are several other international guests that are very keen to come down so if he can’t get here then he will replaced by .another high quality international presenter.

The program on Saturday and Sunday will be a general conference with the opening keynote address by Prof. David Malin followed by a range of speakers including our international guests as well as excellent Australian astro imagers such as (in alphabetical surname order) Greg Bradley, Jase Jennings, Humayan Qureshi, Mike Sidonio, Eddie Trimachi and Anthony Wesley, amongst others.

There is also a scientific imaging session on the Sunday with papers by the BOSS group (Backyard Observatory Supernova Search), an international collaboration between amateurs and professional astronomers as well Julian West on Spectroscopy.

This is just a preliminary announcement and I will provide more information as it becomes available. A website is nearing completion and artwork is also available. A special thanks to Mike Sidonio (chief sounding board – I am sure he got sick of all the ‘What About This Idea’ emails) and Chris (Omaroo) who has been invaluable for the artwork and the web page design. Also a big thanks to my employer, Griffith University, who is helping me to underwrite the conference and giving me time to organise it. Registrations won’t open until early next year but there will be just over 6 months from opening registrations to the conference date. I will be forwarding Chris’ excellent artwork as well as further information to all astronomy club websites I can track down as well all astronomy suppliers seeking support.

This is your chance to get the ear of these high quality imagers to improve your own imaging abilities. I also have a few presentation spots available if anyone particularly wants to give a presentation on Saturday or Sunday. If we get more than required, we will decide who presents by voting of the organising crew.

There is far more to discuss and present but I thought I would break the new here on IIS.