Commission 50 is organizing a one-day session at the IAU General Assembly in Prague. The current program for this meeting is as follows:
COMMISSION 50 MEETING
Wednesday August 23, 9:00-10:30, 11:00-12.30, 14:00-15:30 & 16:00-17.30. Meeting Hall V.
09:00
1.1
Commission Business. Handover to new Commission 50 President (Hugo
Schwarz), Vice President (Richard
Wainscoat) and IAUCAF representative (Wim van Driel).
Pierantonio. Cinzano. “Recent Progress on a Second World Atlas of the Night-Sky Brightness: LPTRAN/LPDART realistic models, Tomography of light pollution, accurate validation methods and extended satellite data analysis”.
1.3.2. Ground-based Monitoring
Jenik Hollan. “Digital Imaging Photometry with Common Cameras – Methods, Results and Perspectives”
Dan McKenna. “A Low-cost, Web-based, Sky-Brightness-Monitoring System”
Discussion (including posters)10:30 Coffee
11:00 2. Protection of “Class A” Optical/IR Observatory Sites.
Richard Wainscoat. “Protection of Observatory Sites on Mauna Kea and Haleakala”
Hugo Schwarz. “Protection of Existing and Potential Observatory Sites in the North of Chile”.
Richard Green. “Protection of Existing and Potential Observatory Sites in the South Western United States, with Emphasis on Mount Graham, Arizona and Mount Locke, Texas”
Javier Diaz. “Protection of Observatory Sites on La Palma”
12:30 Lunch
14:00 3. Protection of Major Sites for Radio Astronomy
Wim van Driel “IUCAF and the Protection of Radio Astronomy Sites”
Eduardo Hardy. “Protecting ALMA”.
Tasso Tzioumis. “Radio-Quiet Zones, with Special Emphasis on the SKA”.
Discusson: The Exact Future Role of IAU Commission 50 in Protecting Radio Astronomy Sites and the ITU’s potential interest in extending its regulation of use of frequencies extending into the IR and optical.15:30 Coffee
16.00 4. Working with our Allies on Site Protection in Your Part of the World
Derek McNally “Some possible effects of Global Warming on Astronomical Observation”.
Ron
Ekers “OECD Global Science
Forum Studies Relevant to Interference Protection and Dark Skies.
IDA Representative “The International Dark-Sky Association’s World-Wide Support of Astronomy”. (To be confirmed)
Discussion
Proceedings of the meeting will be available via a link to the Powerpoint presentations brought to the meeting.
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Some earlier conferences:
3rd European Symposium for Protection of the Night Sky, Stuttgart, Germany, 12-13 September 2003.
Commission 50 activities during IAU General Assembly, Sydney, 13-26th July 2003.
Talk presented to UN-COPUOS S&T, Vienna, 25th Feb 2003
URSI Resolution on International Radio Quiet Reserves, Maastricht General Assembly, August 2002
International Conference on Light Pollution, La Serena, Chile, 5-7th March 2002
Czech Republic Passes Light Pollution Law (February 2002)
Talk presented to COSPAR/IAF Symposium, Vienna, 13th Feb 2001
IAU Symp 196, ``Preserving the Astronomical Sky'', Vienna, 12-16th July 1999
Non-electronic contributions are not covered at this
site.
If IAU members wish to scan such contributions and provide links to
them, we will be glad to provide those links at this website. For
example, additional, valuable information can be found in the
proceedings
of a meeting organized in 1992 by UNESCO, ICSU, IAU and COSPAR entitled
""The
Vanishing Universe: adverse environmental impacts on astronomy", edited
by Derek McNally, Cambridge University Press, 1994. Dr. Alberto
Carraminana (INAOE, Mexico) has produced a Spanish
translation of the
recommendations of that meeting. Please note that much more
information on
controlling
light pollution is supplied at the Commission's
Working-Group site.
We strongly encourage the international leveraging and
networking that has come from setting
up local websites
such as those of the Spanish-language OTPC (Spain)
and OPCC (Chile), the
English-language IDA (USA) -
this IDA site is the most comprehensive of all and is the best source
of international "awareness" links - CfDS (UK), CPRE
(England), Pierantonio Cinzano's Italian
website, the
French-language ANPCN,
Japan's JLIS
and increasing numbers of sites in other countries (e.g., Mexico).
Anything IAU
members can do to stimulate this kind of work at a local level (in your
own language) is welcomed; please keep Commission 50 and the IDA
informed of any such developments, especially in support of RFI
awareness and protection (the IDA is supporting efforts to raise public
awareness of the problems caused by RFI).