Our participation at the XXX General Assembly of International Astronomical Union at Vienna, Austria during August 20-31, 2018 remained very successful with many developments!
Below are the highlights of our participation at the IAU2018 this year!
Observation of the IAU GA:
Unlike last year, we took active observer role at the IAU election which helped us to understand the process of election and the procedure of the formalities. It also helped us to be informed about the new membership scheme at IAU: Junior membership for the fresh Ph.D. graduate.
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| Photo: A Panel of newly appointed executives of IAU for the year 2018-2021. |
Meeting with Newly Appointed President of IAU:
We had a quick meeting with the newly elected president of IAU Prof. Dr. Ewine F. van Dishoeck and was very impressed with her observation of our activities in Nepal. After the interaction with her, we found that though Nepal is not an institutional member at IAU and there is no individual member from Nepal, IAU has put special attention towards Nepal. We invited her to visit Nepal during her tenure.
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Photo: Mr. Suresh Bhattarai, Chairman at Ms. Manisha Dwa, project coordinator at NASO with Prof. Dr. Prof. Dr. Ewine F. van Dishoeck during at IAU GA2018.
Poster Presentation:
We had two posters during the second week of the meeting as a part of the Office of IAU Astronomy for Development (OAD) where we explained our activities to the audience. The posters help us to meet many people with similar interest and search for possible future collaborations.
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| Photo 3: Ms. Manisha Dwa, project coordinator at Nepal Astronomical Society (NASO) with the visitor to her poster after the explanation. |
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| Photo 4: Mr. Suresh Bhattarai, Chairman at Nepal Astronomical Society (NASO) during his poster presentation. |
During the meeting, we had met with our scientific advisors Prof. Dr. Edward Guinan and Prof. Dr. Michele Gerbaldi and discussed/review the past activities and discuss future activities. Our discussion was mainly focused on the research projects/works for the university level students in Nepal.
Meeting with potential partners and collaborators:
During the meeting, we met many people and discussed the possibility of joint initiatives in the future. We had met with the representative from IAU100, IUCAA, IAU, OAD, OAO, Globe at Night, GTTP/GHOU, OAE (proposed) and researchers from different universities.
We had pleasure meeting H.E. Mr. Prakash Kumar Suvedi, Ambassador for Embassy of Nepal in Vienna and Permanent Mission of Nepal to the United Nations and other international organisations in Vienna, Austria.
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Photo 5: Mr. Suresh Bhattarai, Chairman at Nepal Astronomical Society (NASO) with H.E. Mr. Prakash Kumar Suvedi, Ambassador for Embassy of Nepal in Vienna and Permanent Mission of Nepal to United Nations and other international organizations in Vienna, Austria. Credit: Manisha Dwa/NASO
During the meeting, we discussed the need of Nepal's membership at United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (UN COPUOS), International Astronomical Union (IAU) in order to foster space science and astronomy/astrophysics research activities in Nepal. We highlighted the importance of the memberships of these organizations to Nepal. H.E. explained that the membership procedure for the UNCOPUOS is in the positive direction and soon Nepal will be a member officially. He explained it is now much easier for the permanent mission to look into such opportunities after the mission office has been shifted from Gevena, Switzerland.
We also had met with participants from Nepal: Mr. Jayanta Acharya-National Outreach Coordinator (NOC) at IAU Office of Astronomy for Outreach (OAO), Mr. Devendra Raj Upadhyay- Assistant Professor at Amrit Campus (ASCOL), Tribhuvan University(TU) and Mr. Bindesh Tripathi, undergraduate student at St. Xavier's College, Maitighar, Tribhuvan University (TU).
We would like to thank IAU officials for providing us the financial support for our successful participation. We would also like to thank Mr. Narayan Dhital, GNSS group lead at NASO currently working at DLR, Germany for the logistics!
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