The Sixth Annual Conference on Astronomical Data Analysis Software and Systems (ADASS) was held 22-26 September 1996 at the Omni Charlottesville Hotel in Charlottesville, Virginia. The Conference was hosted by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory. Sponsors for the meeting included:
Associated Universities, Inc.
European Southern Observatory
Infrared Processing and Analysis Center
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
National Center for Supercomputing Applications
National Optical Astronomy Observatories
National Radio Astronomy Observatory
National Research Council of Canada
National Science Foundation
Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory
Space Telescope Science Institute
University of Virginia
Corporate sponsors included:
GE Fanuc Automation
Sun Microsystems, Inc.
The meeting was a busy one with 8 invited talks, 31 contributed talks, 79 poster papers, and 12 computer demos. There were also 11 BOFs (Birds-of-a-Feather sessions that ran for 1 ½ hours, often in parallel with one another). A reception was held Sunday evening in the atrium of the Omni Hotel. The Conference banquet was held at Ash Lawn-Highland just south of Charlottesville in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains (Ash Lawn-Highland was President James Monroe's 535-acre estate). A tour to the NRAO's Green Bank Facility was offered on Sunday prior to the reception. The Conference was also preceded by a Java Tutorial presented on Sunday by a representative from Sun Microsystems. An IRAF Developer's Workshop followed the Conference on Thursday. There were 248 participants at the Conference, including 83 attendees representing 18 countries from outside the US. For a more detailed ADASS '96 program see the URL http://www.cv.nrao.edu/adass/.
The Conference Proceedings for ADASS VI will be edited by Gareth Hunt (and others) from NRAO. It will be published as part of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific Conference Series, as in past years. An online version of the Proceedings is planned.
The Proceedings for ADASS '95 is now available, and the online version can be viewed at http://iraf.noao.edu/iraf/web/ADASS/adass_proc/adass_95/cover.html or at the IRAF mirror site at http://star-www.rl.ac.uk/iraf/web/ADASS/adass_proc/adass_95/cover.html .
Plans for ADASS '97, to be held in Garching/Munich, Germany, are now underway. The Conference will be hosted by the Space Telescope European Coordinating Facility / European Southern Observatory. The tentative dates are 14-17 September 1997. For up-to-date information about ADASS '97 see the home page at http://ecf.hq.eso.org/adass/adass97.html.
Jeannette Barnes