Astronomy. Software. Systems.

Mark your calendars for the 31st annual conference on Astronomical Data Analysis Software and Systems. The conference will be held on 24-28 October 2021, and hosted by IDIA, RATT, and SARAO.

This annual conference, held in a different location each year, is a forum for astronomers, computer scientists, software engineers, faculty members and students working in areas related to algorithms, software and systems for the acquisition, reduction, analysis, and dissemination of astronomical data.

The ADASS XXXI program will include invited talks, contributed papers, display sessions, tutorials, computer demonstrations, and special interest (“Birds of a Feather” or BoF) meetings. These activities aim to stimulate further development of software and systems to meet the data science challenges of astronomy.

Registration and abstract submissions are not yet open. More information will be added as the planning progresses.

At this time, we are still hoping for an in-person meeting. However, the situation is still volatile, as we all know too well. We have two potential decision points, one in mid-April, another in mid-June. The backup plan is a virtual meeting like last year, or maybe a hybrid format with a smaller in-person meeting with virtual sessions. We will keep you updated as the world-wide Covid-19 situation unfolds.

As we prepare the program, a call for key themes has been issued. The community, you, is asked to propose and vote on the themes you would like to be featured at this year’s ADASS. This year we are using “tricider” to collect your theme suggestions. You will find the question for this year’s themes at:

You do not need to register to submit suggestions or to vote. As separate communication on this will follow.

The International Virtual Observatory Alliance (IVOA) is planning to hold its meeting the week after ADASS, on 2-4 November, as an on-line meeting. More details will be available at a later stage at www.ivoa.net.