The Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) is a learned society and charity that encourages and promotes the study of astronomy, solar-system science, geophysics and closely related branches of science. Its headquarters are in Burlington House, on Piccadilly in London. The society has over 4,000 members, known as fellows, most of whom are professional researchers or postgraduate students. Around a quarter of Fellows live outside the UK.
Willem de Sitter was a Dutch mathematician, physicist, and astronomer.
Walter Frederick Gale was an Australian banker. Gale was born in Paddington, Sydney, New South Wales. He had a strong interest in astronomy and built his first telescope in 1884.
Agnes Mary Clerke was an Irish astronomer and writer, mainly in the field of astronomy. She was born in Skibbereen, County Cork, Ireland, and died in London.
The Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT), located near Narayangaon, Pune in India, is an array of thirty fully steerable parabolic radio telescopes of 45 metre diameter, observing at metre wavelengths. It is the largest and most sensitive radio telescope array in the world at low frequencies. It is operated by the National Centre for Radio Astrophysics (NCRA), a part of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai. It was conceived and built under the direction of Govind Swarup during 1984 to 1996. It is an interferometric array with baselines of up to 25 kilometres (16 mi). It was recently upgraded with new receivers, after which it is also known as the upgraded Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (uGMRT).
The Eddington Medal is awarded by the Royal Astronomical Society for investigations of outstanding merit in theoretical astrophysics. It is named after Sir Arthur Eddington. First awarded in 1953, the frequency of the prize has varied over the years, at times being every one, two or three years. Since 2013 it has been awarded annually.
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (MNRAS) is a peer-reviewed scientific journal in astronomy, astrophysics and related fields. It publishes original research in two formats: papers and letters. MNRAS publishes more articles per year than any other astronomy journal.
Chi Aquarii, Latinized from χ Aquarii, is the Bayer designation of a star in the equatorial constellation of Aquarius. The distance to this star, based upon parallax measurements with a 7% margin of error, is roughly 610 light-years. It is visible to the naked eye with an apparent visual magnitude of about 5.
Annie Scott Dill Maunder was an Irish-British astronomer, who recorded the first evidence of the movement of sunspot emergence from the poles toward the equator over the Sun's 11-year cycle. She was one of the leading astronomers of her time, but because of her gender, her contribution was often underplayed at the time. In 1916 she was elected to the Royal Astronomical Society, 21 years after being refused membership because of her gender.
Price Medal is a medal of the Royal Astronomical Society, for investigations of outstanding merit in solid-earth geophysics, oceanography, or planetary sciences. The medal is named after Albert Thomas Price. It was first awarded in 1994 and was initially given every three years. In 2005 this switched to every two years, and from 2014 it has been awarded every year.
Guinevere Alice Mei-Ing Kauffmann was born in California. She is an astrophysicist and is known for her work studying galaxies among other subjects.
Alexander (Alec) Boksenberg CBE FRS is a British scientist who was the Director of the Royal Greenwich Observatory from 1981–1995. In the early 1980s he developed the image photon counting system, an electronic detector for faint astronomical sources. His astronomical research focused on active galactic nuclei.
Madge Gertrude Adam was an English solar astronomer who was the first postgraduate student in solar physics at the University of Oxford observatory.
Michael William Feast was a British-South African astronomer. He served as Director of the South African Astronomical Observatory from 1976–1992, then became a professor at the University of Cape Town.
S Apodis, also known as HD 133444 is a variable star located in the southern circumpolar constellation Apus. It has an apparent magnitude ranging from 9.6 to 17, which is below the limit for naked eye visibility. The object is located relatively far at a distance of approximately 15,000 light years based on Gaia DR3 parallax measurements, but it is drifting closer with a heliocentric radial velocity of −75 km/s.
Benedetta Ciardi is an Italian astrophysicist.
NGC 4709 is an elliptical galaxy located in the constellation Centaurus. It is considered to be a member of the Centaurus Cluster and is the dominant member of a small group of galaxies known as "Cen 45" which is currently merging with the main Centaurus Cluster even though the two subclusters' line of sight redshift velocities differ by about 1500 km/s. NGC 4709 was discovered by astronomer James Dunlop on May 7, 1826.
Emma J. Bunce is a British space physicist and Professor of Planetary Plasma Physics at the University of Leicester. She holds a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award. Her research is on the magnetospheres of Saturn and Jupiter. She is principal investigator (PI) of the MIXS instrument on BepiColombo, was deputy lead on the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer proposal, and co-investigator on the Cassini–Huygens mission.
Claudia Maraston is a Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Portsmouth. She designs models for the calculation of spectro-photometric evolution of stellar populations. She is the winner of the 2018 Royal Astronomical Society Eddington Medal.
NGC 4393 is a spiral galaxy about 46 million light-years away in the constellation Coma Berenices. It was discovered by astronomer William Herschel on April 11, 1785. It is a member of the NGC 4274 Group, which is part of the Coma I Group or Cloud.
