The RAS National Astronomy Meeting 2008

The parallel sessions are being held in one of six lecture theatres on the main QUB campus:

• Emeleus lecture theatre - Physics
• Larmour lecture theatre - Physics
• Bell lecture theatre - Physics
• Lanyon North
• Room 210 - Peter Frogatt Centre
• Room 212 - Peter Frogatt Centre

Each room will have a data projector connected to a networked PC running Microsoft Windows XP with Office 2007 installed. Delegates should ensure that their presentations will be compatible with this configuration in advance of presenting their talk, paying particular attention to matters such as video - it should be assumed that codecs which are not part of a default Windows XP install (eg DiVX) will not be available. Talks can be run from either a USB stick or a CD/DVD.

A VGA input port will be also available to directly connect laptops, though users with DVI or mini-DVI outputs (eg. PowerBooks, MacBooks) should ensure they have the appropriate adapters with them!

It would be prudent to use the time of the coffee break before your session to familiarise yourself with the AV equipment in the room, and ensure that everything is working as expected. Local support will be available in each room to demonstrate how to use the equipment.

Posters will be displayed throughout the conference in three areas.

NAM posters will be in the Whitla Hall and the South Dining Hall. Poster boards will be available from 14:00 on Monday 31^st to 17:00 on Friday 4^th. The boards are 120cm by 120cm, so posters can be printed to A0 (841 x 1189 mm) size provided they are properly trimmed and do not overflow their designated board.

UKSP and MIST posters and those in in joint sessions (UKSP/MIST & MIST/NAM) will be in the Great Hall. Poster boards will be available from 14:00 on Monday 31^st to 17:00 on Friday 4^th. The boards are 100cm wide by 200cm high, so posters can be printed to A0 (841 x 1189 mm) size provided they are portrait format.

Poster locations for each session will be online, and poster boards will be marked with the reference number of the poster to be displayed there. Velcro will be provided to attach posters to the boards - pins, tape, etc must not be used!

There will a student poster competition at NAM2008 run under the auspices of the RAS Higher Education Committee. The judging will be carried out by members and nominees of the Higher Education Committee. The decision of the judges is final! To aid the judging, the lead author for each poster should attend their poster on Tuesday and Wednesday from 13:30 to 14:00 (the last half-hour of lunch break). All posters submitted by delegates identifying themselves as students at registration will be considered. The poster prizes will be presented in the afternoon session following the presentation of the RAS medals.

The prizes have been kindly donated by Dell Computer NI and Cambridge University Press and are:

• a Dell Dimension D630, with wide-screen display, 2.2GHz Core 2 Duo CPU, 2GB RAM, and 80GB HDD
• a Dell Dimension D530, with XGA display, 2GHz Core 2 Duo CPU, 2GB RAM, and 80GB HDD
• book tokens for Cambridge University Press books

We expect to award one laptop to the best NAM student poster, and the other to the best UKSP/MIST student poster. The book tokens will be awarded to those narrowly missing the first prize. The judges will use the following criteria:

• Eligibility
  The first author of the poster must be a post-graduate student based at a UK or Irish university or institute, and who is attending NAM 2008. The poster subject can be in any area relating to any session at the National Astronomy Meeting including UKSP and MIST sessions, or (at the discretion of the judges) any other area of astronomy and space science.
• Completeness
  The poster should contain a title, authors' names and affiliations, a top summary or abstract, body text, illustration(s) with captions, conclusions and/or future work and references if appropriate.
• Style
  The poster should be striking but not cluttered, have a good balance between text and illustrations, and there should be a clear path for the reader to follow through the information.
• Readability
  The text should not be swamped by an over-complex background and the text size and line length should be comfortable for ease of reading.
• Poster production
  The poster should be printed on appropriately sized paper (if A0 it must properly fit on the available boards).