General Information

Astronomical Societies affiliated to the RASNZ have representation on the RASNZ Council through the Affiliated Society Representatives (see below). Societies have access to travel assistance for bringing guest speakers to their meetings through the Gifford-Eiby Memorial Lectureship Fund. See the list of speakers for people who have offered to come and talk to your society or can lead various sorts of workshops.

Societies also benefit through receipt of a copy of Southern Stars and contact with other astronomical societies through notices of activities and events sent out by the Affiliated Society Representatives from time to time.

Keeping in Touch newsletters are sent out to Affiliated Societies to spread the word about items that may be of interest to Societies and their members. Back issues of Keeping in Touch PDFs may be downloaded from the Affiliated Society Files page. Other files of interest to Societies may also be found there.

Contact details for Affiliated Societies are provided on the Society's Details page.

RASNZ Forms

The following documents may be downloaded, completed, then emailed back to secretary@rasnz.org.nz

Affiliated Societies support

Affiliated Society Representatives

The RASNZ Affiliated Society representatives provide liaison between the various affiliated societies and the RASNZ council. From time to time we email notices to the societies. If you have an event coming up, want to share knowledge or equipment, or have anything you'd like to let the other societies or council know about please send us an email: Affiliated Societies Representatives.

Updates for Affiliated Society information.

Updates to the Affiliated Society's details may be sent to your Affiliated Societies Representatives or to the web master.

Affiliated Societies Documents and Reference Material

This page collects together a number of documents to help Affiliated Societies in their day to day running. For the most part these are living documents and the master document is maintained as a a Google document. Affiliated Societies are welcome to contribute to these documents and may do so by, in the first instance, contacting the Affiliated Societies Representatives using aff.socs.reps@rasnz.org.nz.

New Zealand law changes concerning High Powered Lasers

Law concerning the sale or supply of high powered laser pointers (greater than 1mW) has been introduced in New Zealand. There are special provisions to allow astronomical societies to obtain such pointers for astronomical use. See the details supplied by the Ministry of Health.

Laser Pointers

ASTRONZ Laser Pointer safety sheet (Word document): ASTRONZ single page document describing risks and New Zealand legal requirements for ownership and use of laser pointers.

Affiliated Society's Laser Pointer usage Guidelines (.pdf)​​​​​​​