Goals

Early in this century, many cities and universities could support telescopes large enough to do serious research. There were significant observatories even in the less accesable parts of the world. Astronomy was very much an international science, and the IAU was founded to aid this international outlook.

In the middle of this century, astronomy changed in two ways. First, the frontier research turned to new topics. It needed telescopes too expensive for most small and many large countries. Second, physics became a more prominent part of astronomy. That left many of the existing small observatories scientifically isolated, especially in developing countries. The scientifically lonely astronomers there needed new alliances to survive.

Simultaneously, the new prominence of physics led to astronomers appearing in physics departments of developing countries. These new astronomers were also isolated and they also needed to build alliances to survive.

Since the 1960s, the IAU has tried to support astronomy in developing countries, especially the lonely astronomers, by several teaching-related projects, supervised by IAU Commission 46. I shall tell you the more formal aspects of these projects, and then I want to summarize some of the successes and difficulties. But first I want to emphasize an important principle for each of these projects:

Any country or university where the IAU helps to develop astronomy must contribute significantly to this project. The more usual alternative has been tried by other scientific societies. Typically, they donated a piece of research equipment. Far too often several years later, the equipment has been found rusting in some corner. Those of you familiar with tropical countries know that rust destroys neglected equipment very rapidly.