The Universe is full of galaxies of various shapes; some galaxies have spiral arms and others don’t. Why do galaxies show such diversity? How were galaxies formed and evolved? Galaxies are thought to grow by interacting and merging with other galaxies, and the galaxy mergers may be the key process creating the variety. GALAXY CRUISE is the first citizen science project conducted by National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) to unlock galaxies’ secrets using the big observational data. We made the superior quality big data taken by the Subaru Telescope accessible to the public and invited them to participate in data classification. Here we report how we designed the website and its first-year progress.

Section 3 of the FM14 focus on the The IAU National Outreach Contacts (NOC) Network. This paper also contains supplementary materials that point to poster presentations that can be found online.

As the IAU heads towards its second century, many changes have simultaneously transformed Astronomy and the human condition world-wide. Amid the amazing recent discoveries of exoplanets, primeval galaxies, and gravitational radiation, the human condition on Earth has become blazingly interconnected, yet beset with ever-increasing problems of over-population, pollution, and never-ending wars. Fossil-fueled global climate change has begun to yield perilous consequences. And the displacement of people from war-torn nations has reached levels not seen since World War II.

Though there are many forklore concerning meteorite falls, a few genuine meteorites have been identified. One of them, the Nogata meteorite is related to the oldest recorded meteorite fall (A.D. 861) (Shima et al., 1983).

Color selection is an efficient technique for extracting candidate AGNs. Many AGNs have been selected on the basis of colors at various wavelengths. In this work, we extracted AGN candidates using near-infrared colors and investigated their properties.

The Supernova Working Group was re-established at the IAU XXV General Assembly in Sydney, 21 July 2003, sponsored by Commissions 28 (Galaxies) and 47 (Cosmology). Here we report on some of its activities since 2005.

From Director Dan Green's report, following this report, it is obvious that the Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams (CBAT) continues its excellent work. The Electronic Telegrams (CBETs), established in the previous triennium, have become the regular means for fast communication, with the Circulars providing the official and archival record of discoveries and designations. It is regretted that subscriptions to the printed Circulars continue to decline, but inevitable in this age of electronic communication.

The spectroscopy of a supernova (SN) just after its discovery is quite important not only for the spectral type classification but also for the planning further follow-up observations or the target-of-opportunity observations (ToOs). The early spectroscopy is needed also because the information from the outermost envelope of such exploding objects as SNe cannot be obtained in the later phase. In order to obtain the early spectrum, the quick circulation of the discovery information is important. We introduce our contributions with the public astronomical observatories in Japan, including the case of “hypernova” SN 2002ap discovered by a Japanese amateur astronomer. We summarize the time interval between the discoveries, the announcements, and the first spectral classifications of recent SNe, and discuss what would be required for the early spectroscopy.

The positions (the coordinates and the offset from the nucleus of the host) of extragalactic supernovae (SNe) are very important for further research into their nature. The positions reported in the literature are, however, sometimes erroneous. Here we give the precise coordinates of three SNe based on the recently-developed star catalogs. The standard deviations of the positions are expected to be sub-arcsecond, which can be better than the offsets from the ambiguous nuclei of the host galaxies.

The kinematics of the binary systems to which supernovae(SNe) 1993J and 1994I belonged are studied. The kick velocity caused by supernova(SN) asymmetry will highly influence the fate of the system. The survival rates with assumed kick velocity distribution are discussed.