Almukantarat Astronomy Club is mainly a community of people engaged in popularization of astronomy. The association has been active for over thirty years and encourages young science enthusiasts to gather knowledge, exchange ideas and self-develop. We fulfill our goals by organizing astronomy camps, maintaining our web portal Astronet, and participating in events such as science fairs.

What are the club’s main goals?

Among the main aspects of our activity is the yearly organization of two summer science camps. The first one is dedicated to middle school students, the other one being for high school students. Moreover, we also organize winter camps and seminars. All that is done to allow young people to have as much contact as possible with both astronomy and the Club’s community; our participants visit numerous universities, observatories, planetaria, and many more.

What do we do during our meetings?

During our meetings, we organize classes in astronomy and related subjects. We show the scientific world to participants, both by popularizing particular topics and by teaching them skills required in numerous competitions and olympiads. Many of our pupils represented Poland during international contests. Moreover, we allow our participants to apply their knowledge in practice, in particular in observations and astrophotography. We also encourage the development of self-presentation skills — the most important element of many of our meetings is paper presentation, during which people learn from one another while also preparing for future scientific careers.

Who are the people related to Almukantarat?

The participants of our camps are mostly finalists and laureates of scientific field contests and people interested in astronomy-related subjects. Often they want to continue cooperating with Almukantarat after graduating from high school, later becoming the personnel of our camps and actively working for the Club. It is such people who later become its future members and managers. They study at the best universities in Poland and the world or pursue scientific careers. This exchange of generations is what holds the whole community together and allows it to constantly develop.

What is Astronet?

Since our main goal is popularization of astronomy, we do our best to direct our activities to a wide range of recipients. Astronet is the first Polish astronomy portal and one of the most valuable sources of information in the Polish web. Its work is centered around delivering daily news from the world of astronomy. Our published articles not only concern descriptions of latest research or coverage of astronomic events, but also form a dependable database for observers and often explain common misconceptions regarding scientific theories. This is why the portal is very popular, and the club has connections with a wide range of internet users.