Summary of the INSAP Conferences
The INSAP Conferences are a series of international meetings, held every three years or so, that explore the effect on humanity and human culture of the glorious spectacles we see in the sky by night and by day. For details of the origins of INSAP and all the previous meetings, which are summarised here, see: https://insap.org/history/ )
The first INSAP conference (1994) was held mostly at the retreat house, “Mondo Migliore”, at the Vatican Observatory at Castel Gandolfo. Many of the attendees were astronomers and tours of the Papal Gardens, and the Vatican Museum and Library were included.
INSAP II was held in 1999 in the Republic of Malta. The rich history of the islands and their location at the crossroads of the Mediterranean made this an ideal an ideal venue, and included a visit to the oldest megalithic structures with significant astronomical orientations.
INSAP III was held in Palermo, Sicily, and marked the two hundredth anniversary of the discovery at the Palermo Observatory of the first asteroid, named Ceres after the Roman patron goddess of Sicily. Greek, Roman, Arabic, and Norman sites were visited as well.
The INSAPIV meeting was held in 2003 in the UK in Magdalen College, Oxford which included a special exhibit of artworks, and a special full-access dawn tour of Stonehenge and then Avebury, considering evidence of astronomical cultural complexity of early Britain.
INSAP V was held at the Adler Planetarium, Chicago in 2005, by which time the website was a major form of communication about meetings.
INSAP VI was organised in the Palazzo Cavalli Franchetti in Venice by the Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, Department of Astronomy, University of Padua and the Osservatorio di Astronomia di Padova Specola Vaticano. The event marked and celebrated the four-hundredth anniversary of Galileo’s first astronomical use of the telescope – and was also part of the ‘International Year of Astronomy’ that year.
INSAP VII, in 2010, was held at the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institute, supported by the Sophia Centre for the Study of Cosmology, University of Wales, Lampeter. A visit and reception took place at Herschel House (home of William and Caroline Herschel).
INSAP VIII was held at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York City in 2013. In addition to the conference programme of keynote and other lectures, there were visits to the ‘Hall of the Universe’, the Hayden Planetarium, and the astronomically-inspired murals at Grand Central Station.
INSAP IX took place in 2015 in the fifteenth-century Hall at Gresham College, London, with support from Gresham College and the Sophia Centre. The highlight of the conference was a special public event with Lord Rees of Ludlow, Astronomer Royal, as keynote speaker, followed by a panel discussion involving leading Professors of Astronomy.
In 2017, INSAP X was combined with meetings of ‘SEAC 25’, ‘Oxford XI’ and ‘ISAAC’, and held at the Centro de Estudios Avanzados, Santiago de Compostela, Spain. Entitled ‘The Road to the Stars’ (as befitted the location), it included an excursion to the ‘astronomical’ neolithic monuments at Dombate.
After delays caused by the Covid pandemic, INSAP XI was held at the California Institute of Technology (CalTech) in 2023. Attendees were treated to a visit to the Griffith Observatory, as well as some trips to the Carnegie, Mount Wilson and Palomar observatories.
VS 19 Sept 2023
