Abstract Submission Instructions | 115th Annual Meeting

If you are interested in presenting at the 115^th AAVSO Annual Meeting, please follow the instructions below for submitting an abstract. Please note: submitting an abstract does not guarantee you a slot.

To submit an abstract please fill out the Google Form: Abstract Submission Form | 2026

Guidelines for writing your abstract

Abstract length is limited to 4000 characters. The abstract deadline is Friday, September 11, 2026.

Plan ahead to determine your presentation's format. You have the following options:

• Poster — In-person only
• Oral Presentation — In-person or online

Your presentation must be focused on one of the following topics:

• Variable star research
• Astronomy history
• Astronomy education and outreach

Abstract content checklist

Within your abstract, be sure to include all items described on this checklist, or your abstract will be returned to you.

At the top of your abstract document, include:

1. Title of the presentation, names of first author and co-authors, and affiliation.
2. Whether your submission is for an oral presentation or an in person poster.
3. The name(s) of all presenters, their email address(es) and phone number(s), and if each is presenting in person or remotely.

The points in the following checklist are meant to help you develop an abstract that will meet the new presentation guidelines set by the Science Program Committee. These five areas should be covered in a one- to three-paragraph abstract. The meeting organizers will use this checklist to review submitted abstracts.

1. Motivation: Why this research is important and why the author thinks the meeting attendee should be interested in the results. This portion may be omitted with justification, but it is strongly encouraged.
2. Problem statement: The scientific/historical/educational problem being addressed, question being asked, or hypothesis being tested.
3. Methods: Brief overview of equipment, methodology, and/or software used (just enough to enable the reader to appreciate the research).
4. Results (obtained or anticipated): Overview of results obtained, or (in the case of unfinished work) anticipated.
5. Conclusions/significance of results: Why these results are important and how they will affect the field.

Abstracts that omit required elements will be returned to the author for revision. Revisions still must be accepted by the abstract deadline of September 11, 2026. If you have questions, please email Joyce Guzik at joy@lanl.gov.

Examples

Example abstracts may be viewed on the 114^th meeting website: AAVSO 114th Annual Meeting Abstracts

If your abstract is accepted

You will be informed of whether or not your abstract was accepted no later than Wednesday, September 23, 2026.

If your abstract for an oral presentation or poster is accepted, you must register for the Annual Meeting before Monday, September 28, 2026 to complete your acceptance and be put on the Annual Meeting Agenda.

Please follow the additional instructions for accepted presentations at:

• Oral Presentations

• Poster Presentations

Conference Proceedings

Authors of abstracts accepted for oral and posters presentations are invited to prepare full proceedings papers for inclusion in a special "Conference Proceedings" volume. Proceedings papers should be submitted to Joyce Guzik (proceedings@aavso.org) by Friday, December 18, 2026.

Conference proceedings papers will not be formally refereed, but will be edited by guest editor Joyce Guzik and AAVSO staff. In general, these papers should be similar to manuscripts for submission to the JAAVSO, with sections roughly as follows:

1. Introduction giving motivation for the work and background
2. Methods, whether observational or theoretical
3. Results
4. Discussion/conclusions
5. Acknowledgments
6. References in the same format as in JAAVSO: mentioned in the text as (author(s) date) and listed alphabetically at the end.

If possible, please use the Word template at the JAAVSO Web site:

JAAVSOTemplate.docx

Figures and other graphics are encouraged, but should not be much more extensive than will be included in the presentation. Proceedings should not include extensive data tables. Those should be saved for subsequent publication in an archival journal such as the JAAVSO. Ordinarily, there will be no length limitation, although our staff will request that verbose writing be condensed.

To see examples, you may download the proceedings for previous Annual Meetings: