The Polish Astronomical Society is celebrating the centenary of its foundation. It was established at the Congress of Polish Astronomers in Toruń on 19 February 1923.
Today, the Polish Astronomical Society brings together almost 270 astronomers and emphasises its influence, giving as examples the Urania portal, which has between 100 000 and 300 000 users per month, and the Astronarium available on YouTube, which has already recorded a total of almost 43 million views.
A long-standing activity of the society in popularising astronomy is the journal Urania – Progress of Astronomy, published jointly with the Polish Society of Astronomy Lovers (PTMA). The journal is a bimonthly publication created in 1998 from a merger of the monthly Urania, published since 1922 by the PTMA, and the quarterly Progress of Astronomy, published since 1953 by the PTA.
The editors of Urania also run a large web portal on astronomy and space, at www.urania.edu.pl, which publishes current information on space research and industry, as well as popular science articles. In addition, scanned copies of all issues of “Urania” and “Progress of Astronomy” from the beginning of their publication are available in the Urania Digital Archive.
PTA organises workshops and summer schools for students, postgraduates, and young scientists and, since several years, the cosmology conference “Roman Juszkiewicz Symposium”. In addition, it actively participates in conferences on the protection of the natural dark sky from excessive artificial light pollution.
The Polish Astronomical Society has been awarding prestigious prizes for many years. The highest award is the Bohdan Paczyński Medal, awarded for the first time in 2013. The medal is granted every two years and presented during the PTA Conventions. It is received by scientists with outstanding achievements in astronomy and astrophysics. The recipients of this award to date have been Sir Martin J. Rees, George W. Preston, Aleksander Wolszczan, Wojciech Dziembowski, Romuald Tylenda.
Adrian Andrzejewski