The Kingston Centre of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada warmly welcomes you to our first in-person General Assembly in eight years, and our first time hosting in thirty years. "Come Together" is both our invitation and our theme: a chance for the RASC community to reunite in person, and a program that mirrors the universe’s own pattern of drawing separate things into one. Gravity gathers gas into stars; in their cores, the strong force binds nuclei and fusion forges the elements; from stardust, atoms accrete into planets, planets into systems, and ancient light into the skies we gather beneath. We hope you can join us June 4–7, 2027, in the room or online.
Dates
June 4–7, 2027
Friday to Monday
Venue
Ambassador
Event Centre · Kingston
Format
Single Track
Full days Sat & Sun
The Weekend
The 2027 GA is a single-track program built around two keynote lectures: the Ruth Northcott Memorial Public Lecture on Saturday evening, open to the public, and the banquet keynote and National Awards on Sunday evening. Saturday and Sunday bring four themed sessions under our theme, Come Together: The Elements, The Stars, The Cosmos, and The Community. Each session opens with an invited 40-minute anchor talk, followed by 20-minute member papers. Vendor tables are open on Saturday, the Awards Banquet is Sunday night, and there is an excursion to visit the McDonald Institute and observatory at Queen's University on Monday. For those joining from afar, every presentation will be carried live on Zoom to the National Membership with French language closed caption translation; attending online has a separate registration.
It has been eight years since our last in-person General Assembly, and much has changed in that time. To help plan for 2027, the Kingston Centre surveyed RASC members, and your responses gave us a good sense of who intends to come. While overall attendance remains unproven, the 2027 GA is designed as a deliberately measured "return to action": a single-track program in a single venue, sized to what we can deliver well, and a foundation for the General Assemblies that follow.
Getting to Kingston
Kingston sits at the east end of Lake Ontario and at the head of the St. Lawrence and the Thousand Islands, on Highway 401 between Toronto and Montreal. It is about a three-hour drive from each, and about two hours from Ottawa. The Ambassador Event Centre is co-located with two hotel properties, with free parking, EV charging, and a five-minute drive from the VIA Rail Kingston station.
The Ruth Northcott Memorial Public Lecture
2027 is a Northcott year. The Saturday evening keynote is the RASC's flagship public lecture, open to the wider Kingston community. Speaker selection is under way, and we look forward to making an announcement in January 2027.
Call for Member Papers - click here
Member Papers are 20-minute presentations by RASC members, given in Kingston and streamed to online delegates. Submissions are open now. Read the call and submit a proposal.
Come early, stay a little longer
Kingston rewards an extra day. Fort Henry, Kingston Penitentiary, the downtown waterfront, and the Thousand Islands are all a short drive from the venue. We encourage you to arrive a day or two early, or stay a day or two longer, and take some time to explore our historic city. Guides to museums, tours, dining and day trips, with maps, will be published here with the full programme.
We hope to see you there!
The full programme, travel details, and registration will be published here in the coming months. In the meantime, visit RASC Kingston Centre, or write to kingstonga2027@gmail.com.