Saying goodbye to a fantastic week as Symposium Chair of hashtag#SPIEAstro 2026 in Copenhagen.

From inspirational plenary sessions to packed talks and poster sessions, it has been wonderful to see the energy and enthusiasm across the meeting. Particularly exciting was welcoming over 1,000 first-time attendees among the nearly 3,000 participants.
I’ve been attending this biennial conference since 1998 in Kona, Hawaii, and it continues to go from strength to strength.

A huge thank you to my fellow symposium chairs (Desiree Della Monica Ferreira, Ram Ramprakash and Kate Jackson) and the many conference chairs who volunteer countless hours to make this meeting such a success, and to the SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics team for their incredible support and professionalism throughout.

And now, on to the future. The next meeting will be held in Montreal in 2028 and, hot off the press, Sydney has been announced as the host city for 2030!

Congratulations to the Astralis Instrumentation Consortium and Government of New South Wales (NSW Government) on a successful bid to bring this historic meeting to Australia.

I’m looking forward to welcoming the global astronomical instrumentation community to Australia in 2030.