About the journal

• Scope
• Article types
• Frequency
• Peer review
• Ethics
• Research data
• Open access information
• Copyright and permissions
• Abstracted in

Scope

The Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific (PASP), the technical journal of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific (ASP), has been published regularly since 1889, and is an integral part of the ASP's mission to advance the science of astronomy and disseminate astronomical information. The journal provides an outlet for astronomical results of a scientific nature and serves to keep readers in touch with current astronomical research. It contains refereed research and instrumentation articles, invited and contributed reviews, tutorials, and dissertation summaries.

PASP publishes original research in astronomy and astrophysics, covering all wavelengths and distance scales; articles on innovations in instrumentation, data analysis, and software; and invited reviews on contemporary topics. PASP also publishes tutorials describing the details behind a particular astrophysical calculation, technique, or method; dissertation summaries that allow recent graduates to communicate their PhD thesis work to the broader astronomical community; and conference summaries that include new results and other highlights from conferences. Papers submitted to PASP will be categorized into one of the following sections:

Article types

PASP welcomes submissions of the following article types:

• Papers: reports of high quality original research with conclusions representing a significant advance in the field.
• Topical Reviews: scholarly work that presents the mature development of an area of physics and should be reasonably exhaustive in citations and bibliography, but should not be considered a monograph intended for a restricted community of specialists.
• Invited Reviews: written by leading researchers in their fields, these articles present the background to and overview of a particular field, and the current state of the art. Invited review articles are normally invited by the Editor-in-Chief.
• Tutorials: background knowledge for an audience unfamiliar with the subject. Aimed at young researchers or more experienced researchers moving into a new field, tutorials give an introduction to the topic and are more didactic than a review article. Tutorial articles include those which describe the details behind a particular astrophysical calculation, technique, or method.
• Astronomical Instrumentation, Telescopes, Observatories, and Site Characterization: original research into the telescopes, observatories, and the characterization of the sites of astronomical observatories used in all areas of astrophysical research. Includes articles that describe the instrumentation used in astrophysical research.
• Special Issue Articles: invited articles which will form a special collection of papers on a specific theme.
• Conference Summaries: summaries of new results from a recent topical conference.
• Dissertation Summaries: summaries of recent PhD dissertations. Dissertation Summaries provide an excellent means for young astronomers to broaden the exposure of their PhD research.
• Editorial/Other: specific content usually invited by the Editor-in-Chief. This includes Editorials for special issues and Obituaries.

Frequency

PASP publishes 12 issues per year.

Peer review

PASP operates a single-blind peer review process, in which the reviewers know the identity of the authors, but the authors do not know the identity of the reviewers.

Our Publishing Support website provides more information on our reviewing process.

Ethical policy

PASP maintains the highest standards of publication and research ethics. Authors are expected to comply with the ASP's Ethical Policy.

Research data

Many research funders now require authors to make all data related to their research available in an online repository. Information about research data, data repositories and data citation can be found on our Publishing Support website.

Open access

PASP is a hybrid open access journal. Authors have the option to pay an article publication charge (APC) to publish their article on a gold open access basis under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence. Articles published on a gold open access basis are freely available to everyone to read and reuse immediately upon publication, provided the terms of the licence are followed and clear attribution to the author is given. The APC for PASP can be found on the Publication charges page.

Alternatively authors who do not select the gold open access option can choose a green open access route to publication.

For more information on ASP's open access policies please see our Open access page. For our author rights policies please see our Author rights page.

Copyright and permissions

We work with our authors to make sure that they understand their rights and responsibilities when they publish in PASP. Information about copyright, permissions and our copyright form can be found on our Copyright page.

Abstracting and indexing services

We work with our authors to help make their work as easy to discover as possible. PASP is currently included in the following abstracting and discovery services:

• Scopus
• Astronomy and Astrophysics Abstracts
• Chemical Abstracts
• Mathematical Reviews
• NASA Astrophysics Data System
• Science Citation Index
• Science Abstracts (INSPEC)
• Science Citation Index®
• Science Citation Index Expanded (also known as SciSearch®)
• Journal Citation Reports/Science Edition, Current Contents®
• Physical, Chemical and Earth Sciences
• Web of Science
• Meteorological and Geoastrophysical Abstracts
• JSTOR