Author Instructions

Papers published in the journals of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) present the results of significant original research that have not been published previously. Manuscripts submitted to the journals should meet this criterion and must not be under consideration for publication elsewhere. The journals of the AAS subscribe to the basic standards of professional ethics and conduct that are common across all areas of scholarly publishing. Authors submitting manuscripts to these journals are expected to be familiar with, and to follow, the guidelines set out in the policy.

Preparation

These guidelines cover manuscript preparation for the Journals of the American Astronomical Society, including the Journal’s style for manuscript layout, references, mathematics, and tables.

Submission

You will need to provide us with important information about your submission to allow us to process it correctly.

Author Publication Fees and Licensing Agreements

Author publication fees are required for publication in the journals of the American Astronomical Society. These cover some of the costs of publication and allow us to more fairly share charges between researchers and libraries.

Policies

The AAS Journals have instituted policies for publication ethics and for governing the preparation of manuscripts, including specific guidelines for certain Journal titles.

AAS Style Guide

During his tenure as editor of The Astrophysical Journal (1952–1971), S. Chandrasekhar established guidelines for usage and style of common astronomical and astrophysical terms along with University of Chicago Press copyeditor Jeanne Hopkins. The AAS is reinforcing these mandatory guidelines for authors for uniformity and efficiency in the copyediting and production process.

AASTeX Guide

The American Astronomical Society (AAS) has developed a markup package to assist authors in preparing manuscripts intended for submission to AAS-affiliated journals.

Graphics Guide

We provide guidelines and recommendations for submitting images, animations, and interactive figures as part of your manuscript.

Data Guide

AAS Journals encourage the enhancement of articles with data, visualizations, and other digital materials. The Journals also provide data services to authors, including data review, archiving data behind figures, and linking Journal data to outside repositories.

Guide to Digital Assets

How can you enhance the digital version of your article? This guide provides explanations of the different types of digital assets that can be included in AAS journals.

GitHub Forum

Authors can expect to be engaged in discussions about their AAS Journal manuscripts and published articles in a number of online forums. The AAS Data Editors monitor each of these forum, providing feedback as quickly as possible.

Overleaf FAQs

The American Astronomical Society has partnered with Overleaf to provide direct manuscript uploads for initial submissions to our peer review system for The Astronomical Journal, The Astrophysical Journal, The Astrophysical Journal Supplement and The Astrophysical Journal Letters.