Dear Colleague: This is the first announcement of plans to convene a comprehensive international symposium on "ASTROPHYSICS OF DUST", to take place in Estes Park, Colorado, during 26 - 30 May, 2003. The conference site is the YMCA of the Rockies Conference Center, located near the entrance to the Rocky Mountains National Park. This conference should be of interest to anyone, who is professionally involved with observational, experimental, or theoretical aspects of cosmic dust in astrophysical environments ranging from the solar system to high-redshift galaxies and quasars. The major themes of the symposium are dust in galaxies, dust in circumstellar environments, origin and evolution of dust, dyst physics, composition of dust, and models of dust and radiative transfer through dusty systems. If you would like more information about the list of subjects to be covered at this conference, the preliminary list of topics and associated speakers, the meeting venue, and the makeup of the Scientific Organizing Committee, you are invited to visit our web site http://www.physics.utoledo.edu/~aod03/ If you would like to receive further details about this upcoming symposium through subsequent mailings, please take a minute and submit your contact information through our online interactive pre-registration form, accessible through the web site listed above. The meeting is planned for the participation of not more than 250 attendees, and we will have provisions for an equivalent number of poster papers to be presented. Please, sign up now, if there is even a small chance that you may want to participate and present a poster paper at this symposium. Further details will be given in subsequent messages to pre-registered individuals at later dates. If you can think of colleagues, who might also be interested in this symposium, please, forward this message to them. If you should receive more than one copy of this announcement yourself, take it as a sign that your colleagues are thinking about you. Best regards, Adolf N. Witt Prof. of Astronomy Chair, SOC ================================================================================ Adolf N. Witt Tel: (419) 530-2709 Department of Physics and Astronomy Fax: (419) 530-2723 The University of Toledo E-mail: awitt@dusty.astro.utoledo.edu Toledo, OH 43606 USA ================================================================================