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The next major step in millimetre astronomy, and one of the highest-priority items in radio astronomy today, is a large millimetre array with a collecting area 2 of up to 10 000 m. A project of this scale will almost certainly require inter­ national collaboration, at least within Europe, and possibly with other major partners elsewhere. In order to establish a focal point for this project within Europe, a study has been undertaken by the Institut de Radio Astronomie Mil­ Ii met rique (IRAM), the European Southern Observatory (ESO), The Onsala Space Observatory (OSO), and The Netherlands Foundation for Research in Astronomy (NFRA). In the context of this project, a workshop attended by some 100 participants was held at ESO Garching on December 11-13, 1995 to discuss the scientific advances such an array will make possible. Throughout the three days of the workshop the strong enthusiasm for the concept of a large millimetre array in the southern hemisphere (the Large South­ ern Array, or LSA) was obvious, and it became clear that such a facility would have a profound impact on almost all areas of observational astrophysics. It was particularly clear that, since their main science drivers (cosmology, and the origins of galaxies, stars and planets) are the same, and their angular resolutions and sensitivities similar, the LSA and the VLT would strongly complement each other.

IAU Symposium No. 167 brought together researchers who use CCDs and arrays, designers and manufacturers of CCDs and Array Mosaics and those who write the software to control these devices and to reduce the large amounts of data contained in each frame. At the meeting such topics as plans for applying the new technology to the new large telescopes that have been built recently and those planned in the near future, new developments in infrared arrays, advances and concerns with the use of CCDs in photometry and spectroscopy and the creation of large mosaics in photometry and spectroscopy and the creation of large mosaics of chips which allow larger areas of the sky to be covered in a single frame were discussed. There were sessions devoted to the following topics: New Developments in CCD Technology; New Developments in IR Detector Arrays; Direct Imaging with CCDs and Other Arrays; Spectroscopy with CCDs and Other Arrays; and Large Field Imaging with Array Mosaics. Scientific results of studies made with this technology were covered in the poster sessions. CCD and Array Detectors have become the detectors of choice at all the world's optical observatories. Such instruments on small university and college telescopes have turned these telescopes into instruments that can now do observations which in the past were done only on the largest telescopes. CCDs and Arrays are known as `the people's detector'because of their ability to turn small telescopes into true research instruments. On large telescopes observations can be made of extremely faint and crowded objects that were impossible to observe before the advent of CCD and Array technology. The proceedings of this meeting will be useful to all those who are interested in the design, manufacture and use of CCDs and Arrays for astronomical observations.

Currently under construction in the Andean Altiplano, Northern Chile, the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) is the most ambitious astronomy facility under construction. ALMA is a radio interferometer composed of 54 antennas of 12 m diameter, and twelve 7 m antennas with about 6600 square meters of total collecting area. Initially covering the most interesting spectral wavelength ranges from 3 to 0.3 mm, ALMA will be a revolutionary telescope aimed to unveil the details of star and planet formation and to provide astronomy with the first exhaustive view of the dark and youngest objects of the Universe. This book describes the enormous capabilities of ALMA, the state of the project, and most notably the scientific prospects with such a unique facility. The book includes comprehensive reviews and recent results on most hot topics of modern Astronomy (the formation and evolution of galaxies, the physics and chemistry of the interstellar medium, and the processes of star and planet formation) with prospects to the revolutionary results to be obtained with ALMA. These topics, discussed with special emphasis on millimeter and sub-millimeter astronomy, are presented by some of the most world-wide reputed scientists in their fields.