With about 400 active members, the club is one of the largest amateur astronomy organizations in the country. AAI is organized into a number of special interest groups and service committees supporting a wide variety of areas of amateur astronomy for the membership as well as for the public. Meetings AAI holds its regular member meetings on the third Friday of the month, September through May, beginning at 8.00 p.m. in the Union County College auditorium on the college's Cranford Campus. Each meeting includes an invited speaker having an expertise in astronomy or a related field. After the meetings, all are invited to the observatory for refreshments and an informal social hour where guests and members can exchange ideas, interests and, if weather permits, view the sky.
All meetings are open to the general public and are free.
The William Miller Sperry Observatory houses two of the largest telescopes on the east coast available for amateur use. Activities Sperry Observatory is open to the public every Friday evening. The club runs a public open-house and symposium on Astronomy Day each spring, and is planning to hold a forum in the fall, beginning 1998. AAI also has a large contingent active at Stellafane, the annual telescope making convention held in August, in Springfield, Vermont. The club maintains a library of over 800 books and subscribes to many amateur and semi-professional astronomical journals which are all available to the membership.