The Astral Award
First presented by John Perdrix's Astral Press in 1986, the Astral Award recognises the best presentation at the NACAA convention. The recipients to date are
| Year | Recipient | Title of presentation |
| 2010 | David O'Driscoll | Robotic Research for the Amateur Astronomer |
| 2008 | Surjit Wadhwa | Light Curve Analysis of Contact Binary Stars |
| 2006 | Jeff Byron | Itokawa, YORP and the Cecil Sayers Observatory |
| 2004 | Tom Richards | Amateurs getting violent: black holes, synchotrons and magnetic flares |
| 2002 | Colin Bembrick | Minor planet light curve determination |
| 2000 | Stephen Russell | Chasing shadows: photographing solar eclipses |
| 1998 | Vello Tabur | Computer-aided comet hunting |
| 1996 | Zac Pujic | The Cookbook CB245 CCD camera: evaluation of performance |
| 1994 | Fraser Farrell | The recruitment and supervision of amateur variable star observers |
| 1992 | Peter Nelson and Jim Park | Observing mutual phenomena of Jupiter's moons 1991 |
| 1990 | Peter Nelson, JL Blanksby, and AW Kruijshoop | Recent planetary and lunar occultations by the Occultation Section of the ASV |
| 1988 | Peter Jones | Computer star maps |
| 1986 | Tom Cragg | CV Aquarii |
The 1988 NACAA committee presented an award to Barry Adcock for his presentation Measurement of Mars' Pole Cap and Associated Atmospheric Haze. The reason for the separate awards was probably due to the antagonism of the Convenor towards Perdrix's establishment of the Australian Journal of Astronomy.