From Christopher.Lidman at anu.edu.au Mon Sep 17 09:41:41 2018 From: Christopher.Lidman at anu.edu.au (Christopher Lidman) Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2018 23:41:41 +0000 Subject: [ASA] SSO 2.3m poll and automation Message-ID: <09A8B109-803A-4369-8DCA-9509F9811032@contoso.com> Dear ASA colleagues, The Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics (RSAA) at the ANU is seeking past, current, and future users of the 2.3m telescope at Siding Spring Observatory (SSO) to fill out a survey on the 2.3m telescope. RSAA will use the results of the survey to develop an operations plan for the coming years. The survey is available from https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/2QSBPVP Information on the 2.3m, the instruments available, and on how to apply for time on the 2.3m are available from the RSAA web pages. As part of the plan, RSAA will consider robotic operations. While this is specifically aimed at allowing for rapid follow-up of transients discovered by LSST and current and future facilities at SSO, robotic operations will benefit all observers. If you or your institute are interested in participating in this endeavor, then please contact the SSO Director. Kind Regards, Chris Lidman A/Professor Chris Lidman Director, Siding Spring Observatory, Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics, The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia Work: +61-2-6125-0238 Christopher.Lidman at anu.edu.au -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stuart.ryder at astronomyaustralia.org.au Wed Sep 19 09:39:29 2018 From: stuart.ryder at astronomyaustralia.org.au (Stuart Ryder) Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2018 09:39:29 +1000 Subject: [ASA] Reminder: ESO Period 103 proposal deadline Message-ID: <000001d44fa8$d8a9be50$89fd3af0$@astronomyaustralia.org.au> Dear colleagues, This is a friendly reminder to the Australian astronomy community that ESO proposals for Period 103 are due in just over a week, on Thursday 27 September - see below. Dr Emily Wisnioski from ANU is a current member of the ESO Observing Programmes Committee, and has kindly put together some words of advice on how to maximise your chances of success in the coming round, which you can read on our latest Australian ESO Forum blog entry: https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/O3T5CoVzGQi4Q616F1SYNh?domain=astronomyaustralia.org.au ______________________________ Dr. Stuart Ryder Program Manager (Mon, Wed, Fri) Astronomy Australia Ltd. T: 02 9850 9372 F: 03 9214 4396 E: stuart.ryder at astronomyaustralia.org.au W: www.astronomyaustralia.org.au P: P.O. Box 2100 Hawthorn VIC 3122 O: Rm 2.613, Level 2, 7 Wally?s Walk (E6B), Macquarie University, NSW 2109 AAL is committed to equity and diversity and endeavours to create an environment in which every individual is treated with dignity and respect. ESO Period 103 Call for Proposals The European Southern Observatory (ESO) has released the Call for Proposals for Period 103 (for observations between 1 April - 30 September 2019). Under the terms of the Strategic Partnership between ESO and Australia, Australian-based astronomers have access to the facilities of the La Silla and Paranal Observatories, specifically the: * 3.6-m telescope; * New Technology Telescope (NTT); * Very Large Telescope (VLT); * Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI); * Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA); and * VLT Survey Telescope (VST). The proposal deadline is Thursday 27 September 2018 at noon Central European Summer Time (8pm Australian Eastern Standard Time). Complete details on how to apply can be found at https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/e5xXCq7BKYtWVJxJIQx6gm?domain=eso.org. All applicants should consult the Call for Proposals document for Period 103, and will require an ESO User Portal account to submit proposals. A wealth of information for Australian applicants can be found on AAL?s new Australian ESO Forum. The ESO Collaboratory is open to enable users to share and discuss ideas for collaborative proposals. Furthermore, registration is now open for the Australia-ESO Joint Conference on ? Linking Galaxies from the Epoch of Initial Star Formation to Today?, to be held in Sydney from 18-22 February 2019. What's new in Period 103? Applicants are strongly encouraged to review the expected changes in instrumentation offered and procedures for Period 103 given in Sec. 1.1 of the Call for Proposals. Among the items likely to be of most interest to the Australian community are: * Anonymising of PIs: Following the lead of ATAC and other time allocation committees in an effort to mitigate the effects of unconscious bias, the names of the PI and CoIs will be listed alphabetically on the last page of the proposal seen by the OPC, in such a way that the identity of the PI is unknown to the reviewers. PIs are urged to avoid wording that can lead to their identification, including the use of numbers for references (e.g. ?as demonstrated by [4]? instead of ?as demonstrated by us in Smith et al. (2016)?). * Testing of distributed peer review: In parallel with the Period 103 proposal process, ESO is seeking volunteers for a trial of ?distributed peer review? to assist the OPC. * Restrictions on Large and Monitoring Programmes: NACO, SINFONI, MUSE in Narrow Field Mode, ESPRESSO in 4-UT mode, VIRCAM and MATISSE are not available for Large Programmes. * Impending changes in instrument availability: * NACO is scheduled to be decommissioned at the end of Period 103. * SINFONI will be decommissioned during Period 103, so that its Integral Field Unit SPIFFI can be integrated into ERIS. SINFONI will be installed on UT3 at the end of Period 102 and during the first months of Period 103. As a consequence, no SINFONI observations requiring the Laser Guide Star can be executed during Period 103. * MUSE + GALACSI in Narrow Field Mode is offered in Period 103. * The 4-UT mode of ESPRESSO is offered in Visitor Mode only in Period 103, during which observations will be scheduled in groups of consecutive nights. Users must request a total time that is an integer multiple of half-nights (corresponding to five hours in Period 103). * Based on early commissioning results, MATISSE is offered with a limited set of capabilities in Period 103: (a) spectral resolving powers of R = 34, 506, and 959 in the L band and 30 in the N band; (b) the possibility of combining either four UTs (with MACAO only) or four ATs in standard VLTI configurations, providing six visibilities and four closure phases in one observation. * VISIR is not offered in Period 103: it will be modified and installed on UT4 for the New Earths in the ? Cen Region (NEAR) experiment during the first semester of 2019. It is foreseen that VISIR will be back for operations on UT3 during Period 104. * Following its upgrade into a cross-dispersed spectrograph, CRIRES will be installed and commissioned on the UT3 Nasmyth B focus in Periods 102 and 103. Depending on the results of the commissioning, CRIRES may be offered for observations in Period 104. * ESO is evaluating the possibility of offering the UT1 Nasmyth A focus, as well as a focus at the VLTI, for visitor instruments during Period 104. Interested users are invited to consult the Visitor Focus instructions. * New Large Programmes on the NTT: The fraction of the available time on the NTT committed to ongoing Large Programmes is now ?5%. New Large Programmes for the NTT are therefore encouraged. * Non-survey time on VISTA and VST: Priority is given to advance the ongoing Public Surveys on these telescopes, but open time is available on both the VST and VISTA. These observations are carried out in Service Mode only. Open time proposals should clearly justify their scientific goals and why they are not achievable through the scheduled Public Survey observations. Starting in Period 103, Normal, Monitoring and Large Programme proposals for the VST, and Normal Programme proposals for VISTA, are accepted without restrictions. Target of opportunity proposals will also be considered for both the VST and VISTA. * Observing at La Silla: There is a minimum length of three nights for runs to be executed with La Silla telescopes. On the NTT, users can apply for combined runs using both EFOSC2 and SOFI. The total duration of each of these runs must be at least three nights. The combined runs must be requested using the instrument name ?SOFOSC?. Designated Visitor Mode (DVM) at La Silla is offered on a best-effort basis. If you would like to use DVM on either the 3.6-m telescope or the NTT you are requested to contact opo at eso.org well before the proposal submission deadline. * Duration of one night: Proposers are reminded that one night in Visitor Mode is defined to be 8 hours in even Periods and 10 hours in odd Periods on all ESO telescopes. * Lunar Phase: Proposers should note that setting the Moon requirement to ?n? in Box 3 of the ESOFORM Phase 1 proposal form means ?no Moon restriction? rather than ?no Moon?. Proposers must instead set the Moon requirement to ?d? if they require dark time. * Observing mode on the VLT: Departures from the observing mode requested by the proposers may be implemented by ESO so as to achieve a balanced distribution between Service Mode and Visitor Mode. Visitor mode runs are encouraged for those users who have never visited Paranal, even if the observations are straightforward. Users should make use of Box 8b of the ESOFORM Phase 1 proposal form to justify their preferred mode or why an alternative mode should also be considered. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 1036 bytes Desc: not available URL: From ivy.wong at uwa.edu.au Thu Sep 20 18:42:41 2018 From: ivy.wong at uwa.edu.au (O. Ivy Wong) Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2018 16:42:41 +0800 Subject: [ASA] First Workshop Announcement: the 2019 12th PHISCC meeting in Perth Message-ID: <5ffc13e1-65da-05f1-03b4-1883c488d399@uwa.edu.au> Dear ASA colleagues, This is the first announcement for the 2019 12th PHISCC meeting ? one of the first PHISCC meetings where the_main focus is on the new science emerging from the much anticipated SKA precursors and pathfinders_. As is tradition, the PHISCC workshop's plenary session will span 2.5 to 3 days (11-13 February 2019). In the upcoming PHISCC workshop, the plenary session will be followed by a set of technical hands-on or strategic focus sessions, where together, the plenary session and the focus sessions will span the full week starting the 11th February 2019. Places for this workshop are limited to a maximum of 80 participants but there is a chance that we might have to close registration early if we reach this number before the early-bird registration deadline of 15 December 2018. Therefore we encourage everyone to register early. More information for registration and this meeting can be found at our website: https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/tgreCZYM2VFGq0P6uzWrC6?domain=icrar.org The science themes covered by the 2019 PHISCC plenary sessions are: 1)blind HI surveys; 2) high-redshift HI; 3) cold HI (through absorption); 4) targeted HI surveys; and 5) Synergies across radio facilities and simulations. Confirmed invited speakers are: Erwin de Blok (ASTRON); Sarah Blyth (UCT); Rajeshwari Dutta (ESO); Ren?e Kraan-Korteweg (UCT); Claudia Lagos (ICRAR/UWA); Karen Lee-Waddell (CSIRO); Natasha Maddox (Munich); Paolo Serra (INAF-Cagliari); Marc Verheijen (Kapteyn); Zheng Zheng (NAOC); Ming Zhu (NAOC). The focus sessions will bring together active HI astronomers from across the different facilities and survey teams for the purposes of: 1) sharing expertise and knowledge of what works and does not in this new era of radio facilities; 2) understanding the methods currently employed to mitigate the challenges faced by these new HI observations; 3) learning the latest tools and software through hands-on tutorials and demonstrations. The current confirmed focus sessions and champions of these sessions are in parentheses: i)Reference Fields (Betsey Adams); ii) Database & products for public release (Lister Staveley-Smith); iii)RFI flagging and mitigation (Vanessa Moss); iv) Data quality assessment (Betsey Adams); v)Source finding (Tobias Westmeier); vi)Source parameterisation (Se-Heon Oh); and specific team focus sessions for DINGO, FLASH, MHONGOOSE, MIGHTEE-HI & WALLABY. Regards, Ivy Wong (on behalf of the SOC) SOC: Marc Verheijen (PHISCC chair); Ivy Wong (SOC chair); Sarah Blyth; Erwin de Blok; Nissim Kanekar; Martin Meyer; Se-Heon Oh; Kristine Spekkens; Lister Staveley-Smith; Jacqueline van Gorkom & Ming Zhu -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Dr O. Ivy Wong ICRAR-M468, University of Western Australia Crawley, Western Australia 6009, AUSTRALIA Phone: +61-8-6488-7761 Email: ivy.wong at uwa.edu.au Webpage: https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/_vRrC1WZXriRAln4tGrme8?domain=icrar.org ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: