From Cathryn.Trott at curtin.edu.au Mon Feb 17 13:01:05 2020 From: Cathryn.Trott at curtin.edu.au (Cathryn Trott) Date: Mon, 17 Feb 2020 02:01:05 +0000 Subject: [ASA] ASA student member support: APRIM+HWSA Message-ID: Dear ASA members, As you are aware, registrations are open for the APRIM meeting - the Asia-Pacific Regional IAU Meeting - to be held in Perth in July: https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/gq_YCXLKZoiXXnm7XU6jQqI?domain=aprim2020.org APRIM Perth 2020 ? 14th Asia-Pacific Regional IAU Meeting 6 ? 10 July 2020 We are pleased to invite you to attend the 14th Asia-Pacific Regional IAU Meeting (APRIM), which will be hosted in Perth, Western Australia on July 6-10, 2020 at the Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre. aprim2020.org APRIM will be held in place of the ASA's Annual Scientific Meeting, and will incorporate the primary components of the ASA program (AGM, Prize talks, Chapter meetings etc.). The Harley Wood School for Astronomy (HWSA) will also be held prior to APRIM in the Perth region. The ASA strongly encourages broad support of APRIM, particularly for students. As such, the ASA will support ASA student members attending both the HWSA and APRIM in Perth this year with a grant of $250 to encourage attendance by offsetting the cost of the events. This offset will be applied to the upcoming registration for the HWSA. Regards, Cathryn _______________________________________________________ Cathryn Trott Associate Professor ARC Future Fellow President, Astronomical Society of Australia ARC Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in 3D (ASTRO 3D) International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research Curtin University Bentley WA, Australia cathryn.trott at curtin.edu.au -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From andrew.hopkins at mq.edu.au Wed Feb 19 12:26:08 2020 From: andrew.hopkins at mq.edu.au (Andrew Hopkins) Date: Wed, 19 Feb 2020 01:26:08 +0000 Subject: [ASA] Announcing the Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer 2020 Meeting: 18-20 May 2020, Nice, France Message-ID: <4D40A4B2-72B6-4173-B906-1E30AC3FFD12@mq.edu.au> Dear colleagues, We are pleased to invite you to attend the Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer 2020 meeting, to be held 18-20 May 2020 in Nice, France. This meeting will bring together MSE scientists, engineers, and potential collaborators to discuss future plans for the project. Presentations will focus on advances in MSE's scientific programs, plans for first surveys, and synergies between MSE and other next-generation facilities. The program will include discussions about current scientific and instrument design choices and will include invited and contributed talks. For more information and to register, visit https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/Jmz2CyoNVrcrr0nn6iZ6Otz?domain=mse2020.sciencesconf.org. Best regards, MSE2020 SOC: Sam Barden, MSE Vanessa Hill, Observatoire de la C?te d'Azur Jennifer Marshall, MSE/Texas A&M Alan McConnachie, MSE/NRC Herzberg Roser Pello, Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille Matthew Pieri, Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille Ruben Sanchez-Janssen, UK Astronomy Technology Centre Laurence Tresse, Centre de Recherche Astrophysique de Lyon Andrew ? Prof. Andrew Hopkins, Professor of Astronomy Australian Astronomical Optics, Macquarie University 105 Delhi Rd, North Ryde, NSW 2113, Australia +61 2 9372 4849 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From orsola.demarco at mq.edu.au Thu Feb 20 22:02:53 2020 From: orsola.demarco at mq.edu.au (Orsola De Marco) Date: Thu, 20 Feb 2020 11:02:53 +0000 Subject: [ASA] ECR Mentoring Workshop 2020 and Beyond Astro Workshop I Message-ID: Dear colleagues, The ASA Early Career Researcher Chapter is pleased to announce our next combined event: ECR Mentoring Workshop; Wednesday-Friday 6-8 May and Beyond Astro Workshop I; Saturday 9 May, sponsored by ASTRO3D They will be held in the Blue Mountains area near Sydney at the Fairmont Resort (https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/bf7hCK1qJZt22LVAZsMcpXO?domain=fairmontresort.com.au). These combined workshops aim to discuss career planning, both academic and industry based, along with leadership and skill building. The workshops will give attendees the opportunity to learn important (non-research) skills for advancing their career in academia or switching to industry, expand their network, and receive advice and guidance from our panel of mentors, all in a relaxed setting. Beyond Astro I, on Saturday the 9th May, will be the first in a series, and will bring together a diverse panel of Astronomy PhDs with thriving careers outside of the traditional academic-researcher role. This workshop is sponsored by ASTRO 3D ARC Centre of Excellence. These workshops are intended for late-stage PhD students, postdocs and very junior faculty. In past years we have had around 30 participants and always have a diverse group of speakers and attendees, all in a family friendly environment. The conference website and registration page will be announced soon. If you would like to make travel arrangements now, then the bus from Sydney to the venue will leave by 4 pm on Wednesday, and drop-off at Sydney around 6:30 pm on Saturday. Depending on the attendance, there may be an additional Friday evening pickup from Sydney for the Beyond Astro I attendees, and another drop-off on Friday evening for the ECR Mentoring Workshop attendees. The daily sessions will be from 9 am-4:30 pm. Please pass this message on to your colleagues; ASA members are encouraged to join the ECR Chapter by emailing the ECR Chapter Steering Committee >. We will be in touch shortly with further details. Please plan to join us! See you there! The Organising Committee (Manodeep Sinha, Sarah Martell, Orsola De Marco, Lucy Strang, Kathryn Grasha, Nichole Barry, Jane Kaczmarek, Christian Reichadt, Tiantian Yuan, Tania Barone) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From matt.owers at mq.edu.au Fri Feb 21 11:43:20 2020 From: matt.owers at mq.edu.au (Matt Owers) Date: Fri, 21 Feb 2020 00:43:20 +0000 Subject: [ASA] COSPAR session E1.19: Scientific opportunities from multi-wavelength follow-up of large-area X-ray surveys Message-ID: Dear ASA members, Please consider joining us at the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) Scientific Assembly to be held in Sydney 15-22 August 2020 where we will be holding the Scientific Event E1.19: "Scientific opportunities from multi-wavelength follow-up of large-area X-ray surveys" (see https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/nCmwCOMxNytpprRDWhEltZh?domain=cospar-assembly.org). This event will be highly relevant for those that plan on making use of the collaborative agreement between Australian Astronomers and the German eROSITA consortium (https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/m5zFCP7yOZtKKAGBpH0jXY1?domain=astronomyaustralia.org.au), and also to those that responded to our recent call for Australia/eROSITA_DE collaborative projects. Please note that the deadline for abstract submission is this Sunday 23rd February. If you would like to submit an abstract but cannot do so before Sunday, please contact me directly. The event description is: Scientific Event E1.19: "Scientific opportunities from multi-wavelength follow-up of large-area X-ray surveys" "Wide area X-ray surveys reveal aspects of the Universe that are difficult or impossible to study at other wavelengths. They can be used to trace the large-scale structure via the distribution of hot gas in clusters and groups of galaxies, and determine the underlying cosmology through its evolution. Growing supermassive black holes can be discovered over a broad redshift and luminosity range, outshining their host galaxies and penetrating through obscuring dust and gas. In our own Galaxy, active stellar coronae shine brightly in the X-rays, as do accreting binary systems, displaying rich phenomenology which probe the nature of compact objects and the accretion processes which feed them. These binaries are often transient, as are other violent high energy phenomena which can be observed over a range of timescales. The pioneering work of the ROSAT all-sky survey, which provided the first true imaging survey over the whole sky, has been complemented more recently with a combination of dedicated wide field, archival serendipitous analysis, and slew surveys with facilities such as XMM-Newton and Chandra. Most recently, the eROSITA and ART-XC instruments have been launched aboard the Spectrum-RG satellite in July 2019, ushering in a new era of wide field X-ray surveys, providing the natural succession to ROSAT all-sky survey, but with much greater depth, image quality, and spectral coverage. Follow-up observations at other wavebands are essential for full scientific exploitation of the X-ray data. A suite of wide-field surveys across a broad frequency range is now available for statistical study of large samples, as are sensitive new facilities which can chase up interesting new objects and X-ray phenomena. This meeting will provide a forum to discuss these scientific opportunities, focussing particularly on the potential for new insights provided by eROSITA, working in concert with ground-based facilities across other wavelengths." Kind Regards, Matt Owers. Matt Owers Science Lead for Australian eROSITA activities Senior Lecturer Department of Physics and Astronomy, Macquarie University ph: +61 2 9850 8910 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lucyna.chudczer at astronomyaustralia.org.au Fri Feb 21 13:06:05 2020 From: lucyna.chudczer at astronomyaustralia.org.au (Lucyna Chudczer) Date: Fri, 21 Feb 2020 13:06:05 +1100 Subject: [ASA] 2020B Blanco telescope (CTIO) Call for Proposals for the Australian Astronomy Community Message-ID: <005b01d5e85b$79a126d0$6ce37470$@astronomyaustralia.org.au> 2020B Blanco Telescope (CTIO) Call for Proposals The proposal deadline for the Blanco Telescope in Semester 2020B (August 2020 - January 2021) is: 23 March 2020, at 17:00 Australian Eastern Daylight Time (UTC + 11 hrs) The AAL and NOAO/CTIO is continuing a time-swap arrangement between the AAT and the 4m Blanco Telescope in 2020 to allow our respective communities to maximise their scientific opportunities through access to a broader range of facilities. This semester, there will be 5 nights of CTIO time on the Blanco Telescope available to the Australian community. Proposals will be assessed by the Australian Time Allocation Committee (ATAC), and as such they must follow the new ATAC Policies and Procedures and be submitted before the deadline using the Lens proposal form (https://www.aao.gov.au/lens). All graded proposals will be provided to CTIO for scheduling. The Blanco telescope offers two instruments, the wide-field imaging camera DECam and the CTIO Ohio State Multi-Object Spectrograph (COSMOS). The purpose-built Dark Energy Camera (DECam) was used for the Dark Energy Survey that imaged nearly a billion galaxies. Note that DECam can produce useful imaging in the reddest filters (izY) on all but the very brightest nights. The COSMOS instrument can be used in imaging, long-slit and multi-object spectroscopy modes. Further details about the available nights and instruments can be found from the last NOAO 2020A Call for Proposals . The NOAO 2020B Call for Proposals is due for release 01-Mar-2020 (MST; UTC-7:00) with the updated information. All scheduled observations will be carried out in classical mode, with observers required to travel to the telescope at their own expense. How to apply for Blanco time All ATAC applicants should check the ATAC Policies and Procedures and recent Policy Announcements . For further clarification on any issue, please contact the ATAC Technical Secretary (aat - at - astronomyaustralia.org.au ). Those who wish to apply for Blanco time should do so using the Lens proposal system (https://www.aao.gov.au/lens) described below, selecting "CTIO 4m" from the telescopes menu on the first page of the proposal form. Lens proposal submission system All proposals should be submitted with the AAT's online application system Lens (https://www.aao.gov.au/lens/home ), which will open on the day this call is made. This system is a user account based system, which allows for improved security and better tracking of past and current proposals. There is a FAQ available for Lens online, or available via the FAQ tab in Lens itself. All new users must register (https://www.aao.gov.au/lens/register ) with the system. Note that users cannot be added to proposals if they are not registered in Lens. Please ensure that all investigators on a proposal have registered well before the deadline! For any queries or comments, please email: lens - at - aao.gov.au Important information: anonymous-double blind review trial The AAT Consortium places a high value on equity and integrity and is trialling an implementation of the dual-anonymous proposal review process for all regular proposals (including proposals for the Blanco Telescope) in 2020B. In this process, the identities of the proposing team are concealed from reviewers. The goal is to enable reviewers to focus on the science, not the scientist. Several studies have shown that a reviewer's attitude toward a submission may be affected, even unconsciously, by the identity of the lead author or principal investigator (see the Anonymous-Double Blind Review Annotated Bibliography ). Proposers are required to anonymise their proposals following the guidelines below. Sufficient care should be used, especially if resubmitting a proposal from a previous cycle or other submission. Lead investigators should avoid directly disclosing their identity in the science or technical justification sections. The names and affiliations will not be included in the proposals generated for the ATAC reviews. Anonymity Guidelines for Proposers. These guidelines will help conceal the identities of the proposers and ensure a fairer proposal evaluation process. 1. Do not include author names or affiliations anywhere in the proposal text. This includes but is not limited to, page headers, footers, diagrams, figures, or watermarks. This does not include references to past work, which should be included whenever relevant (see below). 2. Referencing is an essential part of demonstrating knowledge of the field and progress. When citing references within the proposal, use third person neutral wording. This especially applies to self-referencing. For example, replace phrases like "as we have shown in our previous work (Doe et al. 2010)" with "as Doe et al. (2010) showed..." Do not refer to previous projects using AAT or other observatories in an identifying fashion. For instance, rather than write "we observed another cluster, similar to the one we are proposing under AAT program #XXXXX," instead write "AAT program #XXXXX has observed this target in the past..." 3. We encourage references to published work, including work citable by a DOI. It may be occasionally important to cite exclusive access datasets or non-public software that may reveal (or strongly imply) the investigators on the proposal. We suggest proposers use language like "obtained in private communication" or "from private consultation" when referring to such potentially revealing work. 4. Do not include acknowledgements, or the source of any grant funding. Examples of re-worked text can be found on The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) website . A strict compliance with these guidelines is required. Feedback on these changes are welcome and should be sent to the ATAC Technical Secretary (aat - at - astronomyaustralia.org.au ). Proposal content Full technical details, outlining how you derived your time estimates, observing constraints, and any special requests should be included in the scientific case (preferably under a separate section heading). Proposers should demonstrate that their team has the skills and experience with the required observing modes to effectively conduct the proposed observations. Important: Please include this information under a separate heading "Team Expertise and Background". Note the ATAC will conduct their pre-grading without access to this section. Once the ranked list is set, the ATAC will be given access to the "Team Expertise and Background" information associated with each proposal recommended for implementation. At this point, proposals may only be flagged for downgrade (resulting in a non-selection of the proposal), if a team is clearly unqualified to undertake the work proposed. Proposals should be written so that the content and significance is understandable by astronomers with different backgrounds. If the observations are essential to the completion of a student's PhD thesis, then a full explanation must be given in the science case. No special consideration is given to proposals involving PhD students, except when attempting to schedule proposals near the scientific ranking cut-off, when some priority may be given. A list of the principal targets should be prepared as a separate PDF document. The target list should contain target name, RA (h m s), Dec (d m s), target brightness, and priority. There is a 2-page limit for this target list PDF file. Other document formats will not be accepted. Proposal submission details Prepare your main proposal offline, including an abstract, target list, science case, and technical justification. The science case and technical justification together should be in PDF format, no more than three pages total, with two pages for the science case and one page for technical justification. Those three pages should include all references and figures, use 11pt font (or larger), and have at least 10mm margins. Numerical referencing should be used (e.g. "as shown by [1].", instead of "as shown by Smith et al. (2017)" ). Colour figures are accepted. Other document formats will not be accepted. Submitting your proposal When your proposal details are ready, submit your application to ATAC through Lens, the AAT's online proposal submission system. As noted above, this is a user-account-based system and all investigators on a proposal must be registered. Contacting the ATAC Secretariat Postal Address: PO Box 2100 Hawthorn VIC 3122 Street Address: AAO - Macquarie University 105 Delhi Rd, North Ryde NSW 2113 Australia Phone: +61 (0)2 93724842 E-mail: aat - at - astronomyaustralia.org.au Web: www.astronomyaustralia.org.au/aat.html -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From daniel.zucker at mq.edu.au Fri Feb 21 15:58:52 2020 From: daniel.zucker at mq.edu.au (Daniel Zucker) Date: Fri, 21 Feb 2020 04:58:52 +0000 Subject: [ASA] Call for Nominations: IDEA Chapter Steering Committee Message-ID: <5160f40a-0de4-a9a7-c578-4933049af266@mq.edu.au> Dear ASA Members, The Inclusion, Diversity and Equity in Astronomy (IDEA) Chapter of the ASA aims to promote and assist the career development of underrepresented groups working in astronomy in Australia, raise awareness of issues faced by these groups and undertake to establish best practice guidelines for supporting the inclusion of these groups in our community. The IDEA Chapter has been active for over a decade (initially as the Women in Astronomy Chapter) and has driven activities that have been beneficial to the diversity of people working in astronomy, including: * Organised highly successful national workshops (Women in Astronomy/Diversity in Astronomy) * Conducted special meetings at the ASA Annual Science Meetings * Organised ?Speed-Meet-a-Mentor? sessions at the ASA Annual Science Meetings * Organised Rainbow Dinners at the ASA Annual Science Meetings * Collated statistics on the demographics of Australian astronomy * Provided advice on, and lobbied for best practice for organisations in STEM, and * Organised the Pleiades Award initiative, now awarded biennially at Bronze, Silver and Gold levels ASA members are welcome to join the Chapter by registering at the ASA?s membership site (https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/szf8ClxwB5C229LJDuG4Hkj?domain=asa.wildapricot.org - click on the CHAPTERS tab to do this). The IDEA Chapter is run by a steering committee that plays a leading role in devising and implementing initiatives to fulfil the Chapter?s goals. The nominal composition of the committee is as follows: * a Chair * a Deputy Chair (with the intention to Chair in the future) * a Secretary / Webmaster * an ASA Council representative * an Early Career Researcher Chapter representative * a student representative * 3 - 4 additional committee members As this election is taking place later than usual, the terms for new regular members will be two years, while the terms for renominating regular members and the student representative will be one year. We are now inviting nominations for all positions, with a deadline of Monday, 16 March. These positions are open to all Chapter members, and we particularly encourage members from diverse backgrounds to consider nominating for one of these positions; we would like the committee to reflect a reasonable degree of the geographic and demographic diversity of Australia?s astronomical community. Existing steering committee members can renominate if they wish. If there are more nominations than positions (taking the above diversity considerations in account) we will then ask the chapter members to vote online in due course. The nomination / election schedule is: - deadline for nominations: 16 March - election period (if required): 25 March ? 8 April - results announced, and new positions commence: 22 April Please email your nomination to the ASA Officer for this election (Debra Gooley: debra.gooley at sydney.edu.au). Each nomination must 1) indicate the position you are seeking and 2) include a brief paragraph summarising your interest in the position and how you envisage contributing to the broad goals of the Chapter. Please note that this information will be made available to voters in the event of an election. Best regards, Daniel Zucker, on behalf of the IDEA Chapter -- Daniel Zucker Associate Professor Macquarie University daniel.zucker at mq.edu.au +61 (02) 9850 4442 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: