This workshop is organised and supported by the Europlanet 2024 Research Infrastructure (RI) project, which has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 871149.
The Europlanet Summer School 2023 is being hosted by Vilnius University’s Moletai Astronomical Observatory (MAO) in Lithuania from 8-18 August.
For the first time, the School is taking place in hybrid format, with 20 participants from 10 countries attending on site and up to 30 people following online. The participants include early careers (right the way from high-school to BSc, MSc, PhD and postdoc) and amateur astronomers.
During the School, participants will gain hands-on experience observing with MAO’s 1.65m and 35/51cm-telescopes (weather permitting!) and training in analysing exoplanet transits, stellar spectra, atmospheric parameters and variability data. The programme includes training modules in communication skills and engaging with schools, as well as lectures on space and ground-based observations and machine learning.
Deividas Dudulis (high-school student and astrophotographer), who is participating in the Summer School, will be posting photos here.
Tour of Molėtai Astronomical Observatory 1.65 m telescope. Credit: Deividas DudulisMolėtai Astronomical Observatory 1.65 m telescope. Credit: Deividas DudulisInside dome of Molėtai Astronomical Observatory 1.65 m telescope. Credit: Deividas Dudulis31/51 cm Maksutov-system Molėtai Astronomical Observatory telescope. Credit: Deividas Dudulis
The Europlanet 2024 Research Infrastructure (RI) project and the Tartu Observatory of the University of Tartu are pleased to announce the international training workshop “Asteroid Research”. The aim of the workshop is to give participants a thorough, multidisciplinary introduction to the ground-based and space observations of asteroids. Participants will be given hands-on experience in CCD photometry and spectroscopy of asteroids using the telescopes of the Tartu Observatory and in analysing the observational data. The hands-on sessions will be accompanied by lectures from leading astronomers. The participants will also be trained in writing and submitting observing proposals to different facilities of the Europlanet Telescope Network, mentorship possibilities between professional astronomers and amateurs will be introduced.
The course is open to PhD and master students, early career scientists, and amateur astronomers from the Danish, Estonian, Finnish, Icelandic, Latvian, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Swedish, and wider European communities. Activities of professional astronomers and amateur astronomers will be merged in order to achieve more understanding between communities.
The deadline for applications for the full program is 1 June 2023 23:59:00 UTC. The deadline for application for the remote part of the program (LECTURES ONLY) is 1 August 2023 23:59:00 UTC. 20 selected participants will be provided free accommodation (in Tartu), transportation between accommodation and Tartu Observatory, meals and travel reimbursement up to 360€.
Europlanet 2024-RI and the Molėtai Astronomical Observatory (ITPA VU) are pleased to announce the international research summer school “Space missions: ground-based observations and science communication“ (hybrid school, August 8 – 18, 2023). The aim of the course is to give participants a thorough, multidisciplinary introduction into space missions and the ground-based observations required by space missions before and after launch, as well as an introduction to science communication. More general subjects about specific space missions (TESS, JWST, PLATO…), planetary systems, habitability of planets, photometric and spectroscopic techniques will be presented. Participants will be given some hands-on experience with analysis of stellar chemical composition, detection of stellar variability and/or exoplanets using the Molėtai Astronomical Observatory telescopes (CCD photometry and high-resolution spectroscopy). In addition, the course will give participants the opportunity to develop comprehensive theoretical and practical skills in science communication and engaging with a range of lay audiences, including the public, media, policy makers, schools and educators. The course is open to PhD and master students, early career scientists, and amateur astronomers.
Activities of professional astronomers and amateur astronomers will be merged in order to achieve more understanding between groups. The level of the school is orientated to PhD students and early career scientists, however amateur astronomers will be provided with the additional scientific support during lectures and observations.
For selected* participants from the European Economic Area (EEA) and one or two participants from countries outside EEA the participation will be fully covered and up to €360,- for travel depending on the distance travelled will be reimbursed by Europlanet 2024-RI.
Other selected participants will have to pay a participation fee of 600 EUR that includes accomodation, meals, excursions and local transportation.
The school is organised by the European Commission HORIZON 2020 project EUROPLANET 2024 Research Infrastructure. Europlanet 2024 Research Infrastructure has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 871149.
The deadline for application is 8 June 2023 23:59:00 UTC.
Notifications of acceptance by 1 July 2023 23:59:00 UTC.
* More information concerning the reimbursement will be provided for the selected participants personally.
ERIM is a new kind of meeting to support European planetary science and associated communities. The format of ERIM 2023 is a series of interactive workshops related to the activities of the Europlanet 2024 Research Infrastructure (RI) project, research infrastructures in general, and the Europlanet Society. The meeting will be co-hosted with EPEC Annual Week 2023, the training school for the Europlanet Early Career Network.
How will it Work?
Workshops will be organised under a series of programme tracks. You can dip in and out of programme tracks, workshops and even sessions during the week. The aim is to make new connections, brainstorm ideas, develop synergies, increase opportunities for collaboration and help us build a strong, thriving, sustainable community for planetary science in Europe.
You don’t have to be a member of the Europlanet Society or the Europlanet 2024 RI project to participate in ERIM. We are looking for new people to engage with Europlanet, so everyone is welcome. However, we will be offering free accommodation and travel grants to a limited number (~150) of participants. If we are over-subscribed in requests for support, priority will be given to Europlanet Society members. (Find out about other benefits of joining the Europlanet Society).
Programme
Many different topics will be covered within the ERIM programme tracks and workshops, including:
Europlanet VA Services (including the VESPA Virtual Observatory for planetary data, SPIDER Space Weather Services, GMAP Geological Mapping and Machine Learning)
Research Infrastructures (including Common Challenges and Sustainability for Small and Medium-sized Distributed RIs, and the Europlanet 2024 RI Council Meeting)
4th Europlanet Workshop on Fireballs/Lunar Impact Flashes
12-13 May 2023, online.
Convened by: Manuel Scherf (Space Research Institute, Austrian Academy of Sciences), Günter Kargl (Space Research Institute, Austrian Academy of Sciences) and Detlef Koschny (Technical University of Munich, Germany).
In cooperation with the Europlanet 2024 Research Infrastructure (RI), a series of four workshops bringing together different networks of fireball observers and machine-learning experts were being arranged over the last two years. This series is aimed at: i) the development of a common data format and/or common entry point to the observational data of the different fireballs networks, ii) getting the community for observing lunar impact flashes together, and iii) machine-learning science cases for meteor observations.
Report on 54th Conference on Variable Star Research
Meeting report by Felip Walter of the Variable Stars and Exoplanet Section of the Czech Astronomical Society.
The 54th Variable Star Conference took place from 25-27 November in hybrid-format in Ostrava, Czech Republic, and online. The meeting was very positively received by both national and international audiences. We had 50 in-person participants from the Czech Republic and five international guests. We also had 12 Czech and 18 international online participants from as far afield as India, Brazil, UK, Ukraine and Iceland, as well as and other, closer European countries, including our neighbour, Slovakia.
Concerning planetary sciences, there was a lecture about the DART mission given by Petr Scheirich, as well as lectures about HST and JSWT photometric and spectroscopic observation of exoplanets by Angelos Tsiaras, and a presentation by Günter Wuchterl (in person) and Petr Kabáth (online from newly opened La Silla PLATOSpec telescope) about the ground component of the PLATO mission.
Yves Jongen, probably one of the most productive amateur observers of exoplanetary transits presented his work and received the very first Exoplanet Transit Prize from the Czech Astronomical Society ETD project. He has observed around 1500 individual transits during five years of activity.
Seven students (both high school and university students) presented their work in the student section. Marko Mesarč from Masaryk University, Brno received the prize for the presentation of his work on exoplanetary candidates photometry.
The meeting has surely supported pro-am and international collaboration, as everyone – and most importantly our young guests, the students of Czech high schools – used the opportunity to meet enthusiastic amateurs and professionals from the Czech Republic and abroad.
Online participants at the hybrid 54th Conference on Variable Star Research Participants at the 54th Conference on Variable Star Research Participants at the 54th Conference on Variable Star Research Participants at the 54th Conference on Variable Star Research Yves Jongen received the first Exoplanet Transit Prize from the Czech Astronomical Society ETD project.Yves Jongen received the first Exoplanet Transit Prize from the Czech Astronomical Society ETD project.Photos courtesy of Pavel Cagaš.
Europlanet Workshop Series on Fireballs and their Detection
Convened by: Günter Kargl (Space Research Institute, Austrian Academy of Sciences; ), Ute Amerstorfer (Space Research Institute, Austrian Academy of Sciences) and Detlef Koschny (Technical University of Munich, Germany).
In cooperation with Europlanet 2024 Research Infrastructure (RI), a series of four workshops bringing together different networks of fireball observers and machine-learning experts are being arranged over two years. This series is aimed at: i) the development of a common data format and/or common entry point to the observational data of the different fireballs networks, and ii) machine-learning science cases for meteor observations.
An amateur workshop was initially planned for the Observatory Pic du Midi in summer 2020 under Europlanet 2024 RI’s NA2 activity but was postponed due to Covid-19. However, three virtual splinter meetings for amateurs were organised during EPSC2020 with a total number of about 160 live participants and over 375 video views:
Juno Ground-Based Support from Amateur Astronomers, 21 September 2020
The Juno mission orbits Jupiter since 2016. Its JunoCam instrument is providing the highest resolution images of the planet ever obtained. To understand the temporal and spatial context of these images and the details of Jovian meteorology Juno relies on a global ground-support from professional and amateur astronomers. This collaboration has proven essential to the interpretation of this outstanding data. Amateur astronomers provide images that are used to plan the high-resolution observations from JunoCam and citizen scientists process many of the astonishing high-resolution images obtained by JunoCam contributing to the success of the mission.
The splinter contains talks, questions and a short round-table at the end and is open to Juno scientists, amateur astronomers and citizen scientists collaborating with the Juno mission.
Speakers:
– Jupiter image processing. Christopher Go – Recent meteorological events on Jupiter. John H. Rogers (BAA) – The Juno mission. Glenn. S. Orton (JPL) – JunoCam on Juno. Candice. Hansen (PSI) – Junocam image processing. Kevin M. Gill – The value of long-term Jupiter data. Arrate Antunano (Leicester University)
The Ariel mission for exoplanets and support from amateurs, 28 September 2020
More than 4000 exoplanets have been discovered so far, and this number is still growing rapidly! However, we know very little about them: What are they made of? What are the conditions there? How did they form and how did they evolve? ESA’s M4 mission, Ariel, will observe spectroscopically around 1000 exoplanets to further characterise their atmospheres and try to answer these questions. Exoplanets is one of the few fields that amateur astronomers and the public can contribute significantly, with observations with small and medium scale telescopes. I the case of Ariel, small and medium size telescope are valuable, in order to plan the observations as efficiently as possible. To achieve this, a good knowledge of the planets’ ephemerides is needed before the launch of Ariel in 2028. While ephemerides for some planets are being refined on a per-case basis, an organised effort to collectively verify or update them when necessary does not exist.
In this session, we will present the Ariel mission and will introduce the ExoClock project, an open, integrated and interactive platform with the purpose of producing a confirmed list of ephemerides for the planets that will be observed by Ariel. The project has been developed in a manner to make the best use of all available resources: observations reported in the literature, observations from space instruments and, mainly, observations from ground-based telescopes, including both professional and amateur observatories. To facilitate inexperienced observers and at the same time achieve homogeneity in the results, we created data collection and validation protocols, educational material and easy to use interfaces, open to everyone. ExoClock was launched in September 2019 and now counts over 160 participants, mostly amateur astronomers, who’ve already observed 1200 transits for 170 exoplanets.
The session will start with Giovanna Tinetti from UCL, the Principal Investigator of the Ariel Mission, who will present the concept and the goals of the mission and will continue with Athanasia Nikolaou from Sapienza who will present the prospects of Ariel for small planets. Next, Anastasia Kokori from UCL, coordinator of the ExoClock project, will share the scope and the principals of the ExoClock Project, while Martin Crow, an active ExoClock observer form the British Astronomical Association, will share his experience from observing exoplanets and participating to ExoClock. Finally, Angelos Tsiaras from UCL, coordinator of the ExoClock project, will demonstrate how to analyse exoplanet observations with the dedicated, user-friendly tools developed for the project.
The ExoClock project website: www.exoclock.space
Educational material can be found at: www.exoworldsspies.com
Programme:
The Ariel mission. Giovanna Tinetti
Planetary Perspectives of Ariel: Looking at the tree and adding the forest. Athanasia Nikolaou
The ExoClock project: How amateurs can contribute to Ariel. Anastasia Kokori.
Experiencing ExoClock with an active participant. Martin Crow
Analysing exoplanet observations. Angelos Tsiaras
The Europlanet Telescope Network, 30 September 2020
As part of the recently launched Europlanet 2024 Research Infrastructure, a new collaboration between telescopes around the world has been started for providing coordinated observations and rapid responses in support of space missions and in following-up of new events. The so-called Europlanet Telescope Network (bit.ly/37SCiyj) will thereby provide professional scientists and amateur astronomers with access to an initial set of 16 telescope facilities. Scientists and amateurs can now apply to visit those facilities (see website: bit.ly/2Br5LDt). The Europlanet Telescope Network further plans to support the integration of amateur astronomers into planetary sciences, since their observations can be of crucial importance for several scientific areas.
This Splinter Meeting gave an overview on the network, the involved telescope facilities, and opportunities for support for amateur astronomers in Europe and beyond.
Program of the meeting: – Introduction to the Europlanet Telescope Network (Scherf, M) – Overview of the telescope facilities (Tautvaisiene, G) – How to apply to the Call (Snodgrass, C) – Europlanet support to amateur astronomy campaigns on Solar System astronomy (Hueso, R) – Telescope showcase: The Robotic Faulkes Telescope Network (Lewis, F) – GaiaGOSA and the planned observational alert website (Podlewska-Gaca, E; Dudzinski, G) – Discussion
Europlanet 2024 RI has supported the SuperLuna! campaign. Europlanet 2024 RI has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 871149.
Europlanet 2024 RI has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 871149.
Europlanet AISBL (Association Internationale Sans But Lucratif - 0800.634.634) is hosted by the Department of Planetary Atmospheres of the Royal Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy (BIRA-IASB), Avenue Circulaire 3, B-1180 Brussels, Belgium.
Europlanet 2024 RI has supported the SuperLuna! campaign. Europlanet 2024 RI has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 871149.