MCCT SKADS Mixed Workshop:
Towards third generation calibration in radio astronomy
27 September – 10 October, Nançay (France)
2nd Announcement
We are pleased to announce that the Observatoire de Paris will be
hosting the final MCCT SKADS Mixed Workshop, entitled “Towards third
generation calibration in radio astronomy”. The school will be held at
the Nançay radio astronomy Station, France, from Sunday 27 September to
Saturday 10 October 2009.
The school is fully sponsored by the Marie Curie MCCT-SKADS programme,
within the Sixth Framework Programme of the European Commission. For
further details, please visit the School’s web pages at:
http://mcct.skads-eu.org/nancay
Purpose and format of the school:
The last SKADS MCCT workshop will be a bit special. Its explicit aim is
to identify, train and connect a new breed of "user-developers", who are
willing and able to lead the way towards "3rd generation calibration" in
radio astronomy. The latter differs from traditional calibration in
its emphasis on direction-dependent instrumental effects like the
ionosphere and individual station beams. It is firmly based on the
Measurement Equation (M.E.), the full-polarization matrix formalism that
describes a generic radio telescope. Calibration of the new giant radio
telescopes would be unthinkable without it.
The chosen tool is the MeqTree software package, which has been
explicitly designed to implement an arbitrary M.E., and to solve for
arbitrary subsets of its parameters. It also has an extremely short
turn-around time, and unprecedented visualization, for rapid
experimentation with new ideas.
A very important goal of this workshop is to continue working together
afterwards. The idea is that we form the seeding nucleus of a Creative
Commons, connected by the internet, by a common language, and by common
tools. This is made possible by the unusual modularity of MeqTree, which
allows widely separated people to contribute at the level of processing
scripts (Python) and specific nodes (C++). These may then be shared, and
cannibalized. Another important communication tool is the "PURR log",
which allows easy exchange of detailed results in the form of images,
plots and text.
The lecturers for this workshop will also be a bit special, in the
sense that they are expected to stay for the entire two weeks, and work
along with the students, both during the workshop, and as part of the
Creative Commons. This experience will uniquely qualify them for
supervising the PhD students that will use the new telescopes.
Requirements for participation, EC eligibility rules, and costs:
The selection for participation in the Workshop will be made on the
basis of performance in a website-based training/competition over the
summer. We are looking primarily for people who have demonstrated
"productivity in writing software", with emphasis on Python and C++.
Prior knowledge of radio astronomical data reduction is secondary.
Everyone who applies before June 30th will receive instructions for
the web-based training/competition, which opens on July 15th.
Although everybody can pre-register and participate in the preparatory
web-based training/competition, participation in the Workshop and
eligibility for EC funding to attend the Workshop are subject to
further restrictions.
In order to qualify for attending the Workshop, candidate participants
must have finished their undergraduate studies before the start of the
Workshop – this means that they must have at least a BA or BSc degree. A
potential attendee cannot register for the Workshop before having
finished her/his undergraduate studies, even if she/he has already
started some post-graduate studies such as master courses. This is a
strict rule.
Both the participation fee and the full board lodging costs will be
covered by the MCCT-SKADS programme for selected, eligible participants
with less than 10 yr of experience in research. In this group, all
researchers are eligible for funding regardless of their nationality
or place of work. These participants will also receive a contribution in
their travel expenses, which should be enough to fully cover e.g
low-cost airline tickets and/or other means of public transport to/from
the Workshop.
Researchers with more than 10 yr of experience are also eligible for
funding provided that they are nationals of EU member and associated
states (see the Workshop's webpages), but currently working outside
these countries.
Participants are expected to stay at the Nançay radio astronomy
Station for the full length of the school, arriving on Sunday 27
September 2009 and departing on Saturday 10 October. There is a
participation fee of 150 EUR (taxes included), and a full board lodging
cost from 27 September till 10 October of about 400 EUR (TBC; taxes
included) has been arranged. The working language of the Workshop will
be English.
Venue:
The venue of the School will be the Nançay radio astronomy Station
(http:// www.obs-nancay.fr/) of the Observatoire de Paris, located 200
km south of Paris, in the middle of the Sologne forests. Accommodation
for all participants will be provided on the site of the Station.
Registration:
In order to be considered for participation, please pre-register using
the School’s web site form. The deadline for filling out the
pre-registration is 30 June. Everyone who applies before June 30th will
receive instructions for the web-based training/competition, which opens
on July 15th. Selection of workshop participants will be made on
September 1st.
When you fill out the pre-registration form, you must also have a
presentation letter signed by the Director of your Institute sent to
the SOC by e-mail:
c/o MCCT-SKADS Workshop SOC
brink@astron.nl
This letter should expand on the importance of attending this Workshop
for the formation of the student.
SOC
* Jan Noordam (ASTRON, Chair)
* Steve Rawlings (Oxford University)
* Anna Scaife (Cambridge University)
* Oleg Smirnov (ASTRON)
* Wim van Driel (Observatoire de Paris)
LOC
* Christophe Rozière
* Steve Torchinsky
* Wim van Driel
