MCCT SKADS Mixed Workshop: Towards third generation calibration in radio astronomy

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