Newsletter Issue 10/2017

RadioNet at the 6th Astronomy Town Hall Meeting

The 6th Astronomy Town Hall Meeting on 20 - 21 October 2017 in Cape Town (ZA) was hosted by the Department of Science and Technology (DST), in collaboration with the National Research Foundation (NRF). The meeting focused on coordination, development and promotion of astronomy in South Africa.

The RadioNet Manager Dr. Izabela Rottmann was invited to give holistic introduction to the RadioNet project, with strong focus on the opportunities it offers to the South African Astronomy community. DST is one out of 28 RadioNet partners. Read more.

Image © F. Colomer

The CASA-VLBI workshop started today in Dwingeloo

CASA VLBI workshop – a successful week of training and bug hunting

20 researchers met in Dwingeloo at a workshop organized by JIVE and ASTRON between Oct 2 and 6 2017 in order to learn about new features offered by the CASA VLBI tools software and at the same time to perform thorow tests of the software package for hidden bugs and to find out which features are still missing.

The participants of the meeting applied the software to real observational data from the various VLBI instruments. At the end of the workshop, the researchers discussed and prioritized useful features and describe the bugs detected during the workshop.

With the outcome, the development for the software that will be at the basis of the work to be done in the RadioNet Joint Research Activity RINGS, could be finalized.

Image © JIVE

The 6th International VLBI Technology Workshop

This workshop is considered one of the most important meetings among members of the technical staff of EVN and IVS institutes and of the East-Asian VLBI infrastructures. The 6th IVTW was held 9-11 October 2017 at INAF in Bologna (IT).

The event aimed at sharing technical knowledge across disciplines, including hardware and software engineering with the participation of both scientific and technical staff. The workshop brought the work and results of developments within the RadioNet institutes and facilities to the attention of the broader engineering community.

Image © INAF

ERIS - RadioNet made it possible

The ERIS2017 (European Radio Interferometry School) was oragnised by JIVE and ASTRON on 16-20 October 2017 in Dwingeloo (NL). This school was the seventh of a ERIS series supported by RadioNet.

The school offered both lectures and practical tutorials that were given by invited specialists exprienced in using the RadioNet interferometric infrastructures (e-MERLIN, EVN, IRAM, LOFAR, ALMA). As the previous ones, also this school has been extremely successful in delivering the training needed to prepare radio astronomy students to write their own proposals, reduce data and interpret the scientific results.

Image © JIVE

Dr. Catherine Cesarsky elected Chair of the SKA Board of Directors

On 13 October 2017, the Board of Directors of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) Organisation approved with immediate effect the appointment of Dr. Catherine Cesarsky as its new Chair.

The SKA project is an ambitious international effort to build the world’s largest radio telescope, to be spread over long distances in Africa and Australia. The SKA organisation is already supported by 10 member countries – Australia, Canada, China, India, Italy, New Zealand, South Africa, Sweden, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. The construction of the SKA is set to start in 2019, with early science observations in the early 2020s. Read more about SKA.

A new era in astronomy

On 17 August 2017 the US Laser Interferometer Graviational Wave Observatory (LIGO) detected gravitational waves produced by the merging of two neutron stars. Almost at the same time a gamma ray burst was detected by the gamma observatories Fermi and INTEGRAL. ESO and 70 other observatories immediately launched follow up observations in the optical, infrared, sub-millimeter and radio wavelengths.

The recent detections of gravitational waves not only were awarded with this year's Nobel prize, but it also opens up completely new pathways for collaborations between astronomers exploiting the electromagnetic spectrum and gravitation wave astronomers. Read more.

Image Credit: ESO/L. Calçada/M. Kornmesser

ACCESS OPPORTUNITIES

RadioNet's Transnational Access programme ensures free of charge access to the best European radio astronomical research infrastructures. This opportunity is open to all European researchers and to some extent to researchers from non-EU countries. Read More

e-MERLIN issued call for proposals. Deadline for proposals is 16th November 2017, 23:59:59 UT

e-MERLIN call for proposals until 16/11/2017

e-MERLIN requests proposals from the international astronomical community for observations to be made during Cycle-6. Proposals are competitively peer-reviewed under standard STFC rules by the PATT e-MERLIN Time Allocation Committee. Allocation will be made on the basis of scientific merit and technical feasibility alone.

More about the appiication procedure.

POLICY NEWS

Horizon2020 - Work Programme 2018 - 2020 published

The European Commission has published on October 27, 2017 a work programme for 2018-2020. This is the last work programme for Horizon 2020 and it puts in place a bridge to enable a smooth transition to any successor. This includes piloting new approaches, in particular the European Innovation Council pilot and lump sum pilot.

Each thematic section is self-contained, and describes the overall objectives, the respective calls for proposals, and the topics within each call. More information.

The EOSC Stakeholder Forum: Shaping the future of the EOSC

EOSC pilot is organising its first Stakeholder event in The Square, Brussels, on 28-29 November 2017. The event aims at charting a course towards a concrete and sustainable EOSC, identifying first steps on the EU added-value of EOSC and its building blocks to make Europeans do their research better. Registration & Agenda.

Digital Infrastructures for Research 2017

Europe's leading e-infrastructures invite all researchers, developers and service providers to the Digital Infrastructures for Research 2017 event (30 November - 1 December 2017). The main goal is to demonstrate how open science, higher education and innovators can benefit from the builiding blocks of the European Open Science Cloud and European Data Infrastructure. Registration & Agenda.

EU Prize for Women Innovators 2018 - Call open

The European Commission launched the fifth edition of the EU Prize for Women Innovators to award women entrepreneurs who have achieved outstanding innovations and brought them to market. The first prize is €100 000, with second and third prizes of €50 000 and €30 000 respectively. A special prize of €20 000 will be dedicated to the Rising Innovator Award (30-years-old or younger) for an exceptional innovator at the beginning of her career. The application deadline is 15 November 2017.

UPCOMING EVENTS

supported by RadioNet

• 4th Workshop on (sub-)millimetre astronomy in Italy on November 7, 2017

• RadioNet Board teleconference on November 8, 2017 1 pm

• ALMA Data Processing Workshop on December 5, 2017

• Atacama Large-Aperture Submm/mm Telescope (AtLAST) on January 17, 2018

• The big impact of a big dish: Science with the Effelsberg 100-m Telescope on February 20, 2018

More RadioNet supported and related events here.

CAREER OPPORTUNITIES

• SRON - software engineer, scientists and more

• Observatoire de Paris - PostDoctoral Position

• ESO - electronic engineer, documentaion specialisr, ESO Fellowhsip and more

• Fraunhofer IAF - scientist, engineer and more

• Max Planck Institut for Radio Astronomy - PostDoctoral Scientists

• University of Manchester - vacancies

• STFC - vacancies

EDITORS:

RadioNet Management
Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie
Auf dem Hügel 69 // DE 53121 Bonn

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RadioNet has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 730562, and contribution from the partner organisations