A Golden Age of Collaborations

Join the webinar on 31st may 2022, 14:00 CEST

Astronomy is one of the few sciences where non-professional scientists equipped only with modest means can acquire data that opens new discoveries. In recent years professional astronomers have become more aware of the immense potential offered by professional and amateur collaborations, and a vast number of citizen science projects have flourished. These projects engage not only amateur astronomers, but also the general public who can actively participate in the scientific endeavour.

In this webinar, Ricardo Hueso will review some success stories in professional and amateur collaborations in planetary science including the ever-expanding field of exoplanets. A look forward to new missions and large telescopes in the next decade indicates that the golden age of Pro-Am collaborations in Solar System astronomy is far from its end, and that new projects will largely benefit from collaborations with the public. The Europlanet Society and Europlanet 2024 RI promote many of these collaborations through various of their different programs including the access to the Europlanet Telescope Network.

The webinar is led by Ricardo Hueso (Europlanet Society Executive Board)
Register for this event by completing your:
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_6Zn5zg8LQm6-1LeoabajeA

Our friends from amateur astronomy in Portugal celebrate their "7th Concentration of Telescopes" on May 28 and 29. For some time now, and with the aim of strengthening ties, we have been talking about developing joint activities and participating in them as a single Iberian group. This is a good opportunity to strengthen this type of relationship under the sky and promote knowledge and coexistence among astronomers.

In addition to the outreach talks and scheduled cultural activities, the strong part of the meeting is the concentration of telescopes, so it is an excellent opportunity to attend with your own teams. There are also scheduled workshops on solar observation, photometry, telescope collimation and a used material fair.

These Conferences have the recognition of the Portuguese NOC of the IAU.

In this edition, a part of the program is reserved for Spanish associations, (Astronomical Association of Plasencia (Mintaka), Astróbriga of Ciudad Rodrigo and OSAE of Salamanca), in addition to the Federation itself.

Website - Program

Pro-Am Comet Community (Hybrid) Workshop

First Announcement and Call for Applications and Abstracts

10 – 12 June 2022, Prague

PROGRAMME

1: Call for a Medium-size and a Fast mission opportunity in ESA's Science Programme

The ESA Director of Science solicits the scientific community in ESA's Member States for proposals for both a "Fast" mission opportunity (to be launched in the 2030-2031 timeframe) and for a Medium mission opportunity (to be launched around 2037).  The new long-term scientific plan - Voyage 2050 - for the Science Programme of the European Space Agency (ESA), has been issued in June 2021, following a broad consultation of the scientific community and a peer review process, with final recommendations issued by an independent scientific Senior Committee. The plan includes three Large (L) missions in selected science themes (Moons of the Giant Planets, From Temperate Exoplanets to the Milky Way, and New Physical Probes of the Early Universe) and a set of Medium (M) and Fast (F) missions. The definition of the F and M space missions is based on a competitive, peer-reviewed selection process. Even though the Voyage 2050 plan identifies a set of possible themes for the Medium missions, proposals in all fields of space science will be considered, with no prejudice.

Full details can be found at:  https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/call-for-missions-2021/
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2: Call for Membership in the Expert Committee for the Large mission covering the science theme “Moons of the Giant Planets”

The Director of Science at the European Space Agency (ESA) has issued a Call for Membership in the Expert Committee for the Large mission covering the science theme “Moons of the Giant Planets” that will support the initial definition of space mission concepts to fulfil the goals set for the “Moons of the Giant Planets” science theme.  This is the first scientific theme identified in the new long-term scientific plan (Voyage 2050) for the ESA Science Programme for the large mission following Athena and LISA. “Moons of the Giant Planets” addresses issues such as habitability, biosignatures, prebiotic chemistry, etc., to be implemented through a planetary probe to one of the moons of either Jupiter or Saturn.

Deadline for receipt of applications is 18 January 2022

Full details can be found at:  https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/call-for-expert-committee-for-moons-of-the-giant-planets/
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I would be grateful if you could bring these two Calls to the attention of the Spanish space science community. I'm happy to answer any questions you may have about these.

Europlanet 2024 Research Infrastructure project and the Institute of Theoretical Physics and Astronomy of Vilnius University are pleased to announce the international conference „Europlanet Telescope Network Science Workshop“. 

The Europlanet Telescope Network (EPN-TN), launched in 2020,  is a network of small telescope facilities to support planetary science observations by professional and amateur astronomers. The EPN-TN currently comprises 16 observatories with 46 telescopes ranging from 40 cm to 2 m in size. The network can be accessed free of charge to carry out projects on a wide variety of scientific studies about the Solar System and exoplanets, as well as related astronomical investigations. 

The goal of this workshop is to encourage community-led proposals and to highlight scientific results achieved with EPN-TN and other medium size and small telescopes. We invite interested astronomers and amateurs to participate, to learn more about  the instruments offered, their capabilities, and scientific potential.

Sessions will be distributed over three half days. They will be dedicated accordingly: 

Day 1 -  Solar System planets
Day 2 -  Exoplanets
Day 3 -  Minor Solar System Bodies

Registration free of charge and with no deadline. 

Participants are encouraged to submit a short abstract describing the science questions and topics they would like to address with EPN-TN. We anticipate a talk length of 12+3 min for contributed presentations and by 2-3 min for poster presentations. 

The deadlines for abstract submissions:

oral presentations  - 7 January 2022 23:59:00 UTC  (notification of acceptance by 14 January 2022)
poster presentations - 21 January 2022 23:59:00 UTC

For Application and registration form follow this link

As many of you know September will have another edition of the Europlanet Science Congress which runs as a Virtual Meeting from 13 to 24 September online at https://www.epsc2021.eu/

This meeting has a strong amateur astronomy session organized in the last few years by Marc Delcroix with co-conveners well known in this list such as John H. Rogers and talks given by both amateurs and professionals. Most of these talks will be later available online on Vimeo for wider diffusion.

I would like to announce and advertise a set of Splinter Online Meetings organized during this meeting and directly focused into professional and amateur collaborations. These splinter events DO NOT require registration in the EPSC meeting and will be held as a set of Zoom meetings with prominent speakers from the amateur and professional side. They will also have time for questions and open discussion. Please find bellow details of these events which you are all cordially invited to participate if they fit in your schedule. Recordings of the sessions will also be made available after the meeting but please come and join us in these topics with our speakers and join in the discussions.

EPSC 2021 Professional and Amateur Splinter Workshops

SMW2: Pro-Am collaborations (I): Juno's Extended Mission at Jupiter

Deadline: 6 September 2021

The Europlanet Society Congress 2021 (#EPSC2021) is inviting schools and space enthusiasts of all ages to get creative and share their artworks and performances on the theme of 'Ingenuity' in the #InspiredByOtherWorlds contest.

Find out more here >>
Contest FAQs>>