From: Andrew Lawrence Sent: Wednesday, September 01, 2004 9:45 AM To: Andrew Lawrence; Roy Williams (roy@cacr.caltech.edu); (Ray.Norris@csiro.au); Ajit Kembhavi (akk@iucaa.ernet.in); Alex Szalay (szalay@pha.jhu.edu); Attila Meszaros (meszaros@cesnet.cz); Bob Hanisch (hanisch@stsci.edu); Francoise Genova (genova@cluster.u-strasbg.fr); George Djorgovski (george@astro.caltech.edu); George Helou (gxh@ipac.caltech.edu); Masatoshi OHISHI; Nic Walton (naw@ast.cam.ac.uk); Oleg Malkov (malkov@inasan.ru); Peter Quinn (pjq@eso.org) Cc: 'ivoa@ivoa.net'; 'Pepi Fabbiano' Subject: RE: Prague LoI draft Dear everybody below is the LoI I just sent to the IAU. You will see I added science topics and removed technical topics, as many people suggested, and also trimmed the Caltech SOC members, following discussion with them. None of this is cast in stone of course - several more stages to go through. Several of you made other sensible suggestions which we should follow up as we prepare the proposal. Pepi Fabbiano approached me separately with a Symposium suggestion, so I have also copied this to her. andy ----------------------------------------------- To : Dr Karel A. van der Hucht Assistant General Secretary International Astronomical Union SRON National Institute for Space Research Sorbonnelaan 2 NL - 3584 CA Utrecht email : K.A.van.der.Hucht@SRON.nl Dear Dr. van der Hucht, We intend to make a proposal for an IAU Symposium attached to the General Assembly of 2006, with the title of "The Virtual Observatory in action : new science, new technology, and next generation facilities". As you can tell from the title, our proposal is centred around the VO concept, but expects to concentrate on science results using the new tools and methods, as well as taking a wide view of data management, facility design, large scale surveys, scientific data exploration, and so on. The vision of the Virtual Observatory (VO) is to make access to astronomical databases as seamless and transparent as browsing the World Wide Web is today. It will federate the data flows from current and future facilities and large scale surveys, and the computational resources and new tools necessary to fully exploit them. This requires both technological developments and an international committment to standardisation and working culture. Increasingly, it will alter the way that astronomers do science, and the way that future facilities and projects plan for their data management, and the scientific exploitation of their data. It will make an impact on a wide variety of astronomical topics, but especially those using very large databases, and those needing a multi-wavelength approach, or more generally the use of multiple archives. To date, there are fifteen VO projects worldwide, who co-ordinate their efforts through an International Virtual Observatory Alliance (IVOA). This body evolves and agrees technical standards as well as sharing best practice and software. It is widely regarded as a strikingly successful example of international co-operation, and was highlighted as such in the recent OECD report on future large scale facilities in astronomy. The various VO projects have laid the foundations for the VO - international standards, fundamental infrastructure, early demonstrations, and the first published science papers using VO tools - and we expect the next few years to see the VO gradually becoming a working reality. The next stages will involve (i) deployment of the new infrastructure at data centres, (ii) science results using VO tools, (iii) making links to existing and planned facilities, and (iv) much more ambitious data mining analysis services. We feel that the time will be just right for an IAU Symposium. After some early specialised technical conferences at Caltech and ESO during 2000 and 2002, the first international exposure to a general astronomical audience was at a Joint Discussion held as part of the IAU General Assembly at Sydney in July 2003. By 2006 we believe that the maturity of the subject, the expected scientific results using new tools, and the importance of the infrastructure to expensive new facilities, justify a full Symposium rather than a Joint Discussion. The proposal is initiated by the current chair of the IVOA (A.Lawrence) together with the (** co-chairs ** check and rephrase) of Commission 5 (F.Genova and R.Norris) and so will naturally be co-ordinated by Division XII - and indeed it is hard to think of a better example of a "Union Wide Activity". Informal interest has already been expressed by Commission 47 (Cosmology, chair R.Webster), and by the WG on Large Scale Facilities (chair, G.Gilmore). We also expect interest from Commission 9 (Instrumentation and Techniques), especially the "Sky Surveys" WG (chair Russell Cannon), and very likely Commission 40 (Radio Astronomy) and Commission 44 (Space and High Energy Astrophysics). We will be approaching relevant individuals shortly. Some expected topics within the Symposium are : - Cosmology with very large databases - Galactic Structure with very large databases - Rare object multi-wavelength searches : the universe at 10 pc and z=10 - Serendipitous discoveries with the VO - The Earth-Sun connection - Population analysis : stars, galaxies, and quasars - Data mining with SDSS, WFCAM, VISTA and the LSST - Data management for ALMA, ELT, GAIA, and SKA - Technical progress on the VO infrastructure - New data mining algorithms - The semantic web and the future VO With respect to timing, anytime during the GA is ok, but note that our proposed LOC chairman (Dr Meszaros) is also involved in another proposal concerning gamma-ray bursts, so we would prefer these not to be scheduled simultaneoulsy. The currently proposed constitution of the Scientific Organising Committee is as follows Andy Lawrence, Head of School of Physics, University of Edinburgh, UK email : al@roe.ac.uk Chair of IVOA, chair of SOC. Masatoshi Ohishi, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, Tokyo, Japan email : masatoshi.ohishi@nao.ac.jp Deputy chair of IVOA Francoise Genova, Director of CDS, University of Strasbourg, France email : genova@astro.u-strasbg.fr President of Commission 5 Ray Norris, Deputy Director of the Australia National Telescope Facility, Australia email : Ray.Norris@atnf.csiro.au Vice President of Commission 5 Attila Meszaros, Astronomical Institute, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic email : meszaros@cesnet.cz Chair of Local Organising Committee Robert Hanisch, Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, USA email : hanisch@stsci.edu Peter Quinn, Head of Data Management Division, ESO, Garching, Germany email : pjq@eso.org Alexander Szalay, Department of Physics and Astronomy, The Johns Hopkins University, USA email : szalay@tarkus.pha.jhu.edu Nicholas Walton, Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge, UK. email : naw@ast.cam.ac.uk Oleg Malkov, Institute of Astronomy of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia email : malkov@inasan.ru Ajit Kembhavi, Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pune, India email : akk@iucaa.ernet.in Roy Williams, Center for Advanced Computing Research, California Institute of Technology, USA email : roy@cacr.caltech.edu We will submit a full proposal shortly, which I do hope finds favour. Yours Sincerely Prof A.Lawrence on behalf of the Scientific Organising Committee.