Hot-wiring the Transient Universe: a Joint VOEvent & HTN Workshop

June 4 - 7, 2007, Tucson, Arizona

Tycho's Stella Nova

Agenda

List of Participants

Posters

• eSTAR - An overview of the current network - Alasdair Allan (eSTAR)
  
• MONET - State of the Union - Dary Mihova (Tuparev Technologies)
  
• Using Distributed Sensor Network Architecture to Link Heterogeneous Astronomical Assets - Robert White (LANL)
  

Sunday, June 3

7:00 pm - Reception

Monday, June 4

• AM chair: Roy Williams
  
• PM chair: George Djorgovski
  

8:30 - Welcoming remarks

8:40 - Session 1 - The science from rapid response

• Energy input and response from prompt and early optical afterglow emission in GRBs - Tom Vestrand (LANL)
• Science requiring follow-up of large surveys - Kem Cook (LSST)
  
• Thread safe astronomy - Rob Seaman (NOAO Data Products Program)
  

9:55 - Coffee

10:25 - Session 2 - Quickstart Guide for Autonomous Astronomy

• RTML + VOEvent < HTN: a system that is more than the sum of its parts - Robert White (LANL)
  
• How to build and how to read a VOEvent packet - Roy Williams (Caltech)
  
• Remote Telescope Markup Language - Rick Hessman (University of Goettingen)
  
• Transport for the HTN and VOEvent Networks - Alasdair Allan (eSTAR)
  

12:05 - Lunch at local restaurants

1:35 - Session 3 - Long Range Vision for Transient Astronomy

• Integrating VOEvent into the OIR System, an NOAO operations case study - Chris Smith (NOAO DPP)
  
• Science driven architectures for networked astronomy - Tim Naylor (University of Exeter)
  
• Real time optical transients from thinking telescopes - Przemek Wozniak (LANL)
  

2:50 - Break

3:10 - Session 4 - Solar system objects

• Pan-STARRS and the Moving Object Processing System - Larry Denneau (Pan-STARRS)
  
• The Moving Object Processing System and LSST - Francesco Pierfederici (LSST)
  
• The LSST transient database for community science and E/PO - Kirk Borne (George Mason University)
  

4:25 - Tour leaves for PAIRITEL and MMT

• limited to 20 attendees, box dinner provided
  

4:25 - Open for discussions, demos, etc.

5:30 - Adjourn

Tuesday, June 5

• AM chair: Chris Smith
  
• PM chair: Tom Vestrand
  

8:30 - Session 5 - Surveys & Event Publishing

• A Tale of Three Surveys - Steve Howell (NOAO)
  
• A systematic search for supernovae in low redshift galaxy clusters - David Sand (Steward Observatory)
  
• Some experiences from the Palomar-Quest survey - George Djorgovski (Caltech)
  

9:45 - Coffee

10:15 - Session 6 - Observatory Operations

• Autonomous software, myth or magic? - Alasdair Allan (eSTAR)
  
• The Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network - Marton Hidas (LCOGT)
  
• Lessons learned from RoboScope: a long-term automated monitoring program - Kent Honeycutt (Indiana University)
  
• RTS2 - Lessons learned from a widely distributed telescope network - Petr Kubanek (IAA-CSIC, Granada & University of Valencia)
  
• TAROT: A robotic observatory for gamma-ray bursts and other sources - Michel Boer (OHP)
  

12:20 - Lunch at local restaurants

1:50 - Session 7 - Event Classification

• Transient object detection and classification - Andy Becker (LSST)
  
• Building a classification engine for the Palomar Transients Finder - Josh Bloom (UC Berkeley)
  
• On probabilistic determination of type of an object based on previously known variable objects - Ashish Mahabal (Caltech)
  
• Event classification in the Nearby Supernova Factory Search - Stephen Bailey (LBL)
  

3:30 - Conference photo

3:40 - Break

3:50 - Session 8 - Web Services for Real Time Data Reduction and Analysis

• Data reduction services for heterogenous telescopes - Iain Steele (Liverpool JMU)
  
• ORAC-DR data reduction pipeline - Brad Cavanagh (JAC)
  
• Your PLASTIC pal, helping you pull VOEvent onto the desktop - Alasdair Allan (eSTAR)
  
• Group discussion facilitated by Mike Fitzpatrick
  

5:30 - Adjourn

6:30 - Conference dinner

Wednesday, June 6

• AM chair: Rob Seaman
  
• PM chair: Robert White
  

8:20 - Session 9 - VOEvent Unbound

• XML packet authentication - Steve Allen (UCO/Lick)
  
• The IVOA Standard Vocabulary Proposal: How to succeed in transporting the astronomical meaning of an event/observation without really trying (very hard) - Rick Hessman (University of Goettingen)
  
• Integrating and deploying a VOEvent service at your institution - Phillip Warner (NOAO DPP)
  

9:35 - Coffee

10:05 - Session 10 - Registries and Databases: Federation for Dummies

• Resource discovery with the VO Registry - Matthew Graham (Caltech)
  
• Querying VOEvents Through Astrogrid - Elizabeth Auden (MSSL)
  
• Group discussion facilitated by Matthew Graham
  

11:20 - Tours of Steward Observatory Mirror Lab

• Group A: 11:30 SOML - 12:15 Box lunch
  
• Group B: 11:30 Box lunch - 12:15 SOML
  

1:00 - Session 11 - HTN Infrastructure

• RTML - The State of the Union, revised RTML 3.2 schema for brain-dead software IDEs - Georg Tuparev (Tuparev Technologies)
  
• EUDOXOS and HTN infrastructure - Nikolaos Solomos (EUDOXOS National Astronomy Centre)
  
• RTML SOAP endpoint implementation on the Liverpool Telescope - Neil Clay (Liverpool JMU)
  
• Robonet-1.0 - Chris Mottram (Liverpool JMU)
  

2:40 - Break

3:00 - Session 12 - Distributed Scheduling

• Adaptive distributed scheduling, putting the 'work' into network - Eric Saunders (LCOGT)
  
• Group discussion facilitated by Alasdair Allan
  

3:50 - Open for discussions, demos, etc.

5:30 - Adjourn

Thursday, June 7

• Chair: Josh Bloom
  

8:30 - Session 13 - Outer Limits: Space-based, Radio and non-EM Transients

• Does your Robot need a Flamethrower? Astrophysics from Antarctica - Nick Tothill (Harvard CFA)
  
• Radio transients at long wavelengths and emerging instrumentation - Joseph Lazio (NRL)
  
• GRB satellite triggers for neutrino telescopes - Mieke Bouwhuis (NIKHEF)
  
• The Supernova Early Warning System - Kate Scholberg (Duke University)
  
• The future of the Gamma-ray bursts Coordinates Network: VOEvent and customer requirements - Scott Barthelmy (NASA-GSFC)
  

10:35 - Coffee

11:05 - Session 14 - Grid Markets

• JMU Grid market prototype - Iain Steele (Liverpool JMU)
  
• Grid-integration of robotic telescopes - Frank Breitling (Astrophysikalisches Institut Potsdam)
  
• Group discussion facilitated by Iain Steele
  

12:20 - Closing remarks

12:30 - Adjourn

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