APRIL 2011 - TOPICS

Short News Meeting of the Governing Council of Hel.A.S. Telescope time at Skinakas Observatory Call for proposals for scientific visits under the "Black Holes in a Violent Universe" COST Program ESA call for GAIA JENAM 2011 NEON Observing Schools in 2011 Translate Mars HIRISE image captions into Greek Upcoming Astronomy Meetings in Greece About this Newsletter

1. SHORT NEWS

We would like to congratulate Dr. George Magdis (CEA/Saclay, France) who has recently accepted a 2 to 5 year Research Fellowship in Far-Infrared and Submm Astronomy at the University of Oxford (UK), and will be moving there shortly. We would like to congratulate Dr. Kostas Tassis (JPL/Caltech, USA), who was recently elected as an Assistant Professor of Theoretical Astrophysics at the Department of Physics of the University of Crete.

2. MEETING OF THE GOVERNING COUNCIL OF HEL.A.S.

The Governing Council of Hel.A.S. met on the 11th of March 2011, to discuss issues related to the organization of the upcoming conference of the Society, as well as the status of members with outstanding dues. As usual the minutes of the meeting will soon be available online at the end of the web page: http://www.helas.gr/council.php

3. TELESCOPE TIME AT SKINAKAS OBSERVATORY

Skinakas Observatory announces that ~20% of the total observing time this year will be available to Astrophysicists working in Greek Universities and Research Centers. An application form is available here. For more information please check the Observatory website at: http://skinakas.physics.uoc.gr

4. CALL FOR PROPOSALS FOR SCIENTIFIC VISITS UNDER THE "BLACK HOLES IN A VIOLENT UNIVERSE" COST PROGRAM

The European COST action "Black Holes in a Violent Universe" has announced the third call for applications to fund exchange visits between scientists in Institutes which are located in a country which participates in this COST action (Greece is a participant country). Financial support for exchange visits is one of the most important activities within this action. Support will be provided to visits which aim to strengthen current collaborative projects, establish new collaborations, obtain necessary knowledge for the application of new techniques, and/or use host infrastructures that are not available at the home institute. The applicant could be either a PhD student, a PostDoc or a staff member in an organization of either the public or the private sector. Only projects related to one of the main research areas supported by the action ("Quantum black holes", "stellar mass black holes & pulsars", "the Galactic center", and "supermassive black holes") will be considered. For further information, please check the action's web site: http://www.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de/div/vlbi/COST

5. ESA CALL FOR GAIA

ESA has issued a call for Letters of Interest to participate in the preparatory activities for the Gaia archive access. Relevant information has already been posted in the "Greece & ESA" page of the Hel.A.S. website. The deadline for applications is on the 15th of April, 2011.

6. JENAM 2011

The European Astronomical Society is organizing the "European Week of Astronomy & Space Science (EWASS2011 or JENAM 2011) at St. Petersburg, Russia, during the week of July 4-8, 2011. EWASS2011 will host 9 Mini-Symposia, plenary sessions and many Special Sessions on various aspects of modern astronomy. The European Astronomical Society (EAS) General Assembly, Business and Council meetings will also take place during EWASS 2011. The deadline for abstract submission as well as requests for financial support is April 25, 2010. For more information visit: http://jenam2011.org

7. NEON OBSERVING SCHOOLS IN 2011

Two NEON observing schools are organized this year with the support of Opticon. The 9th Observing school at the telescope, which will take place at the Moletai Astronomical Observatory in Lithuania, also using the Nordic Optical Telescope in remote control, from July 14 to 27th 2011. The 4th Archive observing school, which will take place at ESO-Garching Headquarters, from September 6 to 17th. The deadline for abstract submission as well as requests for financial support is April 30, 2011. For more information visit: http://www.iap.fr/neon/neon_schools/2011

8. TRANSLATE MARS/HIRISE IMAGE CAPTIONS INTO GREEK

The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HIRISE) is an optical camera on board NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter which produces images of Mars with an unprecedented resolution. A large fraction of these spectacular images are released to the general public, with brief captions describing them. The captions are available in a variety of languages including Greek! You may check the dedicated web site: http://www.uahirise.org/gr To increase the visibility of these images to the greek non-scientific community, volunteers are needed to translate the captions from english to greek. Some details on how this can be done is available in the following PDF file. We would like to encourage all members of Hel.A.S. who have some free time to contribute to this joint effort as well as to inform anyone who may be willing to help about this project. For more information contact: hitranslate@uahirise.org.

9. UPCOMING ASTRONOMY MEETINGS IN GREECE

The following meetings will take place in Greece. Please check the corresponding web page or contact the organizers by e-mail for more information.

10th Conference of Hel.A.S. Ioannina, 5-8 September 2011 13th European Solar Physics Meeting (ESPM-13) Rhodes, 12-16 September 2011

10. ABOUT THIS NEWSLETTER

This Newsletter was sent to all members of Hel.A.S. who have e-mail access. The next edition of the Newsletter will be mailed around May 1, 2011. Please send your announcements (e.g. appointments/departures, job openings, research opportunities, awards, conferences in Greece) or comments before April 25, 2011. If you do not wish to receive future issues of this Newsletter or the e-mail address to which it was sent is not your preferred one, please inform the Secretary of Hel.A.S.