OPTICON

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OPTICON

• The Optical Infrared Co-ordination Network for
  Astronomy.
• Overview and Status
  Report.
• John Davies
• OPTICON Project Scientist.
• UK Astronomy Technology Centre (UKATC)
• Royal Observatory, Edinburgh

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OPTICON is an Integrated Infrastructure
Initiative (I3) funded by the FP6 programme.

• Networking via working groups similar to the FP5
  OPTICON network.
• Transnational access to Night-time and solar
  telescopes (combining activities such as COMET
  and FP5 ENO)
• Joint Research Projects in Technology

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The Contract

• Five year contract for 19,200,000 Euro
  substantial national matching funds starting 1
  January 2004
• 6 JRAs approved (11 Me extra national funds)
• 22 Telescope network approved. (5.5Me)
• Most networking activities endorsed after some
  consolidation (3 Me incl Management)

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Management

• OPTICON Board (18 partners) sets overall strategy
  and priorities at annual meeting.
• Oversight committee (9 agencies) make the
  detailed decisions, especially about finance, 6
  monthly.
• Cambridge (Gerry Gilmore) is co-ordinator and
  finance office.
• Project Office (John Davies, UKATC) supports
  board, runs some networks, attends board,
  proposes budgets etc
• Access Office (Jesus Burgos, IAC) runs telescope
  grants
• JRAs and some networks have internal management

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Executive Board

• Chair . Prof Gerry Gilmore
• Members ESO,
• France (INSU),
• Germany (MPG/MPIA),
• Italy (INAF),
• Netherlands (NOVA),
• UK (PPARC),
• Spain (IAC),
• NOTSA.
• 2 observers (Presently Switzerland and
  the European Astronomy Society)

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OPTICON I3 Networking

• N2 Structuring the ENO (ORM Izana)
• N3Structuring European Astronomy (J.Davies).
  This includes ELT science working group (Hook),
  AVO/Interoperability (Quinn), HTRA (Spruit), NUVA
  (Gomez de Castro) , Key Technologies
  (Cunningham), Future Astronomical Software
  Environments (Grosbol)
• N4Fellowships and large projects (J-LPuget/M.
  Kessler)
• N5 Interferometry working group (A. Quirrenbach,
  Andrzej Niedzielski, Romain Petrov, Jean Surdej)
• N6 Telescope Directors Forum (J .Davies), Access
  Office, NEON Research Enhancement (M. Dennefeld,
  IAP)
• Round tables with Radionet, ALMA, NGST etc_

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Networking Events and Plans

• NUVA meeting in Madrid 21-24 September 2004. Book
  on future of UV Astronomy to appear late 2005
• Key Technology Working Group meeting, Grenoble,
  13 October 2004
• ELT Meeting in Florence, Nov 8-11 2004, ELT
  science case glossy published Spring 2005. Full
  Science case to be distributed this week.

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• Telescope Directors Meeting, France, 17-18 Nov
  2004. Strategic plan to be developed at Sept 05
  meeting
• Software Environment Meeting, ESO, 4 Dec 2004
  and June 2005. Specification document for a
  future software environment being written.
• Interferometry Network has established EII,
  Fizeau Exchange visitor programme, 2 calls/year.

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• Research Enhancement Meeting, Padua, June 2005.
• High Time Resolution Conference to take place in
  Edinburgh, Spring 2006.
• Site testing, Laser Guide Star Traffic system and
  outreach at ORM and OT.
• Many of these meetings are open, travel support
  is possible. Look on our website for more details

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The Telescope Network
Anglo Australian Observatory 3.5m Telescope
Anglo Australian Observatory Schmidt Telescope
Centro Astronomico Hispano Aleman 3.5m Telescope
Centro Astronomico Hispano Aleman 2.2m Telescope
Canada France Hawaii Telescope 3.5m Telescope
La Silla 3.6m Telescope
La Silla 3.5m Telescope
La Silla 2.2m Telescope
Isaac Newton Group 4.2m Telescope
Isaac Newton Group 2.5m Telescope
UK Infrared Telescope 3.8m Telescope
TNG 3.5m Telescope
Nordic Optical Telescope 2.5m Telescope
Aristarchos 2.5m Telescope
Observatoire Haute Provence 1.9m Telescope
Telescope Bernard Lyot 2m Telescope
Telescopio Carlos Sancez 1.52m Telescope
THEMIS Solar Telescope
Swedish Solar Telescope Solar Telescope
Vacuum Tower Telescope Solar Telescope
Liverpool Telescope 2m Telescope
Dutch Open Telescope Solar Telescope
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Access Programme

• OPTICON and network telescopes will publicise
  their availability to non-national users.
• Same peer review committee, same standards (no
  special OPTICON TAC).
• Successful qualifying applicants will get travel
  support.
• Telescopes receive audited user fee

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Joint Research Projects

• JRA1 Adaptive Optics. (Norbert Hubin, ESO) AO
  for existing 8m such as VLT, GTC, LBT.
• JRA2 Fast Detectors for AO ( Phillipe Feautrier,
  F) Contract placed for detector
• JRA3 Optical Detectors for HTRA ( henk Spruit,
  D) EMCCDs for practical test bench, APD
  arrays, PN Sensors

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• JRA4 Interferometry (Alain Chelli, F) Next
  generation instruments for VLTI. 8 concepts being
  refined to a few phase As. Parallel meeting here
  at JENAM.
• JRA5 Smart Focal Planes (Colin Cunningham, UK)
  Micropositioners etc. Design concepts to be
  choosen late 05 to develop prototypes from
  2006-08
• JRA6VPH Gratings (Phillipo Zerbi, I) Prototype
  gratings in production

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JRA activities

• Details of each JRA is linked from the OPTICON
  web page
• In general they are not open to new partners as
  the contract is signed
• However, several of them have associated network
  activities to provide science input.

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I3 Forum

• A collaboration of all I3s to provide a
  common point of view to the commission.

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Forwards to FP7.

• FP7 proposal from the commission larger and
  longer than FP6.
• Similar thematic areas to FP6 for top down
  funding but precise budget and details of
  instruments still to be defined once EU budget
  for is clarified.
• Possible support for large infrastructures.

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Conclusion

• OPTICON has made real progress in co-ordination
  of Optical/IR astronomy
• All networks are open to new members
• A wide range of EU optical-IR-night-solar
  telescopes are wide open for new users
• Possibility to use these telescopes for teaching
  schemes (eg NEON- Dennefeld)
• The Future for European Collaboration is bright.

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Contacts

• WWW. www.astro-opticon.org
• E-mail. jkd_at_roe.ac.uk
• Phone [phone]
• Handouts, ELT brochure, overview paper etc can be
  downloaded from the web page.