2nd HTN Workshop
From TelescopeNets
July 23-26, 2006 in the Institut für Astrophysik, Göttingen, Germany
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Aims
- Interoperability between service and robotic telescope observatories
- Interoperability with the Virtual Observatory (VO)
- Establishment of an e-market for the exchange of telescope time
The Workshop
This is the second workshop aimed at interoperability between the existing proprietary service and robotic telescopes and telescope networks and with the emerging Virtual Observatory (VO) infrastructure. The first workshop, held in Exeter/UK in July 2005, set the stage for real progress by bringing together representatives of a variety of projects who were able to agree on a draft protocol for querying and exchanging information.
This time, we will concentrate on the next steps needed to actually implement an HTN: e.g.
- Identifying projects/observatories interested in joining a more homogeneous near-term test network and a truly heterogeneous intermediate-term network
- Implementation of the actual protocol on the basis of Remote Telescope Markup Language (RTML)
- Definition of a minimum entry-level participation level (software, services, resources)
- Implementation of resource publication for the interested parties
- Discussion of an e-market broker model
- Discussion of different architectures ( agents, portals, software tools) and client bases (research, educational, amateur, commercial)
- Interfacing with VO and VOEvent
- Presentation of the results of early network tests
as well as having time to hear about experiences with other network models, projects, telescopes, etc.
Format & Programme
Following the great experience in Exeter, the mornings will be reserved for talks and the afternoons for general discussion or breakout sessions. We meet informally on Sunday evening at 6 PM in a local restaurant. Registration is on Monday morning. The workshop will end late Wednesday afternoon.
The programme can be found here.
Location
The conference will be held in the Institut für Astrophysik (http://www.astro.physik.uni-goettingen.de) of the Faculty of Physics at the north campus of the Georg-August-Universität in Göttingen. See Maps and Bus Schedules for information about how to get from downtown Göttingen to the Physics building.
Life in Göttingen is dominated by the University: 24,000 of the city's 130,000 inhabitants are students. The city was first mentioned as the small village "Gutingi" near the imperial castle at Grona in 953 A.D, became a bustling member of the Hanseatic League during the middle ages, but was nearly turned into a ghost town by the ravages of the Thirty Years War. After the founding of the University in 1737, Göttingen quickly became one of the worlds leading research and teaching centers, boasting such mathematicians and physicists as Max Born, Peter Debye, Carl Friedrich Gauss, Otto Hahn, David Hilbert, James Franck, Felix Klein, Hermann Minkowski, Ludwig Prantl, Bernhard Riemann, Karl Schwarzschild, and Wilhelm Weber. Despite the intellectual devastation of the faculty by the Nazis, Göttingen recovered and remains a major research center with the University, four Max-Planck-Institutes, an aerospace research center of the Deutsche Luft und Raumfahrt Agentur (DLR), and a group of bustling high-tech industries which have given themselves the name "Measurement Valley". Largely preserved despite the ravages of the Thirty Years War is the charming old city center - the "Altstadt" - with its half-timbered houses, medieval churches and city hall, and Gauss's classical observatory building.
Göttingen is located on the main highway and express train line between Frankfurt and Hannover and hence is easily reached by car or express train (ICE). The Hannover and Frankfurt international airports are relatively nearby (about 1 and 2 hours away via train, respectively) and are served by all major airlines.
Organisation
There will be a small workshop registration charge to cover the costs of an evening grill party, general refreshments, and materials (about EUR 30-40).
The participants will be responsible for making their own travel and hotel arrangements. A contingent of rooms was originally available for workshop participants at the 4-star Best Western Hotel "Am Papenberg" (http://www.papenberg.bestwestern.de) within easy walking distance of the Institute. If you're lucky, you might still get the special rate of 80 Euros/night (single), including a generous breakfast buffet, which was offered until June: when reserving a room, mention the "HTN Workshop". Several reasonably priced hotels are located directly in the old city, e.g. Hotel Central (http://www.hotel-central.com) or Hotel Stadt Hannover (http://www.hotelstadthannover.de). A variety of other hotels, a youth hostel (18,- EUR/night), and scores of pubs and restaurants are available downtown via a short bus, taxi, or car ride.
Lunch is available at the university cafeteria or at the "CaPHY", the physics cafe. A grill party Monday night and a sandwich lunch Tuesday is included in the registration fee - the details will be published later.
Scientific Organizing Committee
Dr. Alasdair Allan, Exeter/UK
Dr. Frederic V. Hessman, Göttingen/DE
Mr. Robert White, Los Alamos National Laboratory/USA
Registration
Registration is very informal: we ask that interested persons immediately contact the SOC at the address below so that we can plan. Please indicate if you would like to give a short talk or poster; a list of your own topics of interest would also be very helpful.
Dr. Frederic V. Hessman
Institut für Astrophysik
Friedrich-Hund-Str. 1
37077 Göttingen
Tel. +49-551-39-5052, -5042
Fax +49-551-39-5043
Hessman AT Astro.physik.Uni-Goettingen.DE
Participants
Links & Information
- [1] (http://www.astro.physik.uni-goettingen.de)Institut für Astrophysik, Göttingen
- [2] (http://www.papenberg.bestwestern.de)Best Western Hotel "Am Papenberg" : Telephone: +49-551-30550, Fax: +49-551-3055400, Email: info AT papenberg.bestwestern.de
- [3] (http://www.goettingen-tourismus.de/english/index.html)Göttingen Tourist Information (hotels, restaurants, etc.)
- [4] (http://www.bahn.de)Train connections to and from Göttingen