HTN IV
From TelescopeNets
Las Cumbres Observatory, Santa Barbara, California
Call for Proposals opens June 1, closes July 25 2008
Science Session: July 30 - August 1 2008
Technology Implementation: August 4 - 6 2008
| Table of contents |
Aim
To answer the question "What is the key science the HTN is going to achieve this year?", determine the details required to implement that science, and to build momentum by beginning work on that implementation.
The Meeting
We are at an important point in the evolution of the HTN. We have established standard protocols and languages for querying service availability, communicating observing requests, and receiving ongoing feedback about observation progress. We have also specified the minimum requirements for joining the HTN network.
To date, all of this has been prototyped using a network of three robotic telescopes: the two Faulkes Telescopes (http://faulkes-telescope.com/telescopes/overview) owned and operated by Las Cumbres Observatory (http://www.lcogt.net), and the Liverpool Telescope (http://telescope.livjm.ac.uk/), run by the ARI (http://www.astro.ljmu.ac.uk/) at Liverpool John Moores University (http://www.ljmu.ac.uk/). The software layer that allows these three telescopes to operate as a network has been provided by the eSTAR project (http://estar.org.uk) at the University of Exeter (http://www.astro.ex.ac.uk), which implements a fully compliant HTN interface. This network is currently running two major science projects (http://www.estar.org.uk/wiki/index.php/Deployment), a GRB followup programme and an exoplanet search programme based on microlensing. Additionally, the network was used to prove the prototype reactive variability study proposed and agreed at the second HTN meeting.
The next steps are clear. We need to identify interesting, high priority science that can leverage our network, and we need to make that science happen. Depending on what is achieved, outcomes from the meeting may be published in a refereed journal.
We'd like to reiterate that the implementation session, which runs from the 4th-6th of August, is for coding. There are no talks or generic discussions planned for these days! Pizza or equivalent will be provided for all hardworking programmers.
Format
This meeting of the HTN working group comprises two distinct three day sessions, the first science-based, and the second focussed on implementation, separated by the weekend 2nd/3rd August.
The novel experiment for answering the aim of the meeting is to hold a competition for a proposal that will be ranked on three axes:
- i) How scientifically interesting it is
- ii) How much it utilises the HTN concept
- iii) How hard it is to implement
The proposals will be evaluated during the science meeting. The best proposal will be awarded telescope time, and the second session of the meeting will be devoted to implementing whatever is required to make the proposal work.
Agenda
The provisional agenda for the science meeting is as follows:
- Project talks (Wed morning)
- Discussion: current HTN status, and where we go next (Wed afternoon)
- TAC process for proposals (Thursday)
- Other - splinter sessions, etc. (Friday)
In the table below, initials in brackets indicate the nominal chair for that session.
| Wednesday 30th July | Thursday 31st July | Friday 1st August | |
| 9.00 | Welcome (TB) | Evaluate proposals (TV) | RTML (ES) |
| 9.30 | State of the HTN (ES) | ||
| 10.00 | Project talks (ES) | ||
| 10.30 | |||
| 11.00 | COFFEE | COFFEE | COFFEE |
| 11.30 | Project talks (ES) | Evaluate proposals (TV) | Users (RS) |
| 12.00 | |||
| 12.30 | |||
| 13.00 | LUNCH | LUNCH | LUNCH |
| 13.30 | |||
| 14.00 | Facility tour (TB) | Implementation requirements (MB) | Grid markets: go or no go? (MH) |
| 14.30 | How useful is a network? (TB) | ||
| 15.00 | |||
| 15.30 | |||
| 16.00 | COFFEE | COFFEE | COFFEE |
| 16.30 | |||
| 17.00 | |||
| 17.30 | Adjourn | Adjourn | Adjourn |
| Evening | Conference dinner |
The agenda for the technology session largely depends on the outcome of the proposal evaluation process, but the general idea is to provide an informal atmosphere for programmers from the different stakeholders to collaborate closely to implement the successful idea, and to work on HTN infrastructure or related problems.
Update: conference dinner
The conference dinner will be held on Thursday, July 31st, at The Fish House (http://www.sbfishhouse.com/fishouse/index.html), across from the beach in downtown Santa Barbara. I'm told they do serve things other than fish! We'll be meeting there at 18.30.
Location
The meeting will be held at the Las Cumbres Observatory (http://www.lcogt.net) building, located on the outskirts of Santa Barbara (http://www.santabarbaraca.gov/Visitor/), in sunny California. The full address is
Las Cumbres Observatory 6740 Cortona Dr. Suite 102 Santa Barbara, CA 93117 USA
There is a local airport, and there are frequent internal flights from Los Angeles International (LAX). There is also an excellent airport shuttle bus service (http://www.santabarbaraairbus.com/lax/index.php) from LAX to Santa Barbara. Alternatively, Santa Barbara is on the Pacific Surfliner Amtrk Route (http://www.amtrak.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=Amtrak/am2Route/Vertical_Route_Page&c=am2Route&cid=1081256322013&ssid=132) offering twelve daily round-trip journeys between San Diego and Los Angeles, and between Santa Barbara and San Diego.
We have reserved a block of rooms at the Holiday Inn in Goleta, partway between the LCO building and Santa Barbara itself. Please contact them directly, quoting "Las Cumbres Observatory" to confirm your reservation. The details are:
Holiday Inn Santa Barbara - Goleta (http://www.ichotelsgroup.com/h/d/hi/1/en/hotel/sbaca) 5650 Calle Real Santa Barbara, CA 93117 USA
Tel: +1-805-9646241
Rooms are US$179 per night, and will be held until July 15th. You are of course free to find alternative accomodation if you wish, some of the POC are booked into the Eagle Inn (http://www.theeagleinn.com/) in downtown Santa Barbara proper. If you have any problems or questions regarding accomodation, or need further help or advice, please contact our executive assistant Nan Brooks (mailto:nbrooks@lcogt.net) on +1-805-880-1603. If you could let Nan know when you have booked your room, that would be helpful.
We will be providing transportation to and from the hotel to the LCO building each day. Lunch will be provided each day. If there are a few of you coming, you may find renting a car convenient, particularly if you plan to stay over the weekend. Depending on how many people book into the Holiday Inn (http://www.ichotelsgroup.com/h/d/hi/1/en/hotel/sbaca), we may provide transport to Santa Barbara proper each evening to for dinner (http://www.santabarbaraca.com/restaurants/).
Over the course of the meeting a major carnival, "Old Spanish Days (http://www.oldspanishdays-fiesta.org)", is going on in Santa Barbara. While this has made finding appropriate accommodation somewhat challenging, there are lots of events (http://www.oldspanishdays-fiesta.org/calendar.htm) going on while we're there, which should make things interesting. Viva la Fiesta!
Gap Fire near Goleta
Due to the expansion of the Gap Fire (http://www.ksby.com/Global/category.asp?C=141597), the County of Santa Barbara proclaimed a local state of emergency (http://www.countyofsb.org/uploadedFiles/ceo/EOCGap080081procemerg.pdf) at 9:55pm Wednesday evening, July 2, 2008. After a series of rolling blackouts power to LCO is back on. The fire is now 90% contained, with isolated smoldering. We will be going ahead with the meeting as planned. (Updated 15th July 2008)
- Active Fires Map (http://activefiremaps.fs.fed.us/kml/conus.kmz)
(http://activefiremaps.fs.fed.us/kml/conus.kmz) from the US Forest Service.
- The Santa Barbara Independent Twitter Feed (http://twitter.com/sbinde).
- KSBY 6 Action News reports on the Gap Fire (http://www.ksby.com/Global/category.asp?C=141597).