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

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

• Five year contract for 19,200,000 Euro +

substantial national matching funds starting 1 January 2004

• 6 JRA’s approved (~11 Me + extra national funds)• 22 Telescope network approved. (~5.5Me)• Most networking activities endorsed after some

consolidation (~3 Me incl Management)

The Contract

ManagementOPTICON 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

JRA’s and some networks have internal management

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)

OPTICON I3 Networking• N2: Structuring the ENO (ORM + Izana)• N3:Structuring 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)

• N4:Fellowships 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_

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.

• 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.

• 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

The Telescope NetworkAnglo 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

• 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’

Access Programme

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) : EMCCD’s for practical test bench, APD arrays, PN Sensors

• JRA4: Interferometry (Alain Chelli, F): Next generation instruments for VLTI. 8 concepts being refined to a few phase A’s. 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

• JRA6:VPH Gratings (Phillipo Zerbi, I): Prototype gratings in production

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.

I3 Forum

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

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.

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.

Contacts

WWW. www.astro-opticon.org

E-mail. jkd@roe.ac.uk

Phone 44-131-668-8348

Handouts, ELT brochure, overview paper etc can be downloaded from the web page.