Instrumentation and Spectral Surveys workshops

12-14 March 2024; Uppsala (Sweden) + Zoom
Workshops will be held at Ångström Laboratory, Uppsala University. All workshop meetings will take place place in room Å101127: https://link.mazemap.com/KaPClxXB

These workshops are primarily designed for doctoral students, postdoctoral researchers, and advanced master’s students specialising in astrophysics. Participation on-site is strongly advised. Limited number of participants can attend lectures online, priority will be given to the EXOHOST Consortium members. Funding for travel expenses is available only for EXOHOST consortium members.

Lecture slides can be found here.

WORKSHOP 1: INSTRUMENTATION AND PROPOSAL WRITING (12-13 March 2024)

This workshop is divided into 2 parts. Part 1 is dedicated to instrumentation and focuses on spectroscopy (basic functioning of spectrographs (long-slit, echelle, fiber/integral field), available instrumentation and its location (ESO, HST, JWST and other major ground-based observatories)). Part 2 focuses on the good practice of preparing observing proposals for various facilities.

Preliminary schedule:

Day 1 (12/03/2024; 14:30-18:00, 3.5 hours): Instrumentation

• 14:30-15:15 Introduction (Nikolai Piskunov)
  • Multi-object vs IFU spectrographs (4MOST/MUSE)
  • Spectrometers employing slit (CRIRES+), single-fiber (HARPS/ESPRESSO) and multi fiber (FLAMES)
  • Spectrometers employing echelle cross-dispersed optical elements
• 15:15-15:30 Spectral resolution, dispersion, signal-to-noise, use of AO (Nikolai Piskunov)
• 15:30-16:00 Introduction to astronomical detectors, with relevant observational and data reduction aspects (Nikolai Piskunov)
• 16:00-16:30 Break
• 16:30-17:30 Stellar spectroscopy with JWST (Erik Zackrisson)
• 17:30-18:00 Stellar spectroscopy with facilities reachable via Opticon (Nikolai Piskunov)

Day 2 (13/03/2024; 09:00-12:30, 3.5 hours): Preparing observation proposals

• 09:00-09:45 Stellar spectroscopy with ESO instrumentation (La Silla, Paranal, E-ELT) (Nikolai Piskunov)
• 09:45-10:30 Typical structure and content of observing proposals (Oleg Kochukhov)
• 10:30-11:00 Break
• 11:00-11:30 How to use S/N calculators in the context of observing proposals (Luca Fossati)
• 11:30-12:00 What happens to my proposal once it is submitted? (Luca Fossati)
• 12:00-12:30 What can go wrong? How to mitigate losses? Visitor vs service mode & backup targets  (Oleg Kochukhov)

WORKSHOP 2: SPECTRAL SURVEYS (13-14 March 2024)

This workshop focuses on presenting currently available and future spectral surveys and the opportunities they provide.

Preliminary schedule:

Day 1 (13/03/2024; 14:30-18:00, 3.5 hours): Spectral surveys

• 14:30-15:00 The PolarBase archive (Pascal Petit)
• 15:00-16:00 Typical survey: proposal and observations (Adam Rains)
• 16:00-16:30 Break
• 16:30-17:00 Typical survey: data reduction, statistical analysis and iterative improvements (Adam Rains)
• 17:00-17:30 Surveys: 1 RAVE, 2 Gaia-ESO, 3 APOGEE, 4 GALAH, 5 LAMOST, 6 WEAVE, Gaia-RVS, 4MOST, PFS, [MOONS, MSE]
  • NB! The participants are asked to read a section of the following article before the workshop: Accuracy and Precision of Industrial Stellar Abundances (Paula Jofré, Ulrike Heiter, and Caroline Soubiran; 2019, Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics 57, 571 / link). Section 4.2. Chemical Abundances of Spectroscopic Surveys, starting on page 596 (page 26 in PDF file), 9 pages.
  • At the session, participants take turns to give a short oral presentation (without any slides) about each subsection of the section, covering 5 individual surveys separately and a few others together (see list above). [~20 min] A sign-up sheet will be distributed during Workshop 1. This is followed by a discussion. [~10 min]
• 17:30-18:00 The Virtual Observatory (JJ Kavelaars)

Day 2 (14/03/2024; 09:00-12:00, 3 hours): Discussions (Mihkel Kama)

• 09:00-10:30 Discussions
• 10:30-11:00 Break
• 11:00-12:00 Discussions

The workshop is financed by the EU Horizon Europe Twinning project EXOHOST (101079231) and UK Research and Innovation (10051045).

Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or European Research Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.