Program Overview - Austrian Academy of SciencesA. Russell, ESO Instrumentation Programme (invited)...

Program Overview

Monday, December 14, 2015

Session 1: 02:30 p.m. – 04:30 p.m.:

H. O. Rucker, Welcome addressA. Hanslmeier, High resolution solar observations at the Observatory delTeide, TenerifeP. Cubillos et al., Characterizing exoplanet atmospheres with multi-wavelengthtransmission observationsM. Khodachenko et al., Virtual observatory tools within the EU-projectIMPEx-FP7 and beyondT. Zhang & R. Nakamura, Insitu space plasma observations in our solarsystem

04:30 p.m. – 04:45 p.m.: Coffee break

Session 2: 04:45 p.m. – 06:30 p.m.:

A. Russell, ESO Instrumentation Programme (invited)N. Przybilla & M. Urbaneja, Extragalactic stellar astronomy with the E-ELT: instrumentational requirementsO. Reimer, Cherenkov Telescope Array - Science Prospects & Status

End of symposium day 1

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Tuesday, December 15, 2015

Session 3: 09:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.:

W. Zeilinger, The Austrian contribution to the European -Extremely Large TelescopeO. Czoske, The MICADO Instrument Data SimulatorR. Köhler, The METIS Data Reduction PipelineM. Güdel et al., Stars and planets from space: unveiling stellar environ-ments using space instrumentation

11:00 a.m. – 11:15 a.m.: Coffee break

Session 4: 11:15 a.m. – 01:00 p.m.:

A. Peter, Space Science and Robotic Exploration in Austria, activities fundedby the national agency - FFG-ALR (invited)F. Kerschbaum & R. Ottensamer, On-board intelligence for space tele-scopesR. Ramlau, From Adaptive Optics to PSF reconstruction

01:00 p.m. – 02:00 p.m.: Lunch break

Session 5: 02:00 p.m. – 04:00 p.m.:

O. Koudelka & K. Zwinz, Science with the BRITE-Constellation MissionM. Panchenko et al., Low-frequency radio astronomy in Ukraine: UTR-2,URAN and GURT radio telescopesG. Mann, Observation of the Sun with the radio telescopeLOFARH. O. Rucker, Low Frequency Array (LOFAR): The FrenchLOFAR Super Station

04:00 p.m. – 04:15 p.m.: Coffee break

Session 6: 04:15 p.m. – 06:15 p.m.:

T. Ratzka, METIS and MATISSE - New insights into the formation of plan-ets in the mid-infraredW. Kausch, Methods for sky correction in astronomical spectroscopyO. Dionatos, Parallel lives: The development of long wavelength instru-mentation and star-formation studies.J. Alves et al., Gaia-Austria

End of symposium day 2

Abstracts

High resolution solar observations at theObservatory del Teide, Tenerife

A. Hanslmeier (1)

(1) Institute of Physics, Department for Geophysics, Astrophysics and Meteorology,University of Graz, A-8010 Graz, Austria

In this presentation I first give an overview on existing high resolution solar telescopesat de Observatory del teide and then give new results from an observing campaign Ihad under the EU-SOLARNET program in Sep. 2015. During this observation cam-paign where I was PI we did a tomography of the solar photosphere lower chromo-sphere. These data enable to study the propagation of wavelike disturbances andtheir dissipation through this region in the solar atmosphere.

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Characterizing exoplanet atmospheres with multi-wavelength transmission observations

P. Cubillos (1,2) J. Harrington (1,2) J. Blecic (2,3)

(1) Space Research Institute, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Schmiedlstrasse 6, A-8042 Graz, Austria

(2) Planetary Sciences Group, Department of Physics, University of Central Florida,Orlando, FL 32816-2385, USA.

(3) New York University, Abu Dhabi, UAE.

Photometric time-series observations of transiting exoplanets allow us to characterizethe atmospheric properties of these planets. The transit and eclipse depths reveal theplanetary size and emission at a given wavelength. Thus, through the combination ofmulti-wavelength data, from the optical to the infrared spectrum, we can probe thethermochemical atmospheric structure of an exoplanet.

Here I will present the open-source Bayesian Atmospheric Radiative Transfer code(BART, https://github.com/exosports/BART). This retrieval code constrains the at-mospheric abundances and temperature profiles given the existing space and ground-based data, in a statistically robust manner. I will discuss the key components ofthe BART components: the Thermochemical Equilibrium Abundances code, to calcu-late species mixing ratios; the one-dimensional line-by-line radia-tive-transfer code,to calculate transmission or emission spectra; and the statistical package, to estimatebest-fitting parameters and posterior sampling using Bayesian principles. I will showthe results of the BART retrieval for the HAT-P-11b transmission observations from theSpitzer and Hubble space telescopes.

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https://github.com/exosports/BART

Virtual observatory tools within the EU-projectIMPEx-FP7 and beyond

M. Khodachenko (1), T. Al-Ubaidi (1), M. Scherf (1),


The FP7-SPACE project IMPEx (http://impex-fp7.oeaw.ac.at) was established asa result of scientific collaboration between research teams from Austria, Finland,France, and Russia, working on the integration of a set of data mining, analysis andmodeling tools in the field of space plasma and planetary physics. The primary goalof the project was to bridge the gap between spacecraft measurements and up-to-datecomputational models of planetary environments, enabling their joint operation for abetter understanding of related physical phenomena. The project ended in May 2015,even exceeding the expectations of the European Commission in some areas.

The presentation provides an overview of the IMPEx project, including its key achieve-ments, the IMPEx Protocol and the SPASE (Space Physics Archive Search and Extract)based IMPEx Simulation Data Model. The practical aspects of the IMPEx environmentare demonstrated using the IMPEx Portal as a hub, allowing to access a comprehensiveset of simulation databases in combination with powerful IMPEx enabled tools andapplications as e.g. AMDA or 3DView. The presentation concludes with an outlookon possible future applications including a discussion on potential follow-up projects,taking the initial idea of IMPEx to the next level by e.g. integrating powerful cloudbased resources via a scientific service bus.

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http://impex-fp7.oeaw.ac.at

Insitu space plasma observations in our solar sys-tem

T. Zhang (1), R. Nakamura (1)


Plasma processes in our solar system can be studied from direct measurements ofthe particles as well as electro-magnetic field onboard spacecraft orbiting aroundthe Earth and other planets. The Space Research Institute (Institut fÃ1

4r Weltraum-

forschung, IWF) participated in a number of missions by building space-qualified in-struments, analyzing and interpreting the data returned by these instruments, withsupport from theoretical studies. In this talk we present in-situ observations fromseveral recent missions such as Cluster, MMS, and Venus Express, highlighting IWFcontribution to hardware, software and scientific outcomes.

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ESO Instrumentation Programme (invited)

A. Russel (1)

(1) European Southern Observatory

Abstract to be announced

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Extragalactic stellar astronomy with the E-ELT:instrumentational requirements

N. Przybilla (1), M. Urbaneja (1)

(1) Institute for Astro- and Particle Physics, University of Innsbruck, Technikerstraße25/8, A-6020 Innsbruck, Austria

A- to M-type supergiant stars are primary targets for the study of young stellar pop-ulations because of their enormous luminosities and their relatively rich metal-linespectra. Future diffraction-limited near-IR observations with the E-ELT will allow in-dividual objects out to the Virgo and Fornax clusters of galaxies to be studied. Thiswill facilitate massive star evolution for a wide range of metallicities to be studied andsystematic investigations of the chemical evolution of all kinds of actively star-forminggalaxies of the Hubble sequence to be undertaken. We discuss the instrumentationalrequirements for this science case on the E-ELT, with a focus on the first-light instru-ment MICADO and the prospects for the multi-object spectrograph MOSAIC.

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Cherenkov Telescope Array - Science Prospects &Status

O. Reimer (1)


The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) will be the future international observatoryfor very high energy (VHE) gamma ray astronomy. Following the success of presentexperiments like H.E.S.S., MAGIC and VERITAS, the consequent next step requiredastrophysicists worldwide to join forces for an instrument with considerably higherperformance, operating at two sites in the Northern and Southern hemisphere. Forthe first time in this field, CTA will be operated as an open observatory. The pre-sentation will review the science goals and prospects of CTA, the performance of theinstrument, and the status of design and prototyping. Special emphasis is given tothe Austrian participation in the construction of a fully-digital photomultiplier-tubebased camera (FlashCam) for the medium-sized telescopes in CTA.

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The Austrian contribution to the European -Extremely Large Telescope

W. Zeilinger (1)

(1) Department for Astrophysics, University of Vienna, Türkenschanz-straße 17, A-1180 Wien, Austria

The European - Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT) will be the world largest near-infrared telescope and will gather 13 times more light than the largest optical tele-scopes existing today. The E-ELT will be able to correct for the atmospheric distor-tions, providing images 16 times sharper than those from the Hubble Space Telescope.The E-ELT will vastly advance our astrophysical knowledge. First light of the telescopeis planned in 2024 with 3 instruments (HARMONI, MICADO and METIS). A fourthinstrument (MOSAIC) is presently in the design phase.

An overview is given on the Austrian contributions to three E-ELT instruments (MI-CADO, METIS and MOSAIC) in the areas of science programs and science softwaredevelopment. The Austrian consortium consists of astrophysicists of the UniversitiesGraz, Innsbruck and Vienna and applied mathematicians from the University of Linzand the Radon Institute for Computational and Applied Mathematics.

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The MICADO Instrument Data Simulator

O. Czoske (1)


MICADO is the near-infrared imaging and spectroscopy instrument for the EuropeanExtremely Large Telescope (E-ELT). Within the instrument consortium, Austria con-tributes in close collaboration with NOVA (NL) to the data-flow work package, and isin particular responsible for the development of an instrument data simulator. Thissimulator integrates results from detailed simulations of the various instrument sub-systems into a realistic model of the instrument as a whole. The goal is to producesimulated detector frames, incorporating all relevant factors that affect the data qual-ity and format. In this talk I will highlight the pivotal role that the instrument sim-ulator plays in the development of the instrument hardware and the data processingsoftware as well as in shaping the science cases for MICADO. I will briefly describethe current status and future plans for the development of the simulator.

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The METIS Data Reduction Pipeline

R. Köhler (1,2)



METIS is the Mid-Infrared Imager and Spectrograph for the European ExtremelyLarge Telescope (E-ELT). It will feature diffraction-limited imaging, low/mid reso-lution slit spectroscopy and high resolution integral field spectroscopy at wavelengthsof 3 - 19 µm (L/M/N/Q1 Bands). The A∗ consortium is responsible for developing thedata reduction software for the instrument.

The data reduction pipeline is supposed to run in different environments and withdifferent objectives. At the telescope itself, the pipeline will run in fully automaticmode, in order to provide real-time quality checks of the data. At ESO Garching,the pipeline has to run mostly automatic and with the goal to provide science-graderesults. Finally, the pipeline will also be made available for the end users, who requirean interactive interface to the software that allows them to tweak many parameters,in order to optimize the scientific quality of the results.

We will describe our approach to develop a pipeline for these different applicationareas in the framework of ESO pipeline standards.

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Stars and planets from space: unveiling stellar en-vironments using space instrumentation

M. Güdel (1), C. Baldovin (1) O. Dionatos (1) F. Kerschbaum (1)T. Lüftinger (1)


Space observatories open up full access to the electromagnetic spectrum for astro-nomical observations. The advantages are numerous: access to embedded sourcesbehind large columns of dust and gas (at infrared and X-ray wavelengths), probingthe complete temperature range from cold dust and gas to exceedingly hot plasmas,and seeing-free monitoring of extremely faint objects. We have built up strong, coher-ent activities at the Department of Astrophysics/University of Vienna to contribute tospace instrumentation and related science activities; our goal is to specifically investi-gate the formation and evolution of stellar environments from embedded protostars,protostellar disks, radiation environments of young main-sequence stars, forming andevolving planetary systems to the final fate of mass-losing giants. This presentationprovides a short overview of past and present space-related science activities of thegroup and describes our strategies for the next decade in space astronomy. Specif-ically, we will present selected activities related to Herschel, the James Webb SpaceTelescope, and SPICA (infrared), CHEOPS, PLATO and ARIEL (optical/infrared forexoplanets), and XMM-Newton, Athena, SMILE, and ARAGO (UV and X-rays), to allof which we have contributed or will contribute payload components.

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Space Science and Robotic Exploration in Austria,activities funded by the national agency - FFG-ALR (invited)

A. Peter (1)

(1) Österreichische Forschungsförderungsgesellschaft (FFG), Sensengasse 1, A-1090,Vienna, Austria

Overview of the industrial and scientific activities in the ESA Science Programme andthe ESA Robotic Exploration Programmes, outlook on the missions planned in thenear future. Budgets and funding possibilities for Austrian science and instrumentactivities from the national agency FFG-ALR in the national programme ASAP and atESA.

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On-board intelligence for space telescopes

F. Kerschbaum (1), R. Ottensamer (1)


Space missions and in particular space observatories have a growing demand for com-plex computing and control subsystems owing to increasing sizes of detector arraysand higher degrees of autonomous functions. These are in conflict with limited pro-cessing power, telemetry data rates or other critical budgets. Already two decadesago, the Department of Astrophysics established a research group on On-board in-telligence for space telescopes. The on-board data compression system for the PACSinstrument of ESA’s corner stone mission Herschel was the first big success. The talkwill highlight past, current and future projects, outline the challenges in the field andportrays the developed expertise of the research group.

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From Adaptive Optics to PSF reconstruction

R. Ramlau (1)

(1) Industrial Mathematics Institute, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Altenberger-straße 69, A-4040, Linz, Austria

Objects on the sky appear blurred when observed by a ground based telescope dueto diffraction of light and turbulence in the atmosphere. The relation between thereal object and its observed image can be described mathematically with the so calledpoint spread function (PSF). Even though the to-be-built generation of extremelylarge telescopes (ELTs) use adaptive optics (AO) systems to reduce the effects of theatmosphere, still some residual blurring remains. The PSF serves as quality measurefor the AO system and thus needs to be very accurate. As the PSF cannot be measureddirectly, a reconstruction form the data of the AO system is necessary.

The basic ideas of AO and its algorithms, used to correct for the atmospheric tur-bulence, are presented. These are needed for the reconstruction of the PSF, wherea new algorithm is developed to perform the reconstruction very fast. Finally, theobtained PSF is a good estimate of the real PSF and can be used for further imageimprovement.

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Science with the BRITE-Constellation Mission

O. Koudelka (1), K. Zwinz (1)


(s) Institute for Astro- and Particle Physics, University of Innsbruck, Technikerstraße25/8, A-6020 Innsbruck, Austria

BRITE Constellation is the world’s first nanosatellite mission dedicated to asteroseis-mology. It consists of five satellites (two from Austria, two from Poland and one fromCanada).

The scientific objective of BRITE-Constellation is to measure low-level oscillationsand temperature variations in stars brighter than 4th magnitude in order to studystellar pulsations, spots on the stellar surface, and granulation, detect planets aroundmassive stars, and enlarge the base of proven constant photometric standard stars.The BRITE-Constellation multi-color photometric time series allows us to investigatedetails of the internal structure for different types of stars in all stages of their evolu-tion.

The Austrian BRITE satellites are now in orbit for 33 months showing excellent healthstatus, meeting the scientific requirements. The technical part of the presentationfocuses in particular on the telescope, attitude control and data communications per-formances and the operational procedures which have led to a science data returnexceeding the original specifications by far.

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Low-frequency radio astronomy in Ukraine: UTR-2, URAN and GURT radio telescopes.

M. Panchenko (1) A. A. Konovalenko (2) H. O. Rucker (3)


(2) Institute of Radio Astronomy, Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, Chervonopraporna4, 61002, Kharkiv, Ukraine

(3) Commission for Astronomy, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Schmiedlstrasse 6, A-8042 Graz, Austria

We present the current status of the low-frequency radio astronomy network in Ukraine.The modern large radio telescopes UTR-2, URAN VLBI system and new array systemGURT are described. UTR-2 is a T-shape telescope located near Kharkov in north-eastUkraine. UTR-2 has the world’s largest antenna array operated in the decameter fre-quency range 8–32 MHz. Its huge collecting area consists of 2040 antennas in twoarms North-South (1800 x 60 m) and East-West (900 x 60 m). Each of these arms canbe operated independently providing multi-beam capability. The collective area ofthe UTR-2 is 150 000 m2, the sensitivity is better than 10 Jy (Jansky) and the angu-lar resolution is 25 arcminutes at 25 MHz. URAN is decametric VLBI network whichincludes four radio telescopes URAN-1, URAN-2, URAN-3 and URAN-4 operated inthe frequencyrange of 8–32 MHz. The largest telescope of URAN system is URAN-2(Poltava, Ukraine) decametric array which consists of 512 crossed dipoles with aneffective area of 28 000 m2 and beam pattern size of 3.5 x 7 degrees (at 25 MHz).The estimated sensitivity of the instrument is ∼100 Jy. URAN-2 is able to measure alinear and circular polarization of radio signal. GURT - Giant Ukrainian Radio Tele-scope is currently developed on basis of the UTR-2 telescope. The antenna systemwill consist of phased antenna sub-arrays, each of 5 x 5 active crossed dipoles. GURTwill be operated at the frequency range from 8–80 MHz. The main goal of GURT ishigh sensitive,broad-band, high time and frequency resolution. All the telescopes areequipped with several high-quality wave form receivers and digital spectrometers pro-viding the observations with high temporal and frequency resolution. The Ukrainianlow frequency telescopes can be used in a synergy with other existing low-frequencyarrays such as LOFAR, LWA1 and NenuFAR as well as a part of ground-based supportfor spaceborne radio instruments.

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Observations of the Sun with the radio telescopeLOFAR

G. Mann (1)

(1) Astrophysikalisches Institut Potsdam, An der Sternwarte 16,14482 Potsdam, Germany

LOFAR (Low Frequency Array) is a novel radio interferometer originally designed forthe frequency range 10-240 MHz at ASTRON in the Netherlands. It presently con-sists of 50 stations distributed over central Europe. It is operated as the InternationalLOFAR Telescope (ILT) by several European countries. The radio signals of each in-dividual station are transferred via a high data rate link to ASTRON, where they arecorrelated to a radio map of sky.

Since the radio emission of active processes of the Sun takes place in LOFAR’s fre-quency range and because of LOFAR’s imaging and spectroscopic capabilities, LOFARis highly interesting for the solar physics community for observing flares, coronalmass ejections and related phenomena in the corona. Hence, the science with LO-FAR is coordinated in terms of the key science project (KSP) "Solar Physics and SpaceWeather with LOFAR". 32 scientists from 10 European countries, as Austria for in-stance, participate in this KSP. We report on first observations of the Sun with LOFARand demonstrate that LOFAR is really able to work as a dynamic spectroscopic radioimager of the Sun. This allows for the first time to track a fast moving electron beamin the corona. That provides a better understanding of the nature of type III radiobursts as discussed.

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Low Frequency Array (LOFAR): The French LO-FAR Super Station

H.O. Rucker (1)

(1) Commission for Astronomy, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Schmiedlstrasse 6, A-8042 Graz, Austria

The French LOFAR Super Station (LSS), called NenuFAR, is an extension of the stan-dard Nancay LOFAR station (FR606) and will cover frequencies between ∼10 to 85MHz (compared to the 30–80 MHz range of LOFAR) extending down to the terrestrialionospheric cutoff frequency. NenuFAR will be a LOFAR-compatible "super-Low BandArray" station of LOFAR with high sensitivity, but also a stand-alone radio telescope.

The science objectives among others comprise pulsars and Rotating Radio Transients(RRATs), the structure of Galactic Interstellar Medium (ISM), search for exoplanetsand Solar system physics [Zarka et al., 2012]. The presentation provides an overviewof this instrument under development, compares the parameters with existing radiotelescopes and indicates the high value of radio astronomy in general.

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METIS and MATISSE - New insights into the for-mation of planets in the mid-infrared

T. Ratzka (1)

(1) Institute of Physics, Department for Geophysics, Astrophysics and Meteorology,University of Graz, A-8010 Graz, Austria

The mid-infrared wavelength regime is ideally suited to study the warm circumstellardisks around young stellar objects. Already now a variety of signatures of planetformation have been found, from the growth of dust grains to the gaps created byorbiting protoplanets. But nowadays obervations are still limited.

In this talk a brief introduction of the second-generation mid-infrared interferomet-ric instrument MATISSE of the Very Large Telescope Interferometer and the first-generation instrument METIS of the European Extremely Large Telescope will begiven. Both instruments allow imaging and spectroscopy over a wide wavelengthrange and with highest spatial and spectral resolution.

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Methods for sky correction in astronomical spec-troscopy

W. Kausch (1)


Observations taken with ground based telescopes are unavoidably influenced by theEarth’s atmosphere. Scattering and absorption of the light from astronomical targetsas well as the emission arising within the atmosphere influence any spectroscopicmeasurements. The main problem is the high variability of these influences makingcalibration a highly demanding issue.

Up to now, it was necessary to use specific supplementary observations to take thisinto account. This approach is very expensive in terms of telescope time as thesecalibration frames have to be taken during night time, partly even directly before orafter the science observations.

Within the framework of the ESO in-kind contribution we developed algorithms,which use a theoretical approach for the correction of the sky signature. In this talkwe give an overview on these methods.

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Parallel lives: The development of long wave-length instrumentation and star-formation studies.

Dionatos O. (1)


The development of new instruments and techniques has often a catalytic role inshaping and promoting particular fields of astrophysics. The formation of stars inparticular, is a characteristic case reflecting exactly this interdependence. Almostevery new development in the infrared and submillimeter instrumentation has beenfollowed by at least one major breakthrough in our understanding, promoting star-formation studies as one of the major fields in contemporary astrophysics. In thistalk we will discuss how recent developments in long-wavelength instrumentationshape the current themes in the field. We will focus on the activities of the Star andPlanet formation group and the Department of Astrophysics, University of Vienna,emphasizing our efforts to maximize the scientific outcome by promoting synergiesbetween current and future facilities, data archives and state-of-the-art models.

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Gaia-Austria

J. Alves (1), R. Ramlau (2), P. Teixeira (1), A. Obereder (1), G. Auzinger (1), J. For-brich (1), A. Hacar (1)


(2) Industrial Mathematics Institute, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Altenberger-straße 69, A-4040, Linz, Austria


The main goal of the ESA Gaia mission and aquiring data is to make the largest,most precise three-dimensional map of our Galaxy by surveying an unprecedented 1billion of Milky Way stars. Gaia was successfully launched in December 2013 and hasaccumulated so far more than 340 billion positional or astrometric measurements, 68billion brightness or photometric data points, and 6.7 billion spectra, and will haveits first data release during the Summer of 2016. In this brief talk we will presentthe current plan of the work that will be developed in Austria as part of Gaia’s DPACCoordination Unit 9, namely the visualization of the Gaia Archive.

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Program Overview - Austrian Academy of SciencesA. Russell, ESO Instrumentation Programme (invited)...

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