Preparing for Gaia with ELSA
30 November 2007
A dedicated workshop designed to introduce the next generation of astrometry specialists to the science of Gaia successfully concluded this week in Leiden.
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ELSA School participants |
The ELSA School on the Science of Gaia ran from 19 to 28 November and was jointly organized by the ELSA network and the Lorentz Centre at Leiden University. Although especially designed for the newly appointed ELSA Fellows (9 PhD students and 5 post-docs) the workshop was also open to participants from outside the network. The programme was arranged with morning lectures covering the key scientific goals of Gaia, technical aspects such as satellite development, and a special workshop on Grid applications relevant to Gaia. Afternoons were assigned to student exercises which covered topics as diverse as: calculating the gravitational light deflection due to the Sun and Jupiter; deriving orbital parameters for binary systems from astrometric observations; determining the zero point of the Cepheid period-luminosity relation from Hipparcos parallaxes, and extracting stellar streams associated with the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey data. Students also prepared poster papers describing their research and presented these to the school participants.
ELSA is a Marie-Curie research training network which brings together world-leading expertise in space astrometry with specialists on numerical algorithms and software engineering for the purposes of preparing for the scientific exploitation of data from ESA's Gaia mission and training the next generation of researchers in this uniquely European speciality to maintain and extend European leadership in space astrometry.
The ELSA network is funded by the European Community's Sixth Framework Programme from 2006 to 2010. During this period a number of dedicated workshops will be organised for ELSA Fellows with the aim of consolidating the acquired expertise. The workshop series will conclude with a dedicated conference on the simulation and analysis of space astrometry planned for 2010.
Last Update: 1 September 2019
