First International Conference
on Comet Hale-Bopp

Second Announcement (June 1997)

Puerto de la Cruz, Tenerife, Spain
February 2-5, 1998


Introduction

This is the Second Announcement of a four-day International Conference on Comet Hale-Bopp, to be held in the new Conference Center at Puerto de la Cruz on Tenerife (Canary Islands, Spain) from February 2-5, 1998. This comet is the brightest object of its kind to appear since 1976 and after the introduction of modern observational techniques, including high quantum efficiency digital detectors.

It is the goal of this conference to sum up the results of the world-wide observations of comet Hale-Bopp and to provide a useful forum for an exchange of information about this unique object, also in relation to other comets. It will feature a series of invited papers that provide an overview of the individual research areas and the current state of interpretation. There will also be a substantial number of contributed papers as well as comprehensive poster sessions.

It is organized by the Comet Hale-Bopp European Team which has carried out a Canary Islands' Observatories International Time Project during March-April 1997 with support from the European Union. The meeting is supported by the European Union via this project, by the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias, as well as local authorities.

Scientific Organising Committee (SOC)

A Scientific Organising Committee (SOC) has been set up with the following members: Michael A'Hearn, Dominique Bockelee-Morvan, Humberto Campins, Michael R. Combi, Gabriele Cremonese, Julio A. Fernández, Alan Fitzsimmons, Marco Fulle, Klaus Jockers, Mark Kidger, Pierre-Olivier Lagage, Brian Marsden, Dina Prialnik, Heike Rauer, Hans Rickman, Rita Schulz, Gian Paolo Tozzi and Richard M. West (Chairperson).

Please direct correspondence about the scientific programme to the SOC at the following email address: rwest@eso.org.

Local Organising Committee (LOC)

The Local Organising Committee (LOC) consists of staff members of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias: Ricard Casas, Angel Gómez, Mark Kidger (Chairperson), Javier Licandro, Mónica Murphy, Nanci Sabalisck and Pablo Santos.

Please direct all correspondence about the local arrangements to the LOC at the following email address: mrk@ll.iac.es.

Preliminary Scientific Programme

The scientific programme will feature an introductory session on the Dynamical history and Early Observations, followed by sessions on The Nucleus (General Properties, Activity), the Gas Phase (Neutral Gas, Plasma, Sodium), the Dust Phase (Particle Properties and Composition, Morphology and Dynamics), Dust-Gas Interrelation, and Conclusions and Summary at the end.

The Webpages of the Scientific Programme are being continously updated. Please check the date of the latest version at the bottom of these pages.

Important Dates

Contributions

This conference will feature a series of 30 min Invited Talks which will summarize the situation in the main research areas and Contributed Papers which may be given as 15 min oral presentation or posters. The SOC will decide about this and an effort will be made to accomodate the largest possible number of oral presentation, within the limited time available.

Potential contributors must indicate the title of the paper(s) when registering, cf. below. Moreover, they must submit a half-page abstract (LATEX format) of their paper) by November 1, 1997 to: rwest@eso.org.

Registration

Potential participants may register via the Conference Registration form. Please indicate the tentative title(s) of your proposed contributed paper(s) at the same time.

The Registration Fee is US Dollars 200.00. Details about payment modes will be available on the LOC homepage.

Conference Proceedings

The proceedings of this conference will be published as two special issues of the international journal Earth, Moon, and Planets by Kluwer Publishers. Editors will be M.F. A'Hearn, H. Boehnhardt, M. Kidger and R.M. West. The first issue will contain the papers of the invited talks as hardbound book, the second one the contributed papers and progress reports as paperback version.

All papers have to be submitted in camera-ready format according to the style format of the journal (see Authors' instructions and the relevant style files). The maximum length of invited papers is 20 pages, that of contributed papers is 6 pages. Progress reports should be of abstract type and are allowed 15 lines (excluding title and author list). Invited and contributed papers will be refereed before publication, while progress reports will be published in an appendix to the journal issue of contributed papers.

All camera-ready manuscripts must be delivered to the editors during the conference. Assuming a fast refereeing process, it is the intention to publish the special issues of Earth, Moon, and Planets from this Hale-Bopp conference during the Summer of 1998. Late papers will not be accepted for these special issues, but will be handled as normal papers of the journal.

Local Arrangements

The LOC has set up a homepage with all details about the local arrangements. You can access the last news from the LOC here.

Conference Site

The Conference will be held in Puerto de la Cruz, a 25.000 pop. sea-side resort on the northern coast of the Island of Tenerife, and about 42 km from the capital city, Santa Cruz de Tenerife. Located at a latitude = +28o and at a longitude = 15o W, the Spanish Islas Canarias consist of a volcanic archipelago (in the Atlantic Ocean) made up of 7 `large islands' and 6 islets, with 1.605.000 inhabitants. The nearest island is 108 km off the northwest African mainland, in contrast with the maximum distance within the archipelago which is 485 km. Geographically, the islands are part of the African continent but from a historical, economical, political and sociocultural point of view, the Canaries are completely European. Here you can find more information.

The sessions will take place at the modern Conference Centre of the Cabildo Insular de Tenerife (Island's local authority), within walking distance from the three hotels where participants will be accommodated.

More Conference Information.

Travel and Accomodation

You have information about the available hotels here.

An ASCII Accommodation Form is available at the LOC homepage.

February is the high season on the Canary Islands. It is therefore strongly recommended to book accomodation as early as possible (see the list of Important Dates above). Please note that the LOC cannot guarantee a hotel near the Conference Center after November 15, 1997. After this date they will try to fit people in hotels somewhere in Puerto de la Cruz but they can offer no guarantee that it will be close to the conference centre.

Social Events and Trips

There will be a number of social events and also the possibility to participate in tours. The LOC will attempt to arrange for visits to the observatories on the islands.

You can access information about the trips, etc. here.

An Events' Form will be available at the LOC homepage.

Information on the WWW

Information about this conference is available on the WWW at:


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Last Updated: September 7, 1997