School organisation and programme

The main aim of the school is to explore the many aspects of developing a large scientific observation programme and how to convert a scientific problem into a feasible observational project, the school will be organised in two main sections. During the mornings, the different topics will be developed by the instructors in a series of lectures each of these focused in a specific area. The afternoons will be devoted to practical exercises on which the students will be asked to organise an observing programme starting from scratch. The results of these exercises along with a short summary of the students PhD project will be presented during the afternoon of the last day of lectures.

Whenever possible, the Gaia mission and the Gaia-ESO Survey (GES) will be used as references. In particular, the practical sessions will make use of part of the scientific objectives of GES to develop a programme. Depending upon confirmation, a selected section of the resulting observation(s) will be executed on telescopes at the ORM (ING and GTC, TBC).

The school will span on five days, Monday to Friday, from September 3rd to 7th. A visit to the Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos (ORM, La Palma), which will include the WHT and the GTC will be made on the last day (Friday). A working visit to the Observatorio del Teide (OT, Tenerife) to run some observations during the first half of the night is also being considered, depending on availability of the telescope and the final school programme.

The school will be held a hotel which is centrally located in La Laguna (Hotel Nivaria) during the morning sessions, and in the IAC headquarters, in the afternoons. A block booking has been made in the hotel, which has to be confirmed by early June. The booking is sufficient for 20 students in double-room occupancy and 7 lecturers in single rooms, and can be extended upon request up to a given limit. It includes the lecture room in the same hotel. The hotel is within walking distance to the IAC, where the lunches and afternoon sessions will take place. In case that registration is well in excess the above numbers, prioritisation will be made ranking first the ITN ESRs.

Lectures

The programme is still being developed and will be finalised soon. Topics to be dealt in the morning sessions will include some or all of the following:

Confirmed lecturers and instructors