Heidelberg, Germany
The fourth edition of .Astronomy was hosted by the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (MPIA) in Heidelberg, Germany. The conference used two fantastic venues: the recently completed Haus der Astronomie (HdA), a centre for public engagement and education in astronomy, and the Internationales Wissenschaftsforum Heidelberg in the heart of Heidelberg's historic centre. Major themes included visualisation in JavaScript and Python, crowdsourcing, career structure and development, hacking the literature, and education for a global audience. The conference was summarised in an "Unproceedings" paper posted to the arXiv.
// organisers
Organisers
- Sarah Kendrew (MPIA)
- Tom Robitaille (MPIA)
- Markus Poessel (Director, Haus der Astronomie)
Supported by MPIA, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), and the Haus der Astronomie.
// talks
Talks
Invited Talks
- Kevin Govender (IAU Office for Astronomy Development): Astronomy for a Better World
- Markus Poessel (Haus der Astronomie): Haus der Astronomie
- Amit Kapadia (Adler Planetarium): AstroJS: Javascript for Astronomy
- August Muench (Harvard CfA): Astronomy Dataverse
- Thomas Robitaille (MPIA Heidelberg): Astro Python
- Bruce Berriman (IPAC / Caltech): Astronomy in the Cloud
- Thomas Kitching (University of Edinburgh): Astronomy Crowdsourcing
- Michelle Borkin (Harvard): Mechanical Turk, Visualisation and ‘Glue’
- Julie Steele (O’Reilly Media) and Noah Iliinsky (Consultant/Author): How to be a Data Visualisation Star
- Kelle Cruz (CUNY): AstroBetter
- Alberto Pepe (Harvard CfA): Data Mining and ADS
- Alyssa Goodman (Harvard CfA): Seamless Astronomy
Talk Highlights
Kevin Govender’s talk on using astronomy for development was particularly well-received, covering the IAU Office for Astronomy Development’s mission to use astronomy as a tool for development, particularly in Africa and the developing world.
Michelle Borkin demonstrated how Amazon’s Mechanical Turk could be used for astronomical classification tasks, and showed the Glue visualisation tool for multi-dimensional data exploration.
Alyssa Goodman’s Seamless Astronomy talk discussed linking data, literature, and visualisation tools, with live demonstrations of how different software could communicate via SAMP.
// hacks
Hacks
// participants
Participants
Approximately 50 people attended .Astronomy 4 in Heidelberg, July 2012.
- Alasdair Allan (Many, @aallan)
- Geert Barentsen (Armagh Observatory, @GeertMcTwit)
- Amanda Bauer (Australian Astronomical Observatory, @astropixie)
- Christopher Beaumont (Harvard CfA, @BeaumontChris)
- Bruce Berriman (Virtual Astronomical Observatory, @bruceberriman)
- Michelle Borkin (Harvard University, @michelle_borkin)
- Eli Bressert (ESO / University of Exeter, @astrobiased)
- Christopher Clark (Cardiff University, @CJRClarkEsquire)
- Kelle Cruz (Hunter College / CUNY / AMNH, @kellecruz)
- Niall Deacon (MPIA Heidelberg, @nialldeacon)
- Jonathan Fay (Microsoft Research, @astrojonathan)
- Janine Fohlmeister (Zentrum fur Astronomie Heidelberg, @JFohlmeister)
- Daniel Foreman-Mackey (NYU, @dfm)
- Haley Gomez (Cardiff University, @astrofairy)
- Edward Gomez (Las Cumbres Observatory, @zemogle)
- Alyssa Goodman (Harvard CfA, @aagie)
- Kevin Govender (IAU Office of Astronomy for Development, @govender)
- Nicole Gugliucci (CosmoQuest, @noisyastronomer)
- Boris Haeussler (University of Nottingham, @Boris_H)
- David W. Hogg (New York University, @davidwhogg)
- Noah Iliinsky (Author, @noahi)
- Amit Kapadia (Adler Planetarium, @a_kapadia)
- Sarah Kendrew (MPIA Heidelberg, @sarahkendrew)
- Tom Kitching (University of Edinburgh, @tom_kitching)
- Chris Lintott (University of Oxford, @chrislintott)
- Stuart Lowe (LCOGT, @astronomyblog)
- Phil Marshall (Oxford University, @drphilmarshall)
- Karen Masters (ICG Portsmouth, @karenlmasters)
- Peter Melchior (The Ohio State University, @openpaperreview)
- August Muench (Harvard-Smithsonian CfA, @augustmuench)
- Demitri Muna (New York University, @scicoder)
- Carolina Odman-Govender (Freelance, @carolune)
- Alberto Pepe (Harvard University, @albertopepe)
- Gabe Perez-Giz (NYU Center for Cosmology and Particle Physics)
- David Perez-Suarez (Trinity College University, @dvdgc13)
- Jan Pomierny (Astronomia.pl / UNAWE / Zooniverse Poland)
- Markus Poessel (Haus der Astronomie, @mpoessel)
- Adrian Price-Whelan (Columbia University, @astrodrian)
- Emily Rice (CUNY / American Museum of Natural History, @emilulu)
- Hans-Walter Rix (MPIA Heidelberg)
- Thomas Robitaille (MPIA, @astrofrog)
- Pedro Russo (Leiden University / EU Universe Awareness, @pruss)
- Kevin Schawinski (Yale University, @kevinschawinski)
- Sergei Schmalz (International Meteor Organization)
- Aleks Scholz (Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, @dalcashdvinsky)
- Meg Schwamb (Yale University, @megschwamb)
- Brooke Simmons (Yale University, @vrooje)
- Robert Simpson (Oxford University, @orbitingfrog)
- Julie Steele (O’Reilly, @jsteeleeditor)
- Adam Tarnoff (Adler Planetarium)
- Laura Whyte (Adler Planetarium, @whytewithawhy)
// unproceedings
Unproceedings
.Astronomy 4 produced a collaborative “Unproceedings” document: a written record edited by attendees covering the key themes and ideas from the conference. This was an experiment in documenting an informal conference in the spirit of .Astronomy itself.
The document covers: visualisation, JavaScript and Python in the browser, crowdsourcing, career development and hack culture, hacking the literature, education for a global audience, and a summary of hacks. It includes the observation that 48 of 51 attendees had Twitter accounts and generated over 1,200 #dotastro tweets during the three-day meeting.
Authors: Robert Simpson, Chris Lintott, Amanda Bauer, Bruce Berriman, Edward Gomez, Sarah Kendrew, Thomas Kitching, August Muench, Demitri Muna, Thomas Robitaille, Megan E. Schwamb, Brooke Simmons
// links