XMM-Newton-NEWS


XMM-Newton-NEWS  #49,    23-May-2005

XMM-Newton Science Operations Centre at
ESA's European Space Astronomy Centre,
P.O. Box - Apdo. 50727, 28080 Madrid, Spain

SOC Home Page: https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/xmm-newton/
Helpdesk web interface: https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/xmm-newton/xmm-newton-helpdesk
Helpdesk email address: xmmhelp@sciops.esa.int
News Mailing List: https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/xmm-newton/newsletter

Contents:


Reminder: "The X-ray Universe 2005" Symposium

Please note the APPROACHING DEADLINE for registration/hotel booking and abstract submission for the symposium "The X-ray Universe 2005" on TUESDAY, MAY 31st!

This ESAC organized conference will take place from Monday, 26th. to Friday, 30th. of September 2005 in the Euroforum conference centre in San Lorenzo de El Escorial, a small town in the mountains some 50 kilometers northwest of Madrid, Spain.

The early registration/hotel booking deadline is necessary to secure the excellent facilities of the conference centre for the meeting at an advantageous price. Participants are strongly encouraged to commit by the May 31st. deadline. Late registrations will be accepted, but for these it will not be possible to guarantee hotel rooms in the Euroforum and it may even prove necessary to close registrations should the total number of participants exceed the capacity of the conference centre.

The deadline for abstract submission is set by the need for the Scientific Organising Committee to have sufficient time to review abstracts, select those to be presented orally, and ensure that authors are notified before the start of the main summer holiday period. The early deadline is thus essential for the meeting programme to be well-organised.

The conference web pages containing latest detailed information and the online submission forms are available at
   http://www.congrex.nl/05a11/

The symposium is intended to encompass a broad range of high energy astrophysics topics, to provide a showcase for results and discoveries from current and near-future missions and a forum for the discussion of astrophysical themes with a high-energy connection.

The final programme will include about 15 invited talks. Currently confirmed invited speakers (and main topic of their talks) are:

  Roberto Pallavicini  (Cool Stars)
  Jacco Vink  (Supernova Remnants)
  Bob Warwick  (Galactic Diffuse Emission/GC)
  Patrizia Caraveo  (Neutron Stars)
  Andy Fabian  (Active Galactic Nuclei)
  Fabrizio Nicastro  (Warm-Hot Phase Of The Intergalactic Medium)
  Neil Gehrels  (Swift Results)
  Guenther Hasinger  (Deep Surveys)
  Yoshihiro Ueda  (AGN evolution)
  Hajime Inoue  (Astro E-2)

A serendipitous highlight for travellers, just after the symposium, will be the Annular Solar Eclipse which takes place on October 3rd., with Madrid lying almost on the central line.
Some symposium participants might even want to add a 2nd conference to their travel plans: immediately after the "X-ray Universe 2005", ESAC is hosting the Astronomical Data Analysis Software & Systems XV (ADASS) meeting which will take place also at the Euroforum from Sunday 2nd. to Wednesday 5th. of October 2005. Further information on the ADASS conference is available at
   http://www.adass.org:8080/Conferences/2005/Venue/

XMM-Newton long-term scheduling plan

The scheduling of the fourth XMM-Newton observing cycle observations, AO4, started in April 2005 and is expected to end by May 2006. On April 19, a long-term scheduling plan for the AO4 period has been released at:
   http://xmm.esac.esa.int/external/xmm_sched/advance_plan.shtml

Principal Investigators of pending XMM-Newton observations are encouraged to check this plan, especially if scheduling constraints were granted following the Time Allocation Committee recommendations. All observers should be aware that, as flexibility is required in the scheduling process, the long term plan only fills about 50% of the available observing time, using some 50% of the approved observations. Consequently about 50% of the approved observations do not appear in the long term plan. The full observing plan is only available some two to four weeks in advance of the start of a revolution. It is intended to follow the long term plan as closely as possible. The XMM-Newton SOC nevertheless reserves the right to modify it at any stage of the scheduling process, should this become necessary.


Yours sincerely,
XMM-Newton SOC