As you probably have heard, there are plans to hold a Workshop on
ISSI, the International Space Science Institute in Bern, Switzerland has agreed to support these plans by organizing a so-called 'ISSI Team Workshop' in the week of February 12-16, 2001. It is our intention to carry out during that week an inter-calibration exercise that includes as many experiments on SOHO as possible (and perhaps even space experiments flown on other satellites and on rockets). We also hope that the result will be a radiometric calibration of the relevant SOHO experiments that will be accepted by all the PIs concerned. It is, moreover, foreseen to make use of the calibration derived as a result of this first workshop in a second Team Workshop that is to be held towards the end of 2001 or in early 2002. In this second workshop, the calibration derived during the first workshop shall be used to explore variations in the solar behaviour over time.
A preliminary programme has been drafted, and we would very much appreciate participation in discussions before and during (and writing in-between and after) the Team Workshops -- in short, your contributions to the successful conclusion of the entire exercise.
We propose to work in plenary sessions as well as in splinter groups. On the web-site whose address is given below, you will find a preliminary programme and several topics that should to be covered by the splinter groups. You are invited to comment on the programme and we would particularly welcome suggestions for additional (or modified) splinter-group topics.
Details can be found in
It would be most valuable to have at least one representative of each relevant instrument at the workshop, in order to ensure an optimum communication and exchange of knowledge.
Please, if you want to contribute, send us additional proposed topics for the splinter groups and, should you intend to present a paper, please send an abstract.
Topics that we think should be covered are:
in a follow-on Workshop:
The 'product' of the two Workshop-sessions (one week each, in February 2001 and in late 2001 or early 2002) would be a book in the 'ISSI Scientific Reports' series. We hope that this book will contain a final calibration of SOHO observations that is agreed by all instrument groups as well as definitive summaries of the calibration procedures (both, in the laboratory and in-orbit) and the results of the individual experiments. Note that, according to ISSI rules, articles with scientific content resulting from a Team Workshop can also be published in the open literature (and would be reprinted in the book).
Please, notify us until 15 October, 2000 if you want to participate (and bring along ideas, work, and some time for discussion).
ISSI will provide financial support by funding the subsistence during the Team Workshop for a limited number of participants. Please, do not hesitate to contact us if you need (or would prefer to get) such support.
Sincerely,
30 August 2000,
pauluhn@astro.phys.ethz.ch