The mid term review meeting will be held on Friday 3rd December at the Univeristy of Hertfordshire. Additional training activities will take place, prior to the meting, on Thursday 2nd December, and will include a visit to Astrium and a training session on the small telescopes at the nearby UH observatory at Bayfordbury.
The scheduled events are:
The aim of the meeting will be to cover the following points:
All those attending the Astrium visit (ESRs and ERs only) please come to the UH main reception on the College Lane campus at 11am, and David Pinfield will come and meet you all and show you to the STRI. Coffee and an early lunch will be available in the STRI discussion room. We will leave for Stevenage at 1.00pm, aiming to get to Astrium by 1.30pm. See here for the day's schedule.
The trip to Bayfordbury will take place following the buffet dinner back at UH. The bus will depart at 6.15pm. At the observatory, there will be two activities: the first will be a demonstration of use of the planetarium at which ERs and ESRs will be encouraged to get hands-on experience and the second will be a demonstration of the telescopes. This will involve an introductory talk on operation of the telescopes followed by practical experience. Hopefully the skies will be clear enough to observe some planets (Jupiter and Uranus are both visible and near each other) and Messier objects.
The presentations listed below can be downloaded by clicking the relevant link
Information that may be useful to attendees is listed below
The meeting will take place at the Centre for Astrophysics Research in room E115 of the Science and Technology Research Institute (STRI) at the University of Hertfordshire .
Address:
Centre for Astrophysics Research
Science and Technology Research Institute
University of Hertfordshire
Hatfield
Hertfordshire
AL10 9AB
UK
Travel and accommodation information can be found here.
For those arriving at London Heathrow, the cheapest method is to take the Underground to Kings Cross St Pancras station. Trains are frequent and the Piccadilly line (dark blue - see map) offers a direct (no changes) link to Kings Cross St Pancras (this will take 45-60 minutes). You may then take a train from St Pancras train station to St Albans or from Kings Cross station to Hatfield (both around 20-30 minute journeys). Note that St Pancras and Kings Cross stations are next to each other. There are frequent buses from St Albans station and Hatfield station to the university that are run by the Uno bus company. The 602 service will take you from St Albans Station to the College Lane Campus at the University. Various services will take you from Hatfield Station to the University.
For those arriving at Luton airport, take the airport shuttle bus to Luton Parkway station. This service is part of the rail service, so you can by a ticket to St Albans. The rail journey is only 10-15 minutes. At St Albans, you can catch the Uno bus service to the University.
On arrival at the College Lane bus stop, you should travel to the main reception (see map and ask for directions to the RoPACS meeting in the Centre for Astrophysics Research. Metro: Cidade Universitária (yellow line) or Campo Grande (yellow and green lines). For more information see the (underground map) or the (bus system).
Sandwich buffets will take place on Thursday lunchtime and early evening after the trip to Astrium. A sandwich buffet is also provided on Friday lunchtime.
Photographs will be added after the meeting.