Science with Hubble and JWST
The signature series of conferences sponsored by ESA in collaboration with STScI highlighting the scientific impact of the Hubble Space Telescope continues next year with a new event planned in Venice, Italy, at the prestigious Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, from March 20 to March 24, 2017.
The Hubble Space Telescope has just celebrated 26 years in orbit and is expected to be a powerful observatory well into the 2022 and beyond. The James Webb Space Telescope is planned to launch in the autumn 2018, so we can start planning for possibly several years of overlap between the two missions. This is a very exciting scientific opportunity.
The first Call for Proposals for JWST Cycle 1 General Observers will be released in Nov 2017. Before that, astronomers will be able to take advantage of the Early Release Science (ERS) Program opportunity, a peer reviewed STScI Director's discretionary program which will provide ~500 hours of time to exercise key JWST observing modes, and data analysis challenges for substantive scientific programs which potentially might be among the first observations to be taken after JWST commissioning.
Therefore, as astronomers are preparing to use JWST to further their science, it is very timely to dedicate this conference primarily to the synergy between Hubble and JWST, and to how the community can best prepare to take immediate advantage of the amazing opportunities that will be presented. The latest Hubble results will be showcased.
The venue of the conference will be Palazzo Cavalli Franchetti, in Venice, site of the 3rd conference in the series in 2010. We are delighted to be welcomed back by the Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, which will also be a co-sponsor of the conference.
The conference will last four days (Monday to Thursday) with an additional fifth day (Friday) of hands-on demonstrations. It will be possible to access and work with the JWST exposure time calculators, simulators and other JWST specific proposers tools. Astronomers will be able to verify Webb's performance in their area of scientific interest and start planning their programs.
The conference itself will include invited and contributed talks, and invited and contributed speakers are being notified. There is still the possibility to attend and submit a poster. We will leave the registration open until the conference venue is filled (150 attendees).
The registration fee has been set to 400US $. This will include coffee breaks and lunches for the duration of the conference, and the conference banquet planned for Wednesday night (March 22), at Palazzo Zen.
