Dear Mike,

I read the ASTRONET document looking for arguments to conduct long term 
monitoring activities common to European Astronomy and Space Weather. 
You will find enclosed a summary of the points I found of interest for 
Space Weather and my personal comments. In my opinion it would be very 
useful :

- to push ASTRONET to be more homogeneous in defining time scales 
required for observations of the Sun, then to review the relevant 
recommendations,

- to be more specific in dealing with the space environment of the 
planets, to examine the interest of a long term monitoring of those 
environments, then to think about instrumentations which could be 
calibrated in the Earth’s environment,

- to alert ASTRONET about the importance of Space Weather for space 
missions dedicated to the Solar System (see J.P. Lebreton).


Sincerely yours,

Francois



Hapgood, MA (Mike) a écrit :
> Dear colleagues,
>
> Chris Harvey has asked me to circulate this to SWWT.
>
> Cheers,
> Mike
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Christopher HARVEY [mailto:[log in to unmask]] 
> Sent: 03 January 2007 11:38
> To: Hapgood, MA (Mike)
> Subject: Re: Astronet
>
>
> Dear Mike,
>
> A 09:00 02/01/2007 +0000, vous avez écrit :
>   
>> First of all let me wish you all a very Happy New Year for 2007. I have
>> a couple of items of news to report.
>>     
>
>
> And a Happy New Year to you too !
>
> I am not sure how widely known ASTRONET is to the Space Weather
> community.  Before your e-mail I was not aware of its mandate, but
> after a little Web browsing I came up with the following information.
> I certainly think that it would be a good idea to have a space weather
> representative at the ASTRONET Poitiers meeting on 23-25 January 2007,
> where the draft of the report "A Science Vision for European Astronomy"
> will be presented and discussed.  The agenda of this meeting can be
> found at http://www.eso.org/gen-fac/meetings/SciChall07/agenda.html
>
> The overall objectives of the meeting can be found on the page
> http://www.eso.org/gen-fac/meetings/SciChall07/
> where it is written
>    "The ASTRONET effort has been initiated by a group of European funding
>    Agencies in order to establish a comprehensive long-term planning
>    for the development of European astronomy. It has been selected and
>    is financially supported by the European Commission under its FP6
>    program. The overall objective is to consolidate and reinforce the
>    highly competitive position that European astronomy has attained at
>    the beginning of this 21st Century. Integral to ASTRONET needs is to
>    establish a common Science Vision for the next 20 years, followed by
>    a detailed Infrastructure Roadmap to attain the scientific goals."
>
> It is obvious that ASTRONET operates at a level distinctly different
> from those of Space Weather or EuroPlaNet : ASTRONET is an association
> of European funding Agencies which, in many cases (for example, France
> and the UK), are also the national agencies which support solar, space
> plasma, and planetary physics.  Therefore our interests should be
> included in the Science Vision document, as indeed they are.  I am not
> commenting here the content of Chapter 5 of the "Science Vision".
> Perhaps this should on the agenda of the brainstorming on January 23 ?
> It's a pity that the two meetings are the same day, but at least there
> are spare meeting rooms in Paris while the astronomers are in Poitiers !
>
> I feel strongly that astronomy can be separated into two distinct but
> complimentary parts : the classical (egocentric) astronomy which
> observes the distant universe for which the location of the observer is
> of relatively little importance, and the solar system astronomy, for
> which knowledge of the location of the observer is of primary
> importance.  This difference has many practical implications, going
> from the possibility of in-situ exploration to the organisation of data
> (object-oriented or time-series) and the formats and tools required to
> analyse it.
>
> I question is the extent to which the Space Weather community is aware
> of the ASTRONET inter-agency initiative, and to what extent the
> ensemble of ASTRONET is aware of what is already going on in solar
> system astronomy.  I was particularly surprised that one comment
> concerning the unsuccessful CASSIS proposal (Coordination of Access to
> Solar System Information Services) submitted to EU-FP6 last year was
> something like "The proposers should ask the astronomers how to do it".
> In view of what I have just read about ASTRONET (which was already
> being supported by FP6), I understand better this criticism : seen from
> Brussels, there appears perhaps to be a lack of communication at the
> national level ?
>
> I think that both Space Weather and EuroPlaNet should be formally
> represented at the Poitiers meeting, as may possibly already be
> planned.  The invitation to attend seems to be public,
> http://www.fisica.uniroma2.it/~tovastro/ann/061215-astronet.html
> but the HARD DEADLINE FOR REGISTRATION IS JANUARY 7, 2007
> (next Sunday).
>
> Cheers,
> Chris
>
>
> P.S.  Please feel free to circulate this message to the SWWT.
>
>