*** IAU Division D  Bulletin N. 5: April 1st, 2015 ***

INDEX:

* CfA Astronomer Christine Jones elected President of AAS
* The inauguration of the HAWC gamma-ray Observatory
* Chandra X-ray Observatory
* Symposia and Focus Meetings at the XXIX IAU GA relevant to Division D
* Other upcoming Conferences, Meetings, Workshops and Schools
* Deceased IAU Members

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CfA Astronomer Christine Jones elected President of AAS

Congratulations to our colleague Christine Jones of CfA, who was elected the next President of the American Astronomical Society.
Christine Jones will begin serving as President-Elect in summer 2015.

See complete info at https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/news/fe201508

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The inauguration of the HAWC gamma-ray Observatory

by Alberto Carramiñana, HAWC spokesperson for Mexico

The High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) gamma-ray observatory was inaugurated on Friday 20th of March 2015, at its 4100m altitude site of Sierra Negra, Puebla, Mexico. HAWC is a large field of view gamma-ray detector with the unique ability to permanently monitor 1.8 Sr, performing a daily survey of 2/3 of the sky with a sensitivity level able to detect the Crab nebula in a single transit. The HAWC observatory is formed by an array of 300 individual water Cherenkov detectors of 7.2 meter of diameter and 5m height instrumented with four photomultipliers each. HAWC started scientific operations with 1/3 of the array in August 2013, obtaining in 10 months an exposure of the TeV comparable to that obtained by Milagro between 1999 and 2008. The inauguration event marks the beginning of a ten year full operations phase.

The HAWC inauguration ceremony was headed by Enrique Cabrero, director of the CONACYT in Mexico with the representation of the President of Mexico, and by Dr. France Cordova, director of the National Science Foundation (NSF). The development of HAWC was sponsored by CONACYT, NSF and the Department of Energy of the US. The HAWC collaboration unites 120 researchers located in 30 institutions of Mexico and the United States, together with associated members in Poland and Costa Rica.

Information, in Spanish, about the inauguration can be found at:
http://www.inaoep.mx/noticias/?noticia=276

Further information about the HAWC gamma-ray observatory is available at
http://hawc-observatory.org

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Chandra X-ray Observatory

by Edward M. Mattison (CXC Deputy Manager & HEAD Deputy for Administration, CfA)

In November 2014 the Chandra X-ray Center (CXC) hosted a symposium, 15 Years of Science with Chandra, marking 15 years of successful and productive operation of the Chandra X-ray Observatory. Abstracts, presentations and posters are available at http://cxc.harvard.edu/symposium_2014/program.html and
http://cxc.harvard.edu/symposium_2014/posters.html.

An engineering study of the full Chandra spacecraft completed in 2014 indicated that there are no known impediments to at least 25 years of Observatory operation. We look forward to another 10 years of Chandra operation and exciting scientific discoveries.
A team using Chandra has discovered an intermediate-mass black hole (IMBH) in the spiral galaxy NGC 2276 (see http://chandra.harvard.edu/press/15_releases/press_022515.html).

The Cycle 17 peer review of proposals for Chandra observations will be held in June 2015, and results will be released in July. (Proposal submissions closed on 17 March 2015.)

The CXC is a sponsor of a workshop on Charge Exchange X-rays in Current and Future Astrophysical Researches, to be held in Cambridge, MA 13-15 April 2015 (see https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/itamp/ChargeExchangeX-rays2015.html).

The CXC will hold a workshop on the Universe in High Resolution X-ray Spectra, 11-14 August 2015 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. See http://cxc.harvard.edu/cdo/hrxs2015/

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Symposia and Focus Meetings at the XXIX IAU GA relevant to Division D

In reminding all Division Members that the deadline for registration to the IAU GA is 28 May 2015 (http://astronomy2015.org), I list below the Symposia and Focus Meetings that are most relevant to Division D:

IAU Division D Meeting: http://www.star.bris.ac.uk/IAU-DivisionD/divmeeting2015.html
IAU Symposium 319: http://astronomy2015.org/symposium_319
Focus Meeting n. 6: http://astronomy2015.org/focus_meeting_6
Focus Meeting n. 10: http://astronomy2015.org/focus_meeting_10
Focus Meeting n. 12: http://astronomy2015.org/focus_meeting_12
Focus Meeting n. 14: http://astronomy2015.org/focus_meeting_14
Focus Meeting n. 18: http://astronomy2015.org/focus_meeting_18

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Other Upcoming Conferences, Meetings, Workshops and Schools


2015 FERMI Summer School
May 26 - June 5, 2015
University of Delaware
http://fermi.gsfc.nasa.gov/science/mtgs/summerschool/2015/

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F.O.E. Fifty-One Erg_
International conference on the physics and observations of supernovae
and supernova remnants
http://www.physics.ncsu.edu/FOE2015/
1-5 June 2015
North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA

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EWASS 2015
European Week of Astronomy and Space Science, 22-26 June 2015
See http://eas.unige.ch/EWASS2015/program.jsp

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Ecole Internationale d'Astrophysique Daniel Chalonge:
Programme of the Year 2015
24 Years of Activity Calling for Understanding
http://chalonge.obspm.fr/Programme2015.pdf

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--THE CHALONGE MEUDON WORKSHOP 2015: Warm Dark Matter Cosmology in agreement with observations: CMB, Galaxies, Black holes, and Sterile neutrinos"
Place: CIAS Chateau de Meudon,  Observatoire de Paris at Meudon
10-12 June 2015
URL: http://chalonge.obspm.fr/Cias_Meudon2015.html

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-- THE 19TH PARIS COSMOLOGY COLLOQUIUM CHALONGE 2015:
Latest News from the Universe: Warm Dark Matter Cosmology: CMB, Dark Matter, Dark Energy and Sterile Neutrinos
Place: Observatoire de Paris historic Perrault building at Paris
22-24 July 2015
URL: http://chalonge.obspm.fr/colloque2015.html

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*** 30 YEARS OF PHOTODISSOCIATION REGIONS:
A SYMPOSIUM TO HONOR DAVID HOLLENBACH'S LIFETIME IN SCIENCE ***
June 28 to July 3rd, 2015 at Asilomar, California.
Website: http://pdr30.strw.leidenuniv.nl

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Registration and abstract submission is now open for "High Energy Large
and Medium-size Space Missions for the 2020 Decadal Survey" (June 29-July 1)
at http://aas.org/meetings/high_energy_decadal.

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Caltech Gravitational Wave Astrophysics School 2015 CGWAS 2015
July 6-10, 2015
California Institute of Technology
Apply on the CGWAS website: http://www.cgwas.org

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5-th Gamow International Conference in Odessa:
"Astrophysics and Cosmology after Gamow:  progress and perspectives",
Odessa, Ukraine,  16-23 August 2015
www.gamow.odessa.ua

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The Universe in High-resolution X-ray Spectra: Current Results and Future Opportunities
Cambridge, MA, August 19-21, 2015
Website with registration and other details available at http://cxc.harvard.edu

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Exploring the Hot and Energetic Universe:
The first scientific conference dedicated to the Athena X-ray observatory
8-10 September 2015
Please visit the web portal of the conference at:
http://www.sciops.esa.int/index.php?project=CONF2015&page=ATHENA2015

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Demographics and environment of AGN from multi-wavelength surveys
CHANIA, Crete, Greece
21-24 SEPTEMBER 2015
http://xraygroup.astro.noa.gr/conferences2015

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Exchanging Mass, Momentum, and Ideas: Connecting Accretion and Outflows in Young Stellar Objects
27th-29th  October 2015
ESTEC, Netherlands
www.cosmos.esa.int/web/accretion-outflow-workshop

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Deceased IAU Members

IAU has sadly informed us about the passing of the following IAU Members:

- Robert L. Brown
- F. Curtis Michel

We regard upon their memory with respect and our thoughts are with their families.

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If you wish to share with IAU Div D any information about matters that may
be relevant to the activities of Div D Members, please send e-mail to
elena.pian@sns.it by *** June 21st, 2015 ***.  This will appear in the next
Bulletin issue, due July 1st, 2015.
Thank you in advance for your inputs and best regards.
Elena Pian
Secretary of IAU Div D Steering Committee
Associate Astronomer - INAF-IASF Bologna, Italy
www.iasfbo.inaf.it/~pian
elena.pian@sns.it