Forums / Welcome to Citizen Sky / Project Announcements / Should you attend the 2nd Citizen Sky workshop?
Should you attend the 2nd Citizen Sky workshop?
We've had a couple of e-mails from folk wondering whether they should attend the 2nd Citizen Sky workshop. The focus of the workshop is on data analysis and scientific paper writing. Years 2 and 3 of the CS project will involve expanding our efforts to get the teams organized, working on projects and writing papers for the special edition of the Journal of the AAVSO dedicated to CS authors. The talks and video from the workshop will be archived online so people can use them for help in the future. So while some of the talks may be advanced, we aren't expecting people to be able to immediately understand everything they see and hear. Most of the data analysis sections will definitely be aimed at a newbie audience.
So ask yourself this: Are you interested in data analysis or paper writing? If so, then attend. You don't need to be good at it or even commit to doing it afterward (although that is, of course, our goal!). But if you have an interest, this is for you. I've never seen an amateur meeting of any scientific discpline cover this topic before. So it may be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. We have spent a lot of time choosing the right session topics and recruiting the best speakers in the game. The staff of Cal Academies will be doing the video so it should be of top quality compared to the last workshop. :)
Also, we have a limited number of travel grants (mostly $500) courtesy of the National Science Foundation. As before, if you get one you are required to do some E/PO activity that teaches what you learned to members of your local community. Click here for a list of activities participants did after the last workshop. You do not have to apply for the grants to attend. However, the Cal Academies has room for slightly fewer people than our last location, so you do want to register early to ensure a seat.
Feel free to post questions to this thread and we'll answer as soon as can. Hope to see many of you there!
The upcoming 2nd CS workshop is the difficult part of science !!! Its not the fun part of it for most and very intimidating. Ive been lucky to have been listed as a co-author on many Chara Array papers but mainly for my technical abilities, one could say I'm a paper hanger :-) !!! Although challenging, data reduction and paper writing equates to learning new aspects of astronomy/science and can only be beneficial. In fact this winter I'll be doing some data reduction for some of the Astronomers here. I'm looking forward to it but please ignore any funny looking faces I may have during the talks !!!
Ican see it being very intimidating for sure, the writing part. You really have to know what you're talking about when doing a paper but Ithink with the amount of excellent knowledge here from the experienced and professional astronomers, the input and assistance by the amateurs both experienced and the rookies, will help put together some great information. Same with the data reduction, it's definitely a steep hill to climb but if it goes like everything else here I think the learning curve will be a bit more gradual and less intimidating.
Although my work schedule will not allow me to attend, Iwill defniitely be interested in the coverage given to it here on the site. Hope lots of video will be online for us who cannot attend to check out, it sounds like it will be a great conference with lots of excellent information!