EuroPlanet 2020 Workshop in London, 10-11 May 2018: ‘New Views of Jupiter: Pro-Am Collaborations during and beyond the NASA Juno Mission’

Dates: Thursday 10 May & Friday 11 May, 2018.

Venue: Royal Astronomical Society (Day 1) and Linnean Society (Day 2), Burlington House, Piccadilly, London

Scientific organisers: Leigh Fletcher (1), John Rogers (2), Ricardo Hueso (3), Glenn Orton (4), Marc Delcroix (5).

Local organisers: John H. Rogers & Leigh N. Fletcher.

Affiliations: (1) University of Leicester, UK; (2) British Astronomical Association, UK; (3) Universidad del Pais Vasco, Spain; (4) NASA Jet Propulsion Lab, USA, (5) Société Astronomique de France.

EuroPlanet 2020 contact: Manuel Scherf (Space Research Institute, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Austria).

Overview:

This 2018 workshop brought together the Juno team, citizen scientists, and amateur astronomers to support the science of the Juno mission at Jupiter. The workshop was principally funded by EuroPlanet 2020 (with funding from the EU), with major contributions from the the European Research Council (ERC) and the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS). Attendance of the workshop was by invitation or nomination only.

A Europlanet press release on the workshop is available here.

Interviews with the guests and attendees were showcased on the Royal Astronomical Society’s Youtube channel.

The final agenda for the workshop can be found here. The slides are available towards the bottom of this webpage.

Photographs taken during the workshop can be found here.

This workshop was supported by Europlanet 2020 RI NA1 - Innovation through Science Networking, Task 5: Coordination of ground based observations. Europlanet 2020 RI has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 654208.

Background:

Amateur planetary imaging can provide a valuable resource for scientific study. Images from amateurs around the globe are commonly used to augment professional ground-based and space-based studies of Jupiter’s atmospheric features, in view of their complementary wavelength coverage and their ability to keep track of complex time-varying phenomena. In recent years there has been increasing direct collaboration, especially during the NASA Juno mission in which the spacecraft camera (JunoCam) is intended for ‘public outreach’ but is also producing new scientific discoveries.

A EuroPlanet-sponsored workshop was held in May 2016 in Nice, France, and was very successful in informing amateur and professional groups of each others’ capabilities and needs and engendering cooperation for future studies of Jupiter. Juno successfully entered orbit around the giant planet in July 2016, delivering new insights into the origins, interior, atmosphere and magnetosphere from its regular perijoves. Along with many ground-based professional observations, amateurs are playing a significant role in tracking the changing features on the planet that are relevant to targetting of both JunoCam and the Microwave Radiometer (MWR). The relevant Juno instruments have now acquired almost two years worth of data, so this will be an ideal time to take stock of the achievements to date, and to plan for further pro-am collaboration in future years regarding professional Earth-based observing programmes (e.g., support for JWST and ESA’s JUICE mission).

Structure and content of the Workshop:

The workshop aimed to promote collaboration between amateur astronomers and professional space scientists in studies of the atmosphere of Jupiter, in support of the ongoing NASA Juno mission and future ground-based studies. The meeting brought together ~60 amateur and professional observers and researchers from Europe and across the world, including members of the NASA Juno project. We invited ~30 leading amateurs (some who take images, some who analyse and interpret them, and some who develop software tools), plus ~10 professionals. Invitees were principally from Europe, but included a few leading amateurs in the Far East and Australia. Remaining places were offered to selected amateurs and professionals on an unfunded basis.

The programme included both professional talks (typically ~20-30 minutes) and amateur talks (typically ~5-20 minutes). The talks were intended to promote lively interaction, with substantial time allocated to discuss each topic.

Topics included:

• Review of scientific results from Juno atmospheric experiments – including the (Italian) JIRAM instrument, as well as JunoCam and MWR.
• Review of Jupiter’s climatic cycles and recent/forthcoming opportunities to obtain multi-wavelength observations at different stages of them.
• Outline of recent and ongoing contributions of amateur astronomers to Jupiter science.
• Coordination of amateur observations with Juno and with ground-based observations, considering the most scientifically valuable goals.
• Updates of recent technical developments in the last few years (cameras, optics, software tools), and discussion of desirable improvements and innovations.
• Consideration of the existing databases of amateur and professional images, and whether they can be improved for contributors and users.

Presentations: (links to external website)

The workshop will be summarised in several reports in the coming months, but a 5-page introduction to the talks is available to read here.

All presentations are accessible via this Google Drive.

Session 1: Science from Juno

1. Introduction and Logistics - Fletcher and Rogers

2. Overview of Juno Mission, Support Program, and MWR Results - Bolton & Orton

3. Jupiter’s Interior Structure - Guillot

4. Jupiter’s Magnetic Field - Jones

5. Jupiter’s Aurora and Atmosphere from JIRAM - Mura

6. JunoCam: Public Participation and Results - Hansen

Session 2: Imaging and Atmospheric Changes

1. Processing JunoCam Images - Eichstädt

2. Pro-Am Monitoring of Jovian Variability - Hueso

3. The Rich Dynamics of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot - Sanchez-Lavega

4. Present State of Jupiter’s Atmosphere - Rogers

5. Measuring Features on Jupiter - Jacquesson

6. JUPOS: Jupiter Regular Mapping - Vedovato

7. Secrets of Getting the Best High-Resolution Planetary Image - Go

Session 3: Amateur Imaging and Image Analysis

1. Up-sampling video data prior to processing planetary images (Wesley)

2. Ground-based Imaging during the Juno Mission (Foster)

3. Adaptive optics and the Pic du Midi Obs. (Dauvergne/Colas)

4. The periodic rifting in the Red Spot Bay (Horikawa)

5. Making animations from amateur Jupiter images (Rosen)

6. Latest developments in AutoStakkert! (Kraaikamp)

7. Current amateur imaging & image analysis (Kowollik)

8. Simple measurement of belt/zone latitudes (Kardasis)

9. Monitoring impacts on Jupiter: Update on the DeTect project (Delcroix)

10. Databases for planetary images: PVOL (Hueso)

Session 4: Future Directions

1. Current and Prospective Juno-Supporting Results from a Network of Earth-Based Observing Stations (Orton)

2. Juno’s atmospheric studies: plans and prospects for collaboration (Hansen)

3. Future IR Observing and Mission Support (JWST/JUICE) (Fletcher)

4. Analysis of the Jovian atmosphere using Methane Band and RGB Images - Sussenbach^2

Participants:

• John Rogers (BAA Jupiter Lead)
• Leigh Fletcher
• Ricardo Hueso
• Glenn Orton (JunoCam, Microwave)
• Manuel Scherf
• Marc Delcroix
• Paulo Casquinha
• Jean-Luc Dauvergne
• Gerald Eichstaedt
• Michel Jacquesson
• Emil Kraaikamp
• Christophe Pellier
• John Sussenbach
• Constantin Sprianu
• Marco Vedovato
• Peter Rosen
• Manos Kardasis
• Silvia Kowollik
• Joaquin Camarena
• George Tarsoudis
• Alexei Pace
• Miguel Araujo
• Josep Soldevilla
• Johan Warrell
• Martin Lewis
• Peter Edwards
• Simon Kidd
• Christopher Go
• Clyde Foster
• Anthony Wesley
• Kuniaki Horikawa
• Rob Bullen
• David Arditti
• Mike Foulkes
• Peter Lawrence
• Tirs Abril
• Agustin Sanchez-Lavega
• Tristan Guillot (Juno Interiors)
• Candy Hansen (JunoCam PI)
• Steven Miller
• Francois Colas
• Scott Bolton (Juno PI)
• Chris Jones
• Patrick Irwin
• Peter Read
• Arrate Antunano Martin
• Padraig Donnelly
• Ashwin Braude
• Padma Yanamandra-Fisher
• Alessandro Mura (JIRAM)

Further Details and Contact:

For further information about this event, please contact the local organisers, Dr. Leigh Fletcher (leigh.fletcher@leicester.ac.uk) and Dr. John Rogers (jrogers11@btinternet.com).