Practical Information

Contact and Registration

e-mail, phone and fax number

Conference e-mail: eris2015@eso.org

Contact phone number: +49 89 320 060 (ESO Reception Desk)
Contact fax number: +49 89 320 23 62

Registration

You can register in front of the Eridanus Auditorium at ESO between 0830 and 0920 on Sunday September 6th or later in the meeting breaks. Subway tickets for those staying at Motel One will be available at the hotel reception when you check in. We may be able to leave tickets for those staying at other hotels: if your are staying elsewhere, please contact us at eris2015@eso.org.

Registration Fee

There will be a registration fee, payable in advance via credit card at Registration.

Travel

Workshop venue

Lectures will be held in the ESO Auditorium Eridanus, Karl-Schwarzschild-Str. 2, Garching b. München. This is located in the new ESO Headquarters Building. Parallel sessions will be held in nearby meeting rooms.

Travelling to Garching-Hochbruck

A block booking has been arranged at the Motel One, Munich Garching. This is adjacent to the Garching-Hochbruck U-Bahn station (see details at Accommodation).

You can take a taxi from the airport or railway station directly to the hotel. This will take about 20 mins and cost about 40 euro.

The most straightforward ways to reach the hotel by public transport are as follows.

From Munich Airport

Take the S-Bahn line S1 (in the direction Ostbahnhof) as far as Unterschleißheim. Change to the 219 bus, which terminates at the Garching-Hochbruck U-Bahn station. This is next to the hotel. The approximate journey time is 47 min. Use the Journey Planner at MVV.

From Munich Railway Station

From Munich Hauptbahnhof, take the Underground line U4 or U5 to Odeonsplatz. Change to the U6 (in the direction Garching Forschungszentrum). Use the Journey Planner at MVV. The trip nominally takes 26 min.

If you are coming by train, the GermanRailways site will be useful.

Instructions for travelling from Garching-Hochbruck to the workshop venue at ESO

We advise all participants to travel to the workshop venue by underground train (U-Bahn), line U6. A weekly ticket (IsarCard) will be given to you when you check in at the hotel (or at ESO).This ticket is valid for the inner 7 zones of the Munich transport system, so you can also use it for travel to central Munich. Do not lose this ticket, as we will not be able to replace it!

The U-Bahn station in Garching-Hochbruck is next to the Motel One hotel and is indicated with a large blue "U"-sign. Take the underground train (U-Bahn) line U6, destination "Garching Forschungszentrum" (Garching Research Campus) - this is the last stop on the line. Exit the station at the rear end of the train and follow the sign for ESO. Timetables and more information on the use of public transport can be found here.

ESO Maps

Maps of the ESO Headquarters Building and the Garching Forschungszentrum Campus available here and here. Please use the ESO main entrance (up the ramp with the flagpoles) as indicated by the blue line on the campus map and location 1 on the ESO map.

Weather

The average temperature in Munich is 14 C in September, with a typical range of 9 - 19 C. It typically rains on about 15 days in the month. For more information, see Weather Online.

Transport to the airport at the end of the School

If you need a taxi to Munich Airport (or elsewhere) at the end of the School, please fill in the form here.

By public transport, the quickest way to the airport is to take the 690 bus from the stop next to the Garching Forschungszentrum U-Bahn station to the Neufahrn S-Bahn station and then the S1 to the airport. As usual, MVV has the details.

Social Events and Food

Social Events

Buffet supper - Monday September 7th

This will be held outside or in the lobby of the New Headquarters Building at ESO immediately following the end ot the day's lectures and tutorials. It will be followed by an evening science lecture by Katherine Blundell.

Conference Dinner - Tuesday September 8th

This will also be held outside or in the lobby of the New Headquarters Building at ESO immediately following the end ot the day's lectures and tutorials. Free drinks will be provided. It will be followed by a lecture by the ESO Director General, Tim de Zeeuw.

Free afternoon - Wednesday September 9th

Wednesday afternoon will be free for meeting participants to explore Munich. The IsarCard ticket provided in your registration pack is valid for the inner seven zones of the Munich transport system, which includes most of the attractions in the City Centre, as well as numerous biergartens (see Useful Links, below).

Lunch

Light lunches will be provided at ESO. The cost is included in the registration fee.

Please let us know of any dietary requirements via the registration form.

Computing

Laptop

For the tutorials, please bring a modern Linux or Mac laptop with CASA and AIPS installed. You will need about 60 G free space (more is always helpful) to complete the tutorials and you will need to download about 25 G of data in advance. You could bring an external hard drive to store the data you are not working on, and load up the next day's data each night. Note that running in a virtual machine, via a remote link,or using an external disk for the data you are currently working on, is usually NOT satisfactory.

We also have a very few loan laptops, so if you find meeting the computing requirements impossible please let us know as soon as possible. People from less well-resourced institutes will have priority.

Package downloads

CASA may be installed from the home page. The current release is 4.7.2.

Instructions for testing a new installation may be found here.

You may also want to install the CASA Analysis Utils, but this is not mandatory.

The current version of AIPS may be installed from the DEC17 page. Use the pre-compiled binary version for your operating system, not the source code version.

To test a new AIPS installation, use this page.

For T1 ("Fun with Fourier Transforms"), we will use the (small)
pynterferometer package. Please download Version 2.0 here.

There is a bug in the Linux version of software. Please download the package from here: http://www.jb.man.ac.uk/merlin/e-merlin/data_red/LinuxV2ERIS.tar

If you have any problems, then in the first instance please seek local help. We can provide limited troubleshooting support at ERIS but there will not be time to help more than a few people.

If you still have a problem after seeking support locally, then email eris2015@eso.org. This will give us an idea of support requirements and we may be able to diagnose common problems remotely.

Data downloads for tutorials

To download data for the tutorials, please follow the links below.

T1 and T8 do not require datasets.

T2-4 and T7. Follow the instructions.

T5 and T10C (spectral line). Download here.

T6 and T10A (VLBI) 1.1 Gbyte FITS file. Download here.

Datasets for the remaining tutorials will be added later.

Internet and email

Open wireless internet is available in most parts of the ESO building. Either connect to the network Auto ESO (for which the current password is on display in all public meeting rooms) or to eduroam.

Miscellaneous

Bank service

There are banks and cash-points in Garching, at many locations in central Munich, and at the airport. All main credit and debit cards are accepted (with PIN code). Please note that the banks may close during lunch time and have opening hours differing from shops. There is also a cash-point (Kreissparkasse) on the Campus, at the bus stop Lichtenbergstrasse 4 (TUM Chemie).

ESO — Reaching New Heights in Astronomy