What are these meetings?

The NCSA/Illinois Science Survey Group is a group of astronomers and data scientists from the NCSA and the University of Illinois astronomy department working on large astronomical surveys, particularly DES, SPT and LSST. These meetings provide a forum to update each other on production challenges, introduce new analysis tools and discuss the scientific applications of these exciting new datasets.

When and where are these meetings?

We hold these meetings (typically at 11 AM, Thursday) in NCSA room 2100 or 2000 (the Integrated Project Team Lab). Previous and upcoming talks include:

• May 11, 2017 Room
  • Yue Shen discusses the After Sloan 4 Proposal, which will take spectra of ~10^6 of Milky Way stars and repeated QSO spectra
• April 27, 2017 Room
  • Joaquin Vieira discusses something quasar related
  • Eric Morganson discusses WISE-DES cross-matching which allows us to find quasars in DES
• April 20, 2017, Room 2000
  • Matt Turk discusses serving data and data analysis tools
• March 30, 2017, Room 2000
  • Survey Science Show and Tell
• February 23, 2017 (in room 2000)
  • Short (2 slide) talks from each member with an emphasis on survey science
• January 26, 2017 (in room 2000)
  • DES Y3A1 data release: description of the data
  • DES access for UIUC Astronomy Community
• October 25, 2016 (in room 2000)
  • Jim Parsons discusses LSST stage 1 processing
• September 13, 2016 (in room 2000)
  
  • Chris Pond discusses the DES database structure
  • We will also discuss DES DB database access for those interested (see this recent talk: matias-ck.com/talks/DES_Wide_Phone_2016)
• April 19, 2016 (in room 2100)
  • Michael Johnson updating us on Y3 data processing and the availability of Y3 data
  • Matias Carrasco-Kind discussing the DES public data release
    https://des.ncsa.illinois.edu/internal/summary  --> public page summary
    http://deslabs.ncsa.illinois.edu/  --> des labs and experimental access to the data
    EasyAccess  --> Access to DB
• March 15, 2016 (in room 2000)
  • J.D. Maloney discussing NCSA DES computing systems
• October 27, 2015
• September 22, 2015
• July 21, 2015

Who is invited to these meetings?

Generally, any member of the NCSA or the Illinois astronomy, physics or related department with a strong interest in astronomical surveys, particularly DES or LSST, is welcome. That being said, these are not general interest colloquia. We devote a significant fraction of each meeting to in depth production discussions. People who do not work on DES or LSST will likely not be interested.

Can I give a talk?

Yes! We are very interested in hearing about survey science both from the computational side (database techniques, processing algorithms, data serving tools, etc.) and the more standard science side (particularly results from DES or predictions for LSST). Speakers should prepare informal 5-15 minutes presentations and leave space for questions. Please contact Eric Morganson (ericm@illinois.edu) or Felipe Menanteau (felipe@illinois.edu) to confirm a talk.

Notes from previous talks?

January 26, 2017

• Eric Morganson What is the Dark Energy Survey (Currently)? 
• Matias Carrasco Kind (Presented by Felipe Menanteau),  Data Access Tools and Data Releases

September 22, 2015

• Felipe Menanteau, Final Cut Changes (Very Broad Picture)
  
  
• Matias Carrasco Kind, Data Access for Astronomical Surveys (DESDM use case)