News on SOLARNET Networking Activities
The second SOLARNET Forum for Telescopes and Databases was held virtually on the 26th November 2020. The meeting, which brought together representatives from institutes that operate Europe’s premier solar physics facilities and users of those facilities, is a key step in the SOLARNET project. The discussions during the forum focused on providing access for international scientists to the research facilities, the coordination of observations between telescopes and the dissemination of data to the wider community.
The community-focused discussions that took place are crucial for completing the main goals of SOLARNET, which aims to integrate major European infrastructures at the heart of high-resolution solar physics. The range of infrastructure available to the community is broad, including ground-based telescopes, balloon missions, high-performance computing, and virtual access facilities for archival data. Eventually, decisions will be taken on the best way to use the resources provide by such facilities, and to ensure access to infrastructures meets the needs of the community.
The forum was attended by 62 members of the community from around the world. ‘It was great to see so many from the community engaging with the telescope operators,’ said Dan Kiselman (Stockholm University) who chaired the discussions. ‘The virtual nature of the forum enabled more facility users to join the discussions, and also brought in views from scientists outside the SOLARNET consortium.’