Emission lines are powerful indicators of the chemical composition of astrophysical objects in the Universe, in the Milky Way as well as in galaxies up to the highest redshifts. They also give clues on the populations of exciting stars and on the main sources of ionization of the nebulae where they are observed. Many fields of astronomy make use of information carried by emission lines. Although it has become popular to use ready-made codes to derive this information, a thorough understanding of the physics of nebulae is required to prevent misinterpretation of observational data. This workshop is intended for PhD students and post-docs from Latin American countries, who have an interest in nebular physics – either for detailed studies of planetary nebulae, HII regions and other nebular objects, or for global studies of emission line galaxies - and wish to master the concepts and tools in this area. Particular attention will be given to atomic data, which are the basis of any quantitative interpretation of emission line observations. The workshop will consist of lectures and of hands-on activities to master the main aspects of nebular physics and the various techniques to interpret the observational data.
LECTURERS: Grazyna Stasinska (Paris Observatory, France); Christophe Morisset (UNAM Mexico DF, Mexico); Claudio Mendoza (WMU, Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA, and IVIC, Caracas, Venezuela); José Manuel Ramírez (IVIC, Caracas, Venezuela); Manuel Bautista (WMU, Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA); Xuan Fang (Peking University, Beijing, China); Luis Nuñez (RedCLARA).
The workshop will be held at Hacienda El Portete in the famous colonial beach town of Choroní, about three hours away from Caracas.
LECTURERS: Grazyna Stasinska (Paris Observatory, France); Christophe Morisset (UNAM Mexico DF, Mexico); Claudio Mendoza (WMU, Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA, and IVIC, Caracas, Venezuela); José Manuel Ramírez (IVIC, Caracas, Venezuela); Manuel Bautista (WMU, Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA); Xuan Fang (Peking University, Beijing, China); Luis Nuñez (RedCLARA).
The workshop will be held at Hacienda El Portete in the famous colonial beach town of Choroní, about three hours away from Caracas.
Lectures will be given in Spanish, English or French (depending on demand). There will be about 4 hours of lectures every day, the rest of the day being devoted to hands-on activities under the guidance of the lecturers. Students must be prepared to have an active participation in the workshop. Each student is expected to come with a laptop with a text editor, Fortran and C++ compilers and Python installed, and to have some notions of Python. There is no registration fee for attendance. Some funds are available to cover student accommodation but not for traveling expenses.
