2023 SARA Western Conference
2023 SARA Western Conference
Bishop, California, USA on 17 and 18 March, 2023
The 2023 SARA Western Conference will be held at Bishop, California at the Owens Valley RadioObservatory on Friday and Saturday, 17 and 18 March 2023. OVRO is operated by California Institute ofTechnology and is located about 20 miles southeast of Bishop.
From the OVRO website (http://www.ovro.caltech.edu/): “The Owens Valley Radio Observatory (OVRO) isone of the largest university‐operated radio observatories in the world. Known by locals as 'The Big Ears', theobservatory is located near Bishop, California, approximately 250 miles north of Los Angeles on the east sideof the Sierra Nevada. For reference, its coordinates are 37:14:02N latitude, 118:16:56W longitude at 1222meters above sea level. ...” Image below from http://www.ovro.caltech.edu/
Call for papers: Papers are welcome on subjects directly related to radio astronomy including hardware, software, education and tutorials, research strategies, observations and data collection and philosophy. If you wish to present a paper please email a letter of intent, including a proposed title and abstract to the conference coordinator at westernconf@radio‐astronomy.org no later than 20 December 2022.
Be sure to include your full name, affiliation, postal address, and email address, and indicate your willingness to attend the conference either in person or virtually to present your paper. Submitters will receive an email response, typically within one week. Final advance presentations should be submitted to the Western Conference co-ordinator for inclusion in the proceedings no later than March 1, 2023. Due to the work required to prepare the proceedings, this should be considered a hard deadline.
Presentations and proceedings: In addition to presentations by SARA members, we have asked Dr. Vikram Ravi of CalTech to be the keynote speaker for the conference. His presentation will be on “Renewing our view of the radio sky”.
Papers and presentations on radio astronomy hardware, software, education, research strategies, philosophy, and observing efforts and methods are welcome. Formal proceedings will be published for this conference. If presenters want to submit a paper or a copy of their presentation, we will make them available to attendees on a flash drive.
Basic schedule: The conference will be entirely held at Owens Valley Radio Observatory with presentations by SARA members and supporters and OVRO staff followed by a tour of the OVRO facilities. Virtual attendance at the conference will be possible at a reduced rate for those who cannot attend in person.
Contact: Please contact conference coordinator David Westman if you have any questions or if you would like to help with the conference: westernconf@radio‐astronomy.org.
Getting there: Bishop and OVRO are located in a valley between the eastern Sierra Nevada and White Mountains. Because of the remote location we recommend conference participants make their travel plans and hotel and rental car reservations early. Possibilities are to fly into San Francisco (SFO) and connect to the regional airport at Eastern Sierra Airport (BIH), 2 miles from of Bishop. The airline traveling into Eastern Sierra is United Airlines, which has marketing agreements with a number of airlines including American Airlines.
Registration: Registration for in person attendance at the 2023 Western Conference is just US$55.00. The reduced rate to attend the conference on line is $15. You must be a SARA member to register for the conference. The in person conference rate will include lunch at the conference site on Friday and Saturday. Payment can be made through PayPal, www.paypal.com by sending payment to treas@radio‐astronomy.org. If you need to send a check for registration, please send it to SARA Treasurer (c/o Brian O'Rourke), 337 Meadow Ridge Road Troy, VA 22974-3256. Please include in comments that the payment is for the 2023 Western Regional Conference.
You can also purchase the registration from the SARA Store.
Hotel reservations: There are many hotels and motels in Bishop with reasonable rates. The Bishop Inn offers rooms from $63 a night, and the El Rancho Motel rates start at $98 per night. The Best Western Bishop motel rates start at $135 per night, and others can be found in the same range.
Saturday night dinner: We will make a group dinner reservation at a local restaurant for Saturday night.
Additional Information: Additional details will be published online at www.radio‐astronomy.org and in the SARA journal, Radio Astronomy, as we get closer to the conference date.