////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
///                                                                  ///
///                       3rd Potsdam Thinkshop                      ///
///                                                                  ///
///                         ROBOTIC ASTRONOMY                        ///
///                                                                  ///
///                Potsdam, Germany, 12 - 15 July 2004               ///
///                                                                  ///
///     ------------------------------------------------------       ///
///    |                                                      |      ///
///    |                  FIRST ANNOUNCEMENT                  |      ///
///    |                 AND CALL FOR PAPERS                  |      ///
///    |                                                      |      ///
///     ------------------------------------------------------       ///
///                                                                  ///
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////




Dear Colleague,

     The Astrophysical Institute Potsdam (AIP) is pleased to announce 
its Third Thinkshop, this time on "R o b o t i c   A s t r o n o m y". 
The meeting will be held in the NH Hotel Voltaire downtown Potsdam 
(attention: changed to Dorint Hotel in Potsdam) in the week just 
after the 13th Cool Star Workshop in Hamburg. This may allow some of 
our oversea colleagues to save significant travel money. The aim of our 
meeting though is to bring together active researchers and technicians 
from any field in astronomy to discuss the future science and technical 
goals that are to be achieved with dedicated robotic telescopes. An 
update of the status of the design and operation of existing robotic 
telescopes and their ongoing and future projects is envisioned. Note 
that all participants will be accomodated in the meeting hotel to ensure 
a lively exchange of thoughts. 

More info will be posted on our meeting web page

		http://www.aip.de/thinkshop3/


S c i e n t i f i c   Q u e s t i o n s
	In this third Thinkshop, one-third of the time is planned for 
technical issues, e.g. we aim to review the current status of robotic 
telescope projects and their instrumentation and to discuss innovative 
hard- and software concepts. Another third is foreseen to highlight 
scientific results from existing facilities from a wide range of 
astronomical applications worldwide (from gamma-ray burst monitoring 
to stellar-activity cyle monitoring). At the end, the last third or so, 
we intend to discuss and "think" about new exciting observational 
programs and theoretical problems that could be solved with observations 
from current and future robotic telescopes.     

S p e a k e r s   a n d   P o s t e r s 
     A first list of invited speakers will be presented in the second 
announcement, but we already emphasize that amber time will be allocated 
to technical presentations. We now invite all those interested to 
contribute papers to submit your ideas and suggestions 
( Mailto:kstrassmeier@aip.de ). Poster space will be available in a 
room adjacent to the lecture hall and the posters will remain mounted 
during the entire meeting. We suggest speakers to bring also a poster 
with the topic of their talk. 

R e g i s t r a t i o n
	A web-based registration form will be available soon. Please 
visit the meeting homepage.  

P r o c e e d i n g s
     Instead of a classical proceedings, we intend to publish real 
papers in a dedicated volume of a refereed journal, as was done 
previously, e.g., for the first Potsdam Thinkshop in AN in 2002 or 
the first round from XMM in A&A 365 (2001, L1-L344). As with Thinkshop-1, 
we will publish the papers in a dedicated issue of Astronomische 
Nachrichten (AN) without page charges (check out http://www.aip.de/AN or 
http://www.aip.de/thinkshop1 ). 
Each paper will be refereed and treated as a regularly submitted paper, 
just that it will appear in a dedicated issue. Therefore, no strict 
page limits are imposed on these contributions, but it requires 
original articles. The idea is that the authors bring their paper(s) 
to the meeting where it will be refereed anonymously by someone among 
the participants. The deadline for final submission will then be four 
weeks after the meeting, or you may even resubmit during the meeting.  
Note that the "proceedings" for the first Thinkshop appeared on the 
author's desk three months after the Thinkshop! The articles are 
available even earlier due to the Wiley/AN DOI reference, and will 
appear in ADS. The editorial office will be located at the meeting 
location. MPEG or animated gif movies can be published as well for 
no extra costs. For more details please check our home page at 
http://www.aip.de/thinkshop3 . 

F u r t h e r   M a i l i n g s
     Hotel information will be detailed on the Web and with the second 
announcement during winter 2003/04. The third announcement, which will 
be distributed in early summer 2004, will contain the final list of 
speakers as well as further details of the social program. 

     
     We are looking forward to seeing you in Potsdam in July 2004.

			
                On behalf of the AIP, the SOC and the LOC

			               Klaus G. Strassmeier, AIP, Potsdam
                                       Frederic V. Hessman, Univ. Goettingen

			

Local Organizing Committee (LOC):
M. I. Andersen
K. Goetz (Chair)
T. Granzer 
I. Ilyin
H. Korhonen
I. Savanov
M. Weber
M. Woche