So here I am at the European Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC) just outside Madrid for a conference called .Astronomy 13. It is (obviously) the thirteenth such conference but the first that I have attended. I’m giving a plenary talk in half-an-hour or so. I travelled from Barcelona by train yesterday evening, which was a comfortable and uneventful trip, the (approximately) 504 km from Barcelona to Madrid Atocha station taking about 2 hours and 30 minutes that cost about 30 euros. I stayed overnight in Madrid and took a shuttle bus from to ESAC. The only glitch in my travels so far was that I got on the Metro Line 6 (the equivalent of the Circle Line), but chose the wrong platform and went the long way round. I still got there in time to get the shuttle.
Incidentally, ESAC hosts the Euclid Science Operations Centre (SOC) which plays a central role in the processing of data from Euclid and is also responsible for the development and operations of the Euclid Archive from which data will be distributed to the global astronomical community.
UPDATE: Back in Barcelona. The return by train was just as smooth an uneventful as the outbound journey, and in fact arrived back about five minutes ahead of schedule. Thanks to the organizers for inviting me – I’m sorry I couldn’t stay for longer as I like the idea of the .Astronomy meetings. Perhaps we should have one in Ireland sometime?
In the Dark 