============================================ IAU Division J Bulletin No. 3; October, 2014 ============================================ INDEX: * IAU Symposia for 2016 - new deadline * Reform of IAU Commissions * Upcoming conferences/workshops suggested by Division members * Reports from Division members * Call for contributions --------------------------------------------------------------------------- * IAU Symposia for 2016: The deadline for submitting a Letter of Intent for proposing an IAU Symp in 2016 has been postponed to October 31. Please think about sending a proposition, since there is not enough LoI for the moment. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Reform of IAU Commissions: October 15, 2014 is the deadline for submitting Letters of Intent to propose new IAU Commissions. January 31, 2016 is the deadline to submit the full proposals. More details can be found at: http://www.iau.org/news/announcements/detail/ann14014/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Upcoming Conferences: Priya Natarajan and Dan Coe announce the Yale Frontier Fields Workshop to take place in November 12-14, 2014, in New Haven, CT. This workshop will be an opportunity for observers and theorists to discuss their work on Frontier Fields data obtained by Hubble, Spitzer, and other telescopes, and to prepare for the remaining data yet to come. Topics will include high-redshift galaxies, galaxy cluster lens modeling, cluster masses and dynamics, intracluster light, supernovae, and future science. For more details, please see: http://www.astro.yale.edu/yale_frontier_workshop/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------- I remind the Division J members that a list of up-coming Conferences is available at: Canadian Astronomy Data Centre --------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Report from Division members Dr. Vladimir Lipunov, Professor of the Lomonosov Moscow University, PI of the MASTER Robotic Net (http://observ.pereplet.ru) reports that the MASTER System detected one of the Most Powerful Object in the Universe: the historically brightest flare of a distant blazar 10.7 billion light years from Earth. The object is CGRaBS J0809+5341 = FIRST J080941.7+534125 with the known redshift z=2.133. At its quiescent state the object has 20th magnitude. However, during the observations by MASTER-Amur on 2014 Apr. 13th it was detected as an optical transient of 16.2 magnitude (40 times brighter than normally).The finding was made by Pavel Balanutsa of Sternberg Astronomical Institute (SAI MSU) at Irkutsk site of the Robotic Net. It was announced in http://www.astronomerstelegram.org/?read=6070. Six nights later the same object was observed by the identical MASTER-Tunka telescope near Baikal lake, The object has brightened by yet another 0.5 magnitude, reaching15.7m, as announced in http://www.astronomerstelegram.org/?read=6096. This corresponds to the absolute magnitude M=-30.0 on April 13th and -30.5 on April 19th! This intrinsic brightness is record high for the persistent objects (quasar and blazars) and can only be surpassed by gamma-ray bursts for a few minutes. For a few weeks in April 2014 CGRaBS J0809+5341 became the brightest object in the Universe, shining brighter than a hundred trillion Suns. Links: MASTER Robotic Telescopes Network http://observ.pereplet.ru/ The Astronomer's Telegram http://www.astronomerstelegram.org/ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Norma G. Sanchez reports: Science News from the Daniel Chalonge 18th Paris Cosmology Colloquium 2014 The presentations are available at: http://chalonge.obspm.fr/Programme_Paris2014.html --------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Call for contributions: If you wish to send contributions to the next Newsletter that are relevant to our Division J, please send e-mail to thaisa@ufrgs.br by *** December 20 ***. This will appear in the next Bulletin issue, in January 2015. Thank you in advance for your inputs and best regards. Thaisa Storchi Bergmann, Secretary of IAU Div J. ====================================================================== Thaisa Storchi Bergmann http://www.if.ufrgs.br/~thaisa Chefe do Grupo de Pesquisa em Astrofísica Instituto de Fisica - UFRGS Campus do Vale, CP 15051 91501-970 Porto Alegre - RS - Brasil e-mail: thaisa@ufrgs.br Phone: 55 51 3308 6443 FAX: 55 51 3308 7286 ======================================================================