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The Community of European Solar Radio Astronomers (CESRA) is a non-profit informal organization of European scientists whose aims are to promote studies of solar radio physics and related topics.

This article relies too much on references to primary sources. (February 2018)

Community of European Solar Radio Astronomers

Abbreviation	CESRA
Formation	1970
Purpose	Stimulate research of the solar atmosphere by means of radio waves and any other suitable diagnostics.
Leader	Eduard Kontar
Parent organization	ESPD
Website	cesra.net

Established in 1970,[1] its membership includes scientists from 28 European research institutes.[2]

History

Arnold O. Benz reports[1] that CESRA was initiated by a letter written in June 1970 by A.D. Fokker (Utrecht) with which he invited “many” solar radio astronomers to a meeting at the International Astronomical Union (IAU) General Assembly in Brighton (August 18–27, 1970) (the letter was found by Arnold O. Benz. CESRA's initial purpose was to promote the development of a European instrument for solar radio observations, the Joint Interferometer Project (JIP). The organization's “statement of intentions and policy” was adopted at the 1972 meeting in Bordeaux. Initially the “CESRA” acronym meant “Committee of European Solar Radio Astronomers” and members were the representatives from each observatory. In that phase CESRA was chaired by A.D. Fokker. When JIP became unrealistic in 1978, it was decided not to dissolve the organization, but give it to a “caretaker” to do whatever needed.[1] The caretaker was Arnold O. Benz until 1992. In 1992 at a meeting with Arnold O. Benz, M. Pick, G. Trottet, A. Magun and P. Zlobec, decided to transform CESRA to a more organized entity with a President, a Board and Statutes, changed “Committee” to “Community” and gave CESRA a democratic structure with statutes similar to today’s. Since 1992 the following scientists have served as CESRA presidents:[3] Arnold O. Benz (Zurich; 1992-1998), Karl-Ludwig Klein (Meudon; 1998-2010), Silja Pohjolainen (Turku; 2010-2016), and Eduard Kontar (Glasgow; 2016-...).

Conferences

CESRA organizes triennial workshops[4] on investigations of the solar atmosphere using radio and other observations. Although special emphasis is given to radio diagnostics, the workshop topics are of interest to a large community of solar physicists. The format of the workshops usually combine plenary sessions and working group sessions, with invited review talks, oral contributions, and posters. The workshops attract not only European scientists, but also scientists from the USA, China, Japan, Australia, and Brazil. CESRA has also cosponsored international solar physics conferences organized by the European Physical Society[4][5][6] and in one occasion has organized a session within the European Geophysical Society's General Assembly.[4]

Summer Schools

Three summer schools[7][8][9] have been organized by CESRA. The schools were open to solar radio physicists including PhD students and early career researchers. They covered the essential elements of theory, modeling and data analysis and featured lectures and tutorials. Students had the opportunity to meet and discuss research topics with their peers together in an informal atmosphere.

Publications

Proceedings of CESRA workshops include review articles as well as original research articles and are usually published in Solar Physics (journal)'s Topical Issues.[4][10][11][12][13] The proceedings of some CESRA workshops (until 2004) have been published in Springer's Lecture Notes in Physics.

Solar radio science highlights

CESRA web page hosts “Solar radio science highlights”.[14] These are short communications written by CESRA members that publicize fresh research (normally based on a refereed paper published within three months) to keep CESRA community informed and up-to-date. They are written in a language accessible to non-experts, using a “news-and-views” style.

See also

• List of astronomical societies

References

External links

• Official website
• CESRA on Twitter
• CESRA on Facebook

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