2015 Thirty Meter Telescope Science Forum

The annual Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) Science Forum brings together members of the international astronomical community to meet, collaborate, and plan for future TMT science programs. The Forum is the premier opportunity to learn about the status of the observatory, its instrumentation and adaptive optics systems, and to get involved in shaping the future of TMT.  Participation is open to all scientists, and the NSF provides generous travel support for members of the US-at-large astronomical community to attend (see below).

The theme for this year's Forum is “Maximizing transformative science with TMT.”  With 9 to 14 times more collecting area than today's 8- to 10m-class telescopes, and 12.5 times better angular resolution than the Hubble Space Telescope in the near-infrared, TMT will enable amazing new science. The 2015 Forum is an opportunity to think ahead about how to maximize the scientific return from TMT through innovative collaborations, telescope operations, data management, and instrumentation development. The meeting will feature presentations about the transformative science enabled by TMT, and then focus on how best to accomplish that science. There will be working sessions devoted to planning for possible “key programs” that could span the international TMT partnership as a means to carry out projects that might exceed the capacity of individual scientists and teams within any single partner. The implications of such programs for TMT operations, and the evolution of its instrumentation suite, will all be discussed.

Registration deadline:  22 May 2015 

NSF Travel Support:  As part of a cooperative agreement with TMT, the National Science Foundation provides generous funding for members of the US community to attend the TMT Science Forum, available on a first-come, first-serve basis.. For more information, write to [email protected].