The Friday/Saturday June 25/26 San Diego Alt-AZ Initiative workshop will be held immediately before the Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE) Astronomy Conference.  The SPIE conference will take place in San Diego June 27 – July 1, immediately after the Alt-Az Workshop.  The SPIE Astronomy Conference convenes every other year, and every other time it is held in the US, so it only takes place in the US only once every 4 years.  These SPIE Astronomy Conferences are the largest of all gatherings on the planet of the engineers and astronomers developing both large ground-based and space-based telescopes and instruments.  The Thirty Meter Telescope, the Giant Magellan Telescope, and the European 42-meter Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT) and their associated instruments and science programs will be covered at the SPIE Astronomy Conference.   

At last year’s Alt-Az Initiative conference in Hawaii, Doug Simons, the Director of the Gemini Observatory and Co-chair of the upcoming SPIE Astronomy Conference, led a panel discussion that explored tech transfers from large to small telescopes (1-3 meters being small).  The San Diego Alt-Az Initiative Workshop will be an expanded version of the very helpful tech transfer panel discussion in Hawaii.  Selected SPIE Astronomy Conference attendees will be invited to come a day or two early to the Alt-Az Initiative Workshop to give presentations and participate in panel discussions on how their large alt-az and space telescope technologies might be adapted (at low cost) to small  (for them) alt-az telescopes. 

The Scientific Organizing Committee for the San Diego Alt-Az Workshop includes: Russ Genet (US, photometric telescopes), Bruce Holenstein (US, light bucket mirrors), Petr Kubanek (Spain, robotic observatories), and Giovanni Pareschi (Italy, lightweight and replica mirrors).  More SOC members will be added shortly.  More details soon.