First Announcement: --------------------------------------------------------- 12 Questions on Star and Massive Star Cluster Formation --------------------------------------------------------- An new-format ESO workshop held in Garching, July 3-6, 2007 organized by: Tom Wilson and Markus Kissler-Patig THIS IS THE CALL FOR "THE QUESTIONS": Become a SAC member! Propose a question! How? See below. Deadline is December 15th, 2006. Registration will start January 2007. More infos at: www.eso.org/star07 -------------------------------------------------------- Objective: The goal is to bring together two communitites: the one working on star formation (mostly galactic) and the one working on the formation of young massive clusters (mostly extra-galactic). We will link galactic with extra-galactic work, optical/NIR techniques with sub-mm/mm/radio ones, the formation of stars with the one of massive star clusters - observations and theory. Views will be exchanged on topics such as the earliest phases of star and star cluster formation, ultra-compact and ultra-dense HII regions, embedded massive star and star clusters, stages at which stars and clusters emerge in the NIR and the optical, ending with young massive clusters observed in starburst. The Format: The format is bold and new, aiming to focus attention on the critical 12 questions in this area. Each question will be addressed by all speakers in a dedicated 1.5h session including a 20 min introduction and many 10-15 min contributions to finish in a 30 min general discussion (with accompanying posters). The Questions: We call until December 15th, 2006 for proposals of questions around which the program will be built. The final program will then be announced in January 2007. YOU can propose one (1) question - if your question is selected for the final program, you become a Science Advisory Committee (SAC) member and you commit a) to give the 20 min introduction to that question at the conference and b) to coordinate the chapter reserved to that question in the proceedings. The question should be 1) of interest to both communities: star formation and star cluster formation (at least one speaker of "the other" community must sign up for the question); 2) focussed enough that it can be interestingly debated in 1.5h (e.g. "How do stars form?" does not qualify). Pre-register: Interested in getting further emails about this event? Send us a brief email: star07@eso.org with the Subject line: - "Keep me posted", if you want to get the final program in January - "Here is a question", if you want to submit a question (by December 15th, 2006). In which case you should send us the exact wording of your question together with a (~200 words) abstract explaining why this question is currently important and of interest to both communities. The Choice of Questions: Tom Wilson and Markus Kissler-Patig will prepare the final set of 12 questions by January, present the final program and call for contributions to the 12 sessions. In case of identical or very similar questions, we might seek council of wise women/men to assign it to one of the proposers (or simply flip a coin if we run out of good arguments). We hope for your numerous contributions and to see you in July in Garching, Tom Wilson & Markus Kissler-Patig