SOFIA AAS Splinter Session and 2015 SOFIA Observers Workshop 1. SOFIA Splinter Session During the Seattle AAS Meeting, Monday 01/05/15 2. SOFIA Cycle 3 Observing Programs 3. SOFIA Arrives Back in the U.S. After "Heavy Maintenance Visit" to LHT/Hamburg 4. SOFIA Observers Workshop, May 20-21, 2015 1. SOFIA Splinter Session During the Seattle AAS Meeting, Monday 01/05/15 Date and Time: 6:30 -- 8:00 PM, Monday, January 5, 2015 Location: Convention Center 6E The SOFIA scientific staff will host a splinter session, SOFIA Mission Status and Science Update, during the winter 2015 AAS meeting in Seattle. SOFIA will complete the Cycle 2 Guest Investigator observations in February and begin Cycle 3 in March 2015. The community will be updated on the status of the observatory and its scientific instruments, including recent science results from the FIFI-LS far-infrared imaging spectrometer (P.I. Alfred Krabbe, German SOFIA Institute, University of Stuttgart) and the EXES mid-infrared spectrometer (P.I. Matt Richter, Univ. of California, Davis), as well as the upcoming commissioning of the HAWC+ far-infrared camera with polarimeter (P.I. C. D. Dowell, NASA JPL). Plans will be outlined for the Cycle 4 Call for Proposals, through which over 500 observing hours will be offered to the U.S. astronomical community. More information about the splinter session can be found at the AAS 225th Meeting website. The session slides will be posted after the meeting on the SOFIA Science Center website, http://www.sofia.usra.edu 2. SOFIA Cycle 3 Observing Programs The results of the Cycle 3 Proposal Call selection process were announced on October 29, 2014. A total of 152 proposals were received: 121 from 14 countries through the NASA-sponsored call, and 31 from German institutions through the DLR-sponsored call. Following completion of the two parallel proposal peer reviews, the SOFIA Science Mission Operations Director selected the approved Cycle 3 programs. The list of accepted proposals is available at: http://www.sofia.usra.edu/Science/proposals/cycle3/results.html 3. SOFIA Arrives Back in the U.S. After "Heavy Maintenance Visit" to LHT/Hamburg SOFIA landed at its operations base in Palmdale, Calif. at 3:20 p.m. local time, Sunday, December 14, after a five-month heavy maintenance visit to the Lufthansa Technik facility in Hamburg, Germany. Pictures of the aircraft's arrival can be viewed here: http://www.sofia.usra.edu/Gallery/observatory/observatory.html#hamburg The German Aerospace Center (DLR)'s (English version) website featuring the farewell-to-SOFIA media event held November 21 in Hamburg that included speeches by NASA officials, plus coverage of SOFIA's departure from Germany on December 14, can be viewed here: http://www.dlr.de/dlr/en/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-10081/151_read-12419/#/gallery/17412 Time-lapse videos of Lufthansa Technik's work on SOFIA can be viewed here: http://www.sofia.usra.edu/News/news_2014/11_18_14/index.html 4. SOFIA Observers Workshop, May 20-21, 2015 The SOFIA Science Center will host a two-day workshop on Wednesday and Thursday, May 20 and 21, in Mountain View, California, near the SOFIA Science Center. The goals of the workshop are to help astronomers write compelling proposals for SOFIA observing time, and to guide them in analyzing SOFIA data. The workshop is intended for both junior and senior-level astronomers interested in learning more about airborne infrared astronomy research, as well as for SOFIA observers who want to understand infrared data processing and how to get the most science from their data. The workshop will cover SOFIA observing capabilities, details of the instruments to be available in Cycle 4, proposal preparation tools, the data archive, and descriptions of the data processing and calibration pipelines. Astronomers are encouraged to visit the SOFIA Science Center the day after the workshop (Friday, May 22) for more in-depth help with analyzing data from previous observing cycles. There will be no registration fee for the workshop, but the attendance will be limited to about 30 participants. A website will be open soon for registration containing detailed information about the workshop agenda and schedule. Please feel free to direct questions to SOFIA scientific staff in the SOFIA booth during the winter 2015 AAS meeting in Seattle or contact us via the SOFIA Helpdesk: sofia_help {at} sofia.usra.edu. We look forward to your participation in the workshop!