Edwin Valentyn

Edwin A. Valentijn's Homepage


OmegaCEN
Target Fieldlab
Kapteyn Astronomical Institute

Edwin A. Valentijn - Springer 2021

July 2021:  Powers of Two  is published  Springer-Nature 2021
and as e-book

Edwin A.
        Valentijn - Springer 2021

 Trailer Powers of Two   Edwin A. Valentijn - Springer
            2021

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Edwin A. Valentijn
Department of Astronomy University of Groningen The Netherlands

Professor in Astronomical Information Technology at the University of Groningen, since Dec 2005.

-   Coordinating the Target/Target Fieldlab
- Leading OmegaCEN a National datacenter for wide field astronomical imaging, supported by the Netherlands Research School for Astronomy NOVA,
- National (NL)  project manager for the Euclid satellite Science Ground Segment.
-  Creative Director of   DOTliveplanetarium  Groningen
-  Chair of   The Information Universe Conference

Founder of OmegaCEN (2002), Astro-WISE (2001), Target (2008), Target Holding bv (2009), IntrInfo (2009),  Infoversum Foundation (2012), Infoversum Productions bv (2012), "The Information Universe" (2008, 2015, 2018, 2020,2022), Target Fieldlab (2018), DOTLiveplanetarium (2017).

OmegaCEN is building and supporting advanced Survey Information Systems. At the center, ~17 staff and PhDs are involved in research and development of data basing and processing of very large data sets. OmegaCEN develops and supports the data handling of o.a. OmegaCAM@VST, MUSE@VLT, Micado@ELT, the Euclid satellite and researches dark matter/theories of gravity and infrastructure for Open Science and data validation.

An interview on RTV Noord on the Euclid satellite - Feb 2014

An interview about my views on Big Data   by Fast Moving Targets in de series "De Voorste linie"   Dec 2013
short version and  full unedited version

The Information Universe homepage     

       YouTube

Information Universe Conference channel   2018,2020, 2022 
The third edition was held on-line november 2020
The second edition took place 3-6 July 2018  in DOTliveplanetarium Groningen
Information Universe 2018

The first  Information Universe Conference  was held at the Infoversum Groningen- Oct 2015

The Information Universe
            Conference


On 13 May 2008 I gave a public lecture (oratie) at the occasion of my formal inauguration:

The Information Universe
.pdf of the lecture - booklet ISBN 978-90-367-3473-8

. ppt ofthe lecture

full video of the oratie (Dutch) 

The Information
            Universe


                       my works direct at "Information as a whole"



God is an eJ

26 August 2011 Noorderzon festival Groningen, QU3,  presenting  at the  Target floor the act:   "God is an eJ"    attended by over 5600 visitors.   Watch God  is an eJ.

World premiere to public  MS's World Wide Telescope with Kinect

In 2015 my first full 3D dome production From the sun to the sun made in collaboration with Mirage3D was released (12 minutes) . It was premiered at the opening of the Infoversum and next to the  NL and Eng version is now also translated in German and shown at the Hafengeburtstage in Hamburg 2015.
It tells the story of energy in the universe, down to the gas fields in Groningen and contains the best 3D CG animation of a city.

from the sun to the sun

Postal address:

Prof. Dr Edwin A.Valentijn
Kapteyn Astronomical Institute
P.O. Box 800
NL-9700 AV Groningen
The Netherlands

Telephone (work): +31 (0)50 3634011 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting            +31 (0)50 3634011      end_of_the_skype_highlighting
+31 (0)50 3634036 begin_of_the_skype_high     end_of_the_skype_highlighting
mobile (work) +31 (0) 6 48276416

email: Edwin A.Valentijn



My Facebook              FB

My Youtube-channel   YouTube

CV


I did my PhD at the Sterrewacht Leiden, on Radio Investigations of Clusters of Galaxies with Prof H. van der Laan as supervisor (1978), studying the intra cluster medium, cluster radio haloes and head-tail radio sources.

After that, I worked on X-ray astronomy (Einstein observatory,) and optical surface photometry, studying cooling flows, at the European Southern Observatory in Geneva and Garching, Munich (1979-1984). At ESO I was chairman of the working groups supervising the development of the MIDAS image analysis system.

In 1984 I returned to the Netherlands to help building up the new UK-NL optical observatory at La Palma (Canarias) and studied dark matter in dumbbell and cD galaxies. In 1989 I published with A. Lauberts the first large digital image survey (ESO-LV), which led to my paper on the opacities and dust content of spiral galaxies (Nature 1990).

During the 90's I worked at SRON-Groningen and ESA Villafranca- Madrid to build and commission the Infrared Space Observatory (ISO) satellite's Short Wave Spectrometer, which I used to pioneer the detection of cool extragalactic molecular hydrogen- unseen matter in the universe. The detection of relatively cool molecular hydrogen in NGC 6034 and NGC 891 was the first of its kind and is still unique.

Since 1998 I work at the Kapteyn Institute for the OmegaCAM project which led to the founding of the OmegaCEN data center (2002) and the Astro-WISE information system (2001), one of the first distributed Big Data information systems. In 2005 I was appointed as bijzonder professor Astronomical Information technology at the  Rijksuniversiteit Groningen.

Leading the Target project, which started in 2009 with a 32M Euro programme - a collaborative project between public institutions (RuG, UMCG, Astron) and companies (IBM, Oracle, Target Holding)  in which very large datacollections from astronomy, medical and historical origin are handled  with similar techniques. From Target  I  initiated new enterprises  in Groningen, such as the Target Holding bv, the  NL- Science datacentre for the  Euclid satellite and the  Infoversum which is now operated by DOT.
National project manager for the Euclid satellite and in 2016 we got a 2M Euro grant from NWO-groot to build the NL National datacenter in Groningen for  Euclid.

In 2017 Target is continuing its programme  with the Target Fieldlab "Mining Big data", and the tender valorisation programme "de intelligente zwerm", together a 8.3M Euro programme, with a contribution from SNN and Provincie Groningen.  OmegaCEN continues to support Astro-WISE,
OmegaCAM at the VST, MUSE at the VLT, the Euclid Science Ground Segment and  Micado at the ELT.

My current research focuses on  data modeling,  extreme data-lineage  and Big Data handling with the Center for  Information Technology in Groningen: the entanglement of information, both in our computer systems and in physics.

My astronomical research focuses on observing and understanding dark matter  and the role of information in our Universe, with the DOTliveplanetarium as  a beautiful laboratory.

Assignments

current:

past:

Lectures

The founding fathers of Astro-WISE

The GANG of Astro-WISE - the founding farthers of the Astro-WISE architecture in the days the system was perceived- Nice April 2001.

Picture by Emmanual Bertin, from left to right: Drs Danny Boxhoorn, Dr Kor Begeman, Dr Edwin A. Valentijn, Dr Roeland Rengelink and Dr Erik Deul.

The GANG of AstroWISE

Press releases/ in the press

Galaxies get up close and personal

The ESO-LV project

The first large digital imaging project with 32000 images scanned in the '80s

Publications

Books





Up-to-date overviews are available at:

ORCID iD iconhttps://orcid.org/0000-0003-1032-6680

Presentations

Some  Recent Keynotes/Invited talks


Current

In 2011 we delivered  our wide field imaging camera to ESO's Paranal Observatory in Chile  see VST and 268 Mpix OmegaCAM start work
Here one of our first pictures, reduced at OmegaCEN with Astro-WISE of  M17- Omega Nebula
In 2023 the KiDS team delivered the final data release DS5 of the KiDS Survey 1347 square degree of deep multi colour (9 bands) observations
M17

OmegaCEnstaf2017

                                                                  OmegaCEN staff 2017

We are completing the handling  of the data of  our Guaranteed time observations and the KiDS1500 Square degree survey.
In 2017  Target is continued its programme  with the Target Fieldlab "Mining Big data", and the tender valorisation programme "the internet of things", together a 8.3M Euro programme, with contributions from SNN and Provincie Groningen. 
OmegaCEN continues to support Astro-WISE, OmegaCAM at theVST,  MUSE at the VLT and prepares for the Euclid satellite and  Micado at the ELT.

In 2022 the Target Fieldlab continued its programme at the Faculty Science and Engineering, University Groningen, with a.o. DOTliveplanetarium, Deep Atlas bv, Tilt including a Facts and Fakes research programme

My current research focusses on  data modeling,  extreme data-lineage  and Big Data handling with the Center for  Information Technology in Groningen: the entanglement of information, both in our computer systems and in physics.

My astronomical research focuses on observing and understanding dark matter  and the role of information in our Universe, with the DOTliveplanetarium as  a beautiful laboratory.


DOTLiveplanetarium staff 2019  

not on picture, but on staff:  Adri Mathlener/CIT  and Kor Begeman/Kapteyn

DOTLiveplanetariumstaf 2019

 DOTliveplanetarium


The greatest show on earth- Foto Teymoor Saifollahi

The greatest show on earth  21 November 2017 
photo by Teymoor Saifollani

I  build a fantastic dome theater downtown in Groningen.
On 31 March 2014 the building  was delivered to the Infoversum Foundation and the theater officially opened on 17 June 2014.

Footing of Founder-2014

 
After a wonderful  year with over 80.000 visitors the city of Groningen withdraw from the enterprise and it closed down in December 2015.
The venue is now operated by DOT and in October 2017  the RUG started a new programme

DOTliveplanetarium Agenda on Facebook DOTLiveplanetarium

DOTLiveplanetarium Home page
coordinated by Prof R. Peletier,  Alessandro Angrilli Muglia (chief operator)  and myself. 

Infoversum


DOTliveplanetarium


Sailing

I owned, sailed and maintained an oak- wooden French sailing cutter (Dundee) for 25 years. Steven Gerritsen is now essentially re-building her see Orion. Like the fantastic "Theater te Water" on the ship the "Verwondering" the "Vrijhaven" of Groningen made me (amoungst other things) move to Groningen in the 80's.

Orion

Orion


In Auguste every year I guide on the sail charter SENTA Waddenzeilen to view the Perseides in the dark on the Wadden.