I'm back from Natal, RN, Brazil, where I went for the XIV SBSR. This year's symposium was not as good as previous versions, maybe because the global economic crisis has reduced the number of sponsors.
The schedule was different from the other editions, in the mornings there was no break during sessions, it went straight from 9:00 to 12:00. In the past, there was a coffee break in the middle which allowed us to take a look at the exposition and to grab something to eat and go to the bathroom. Without the coffee break, the exposition was mostly deserted in the morning. This also happened because the exposition was at the back of the building, people could enter the convention center, go to their sessions, leave and never look at the exposition. If I remember correctly, you had to walk through the exposition in the last edition.
Another problem I had was that some of the sessions I wanted to watch happened at the same time, so I had to choose one and miss the other. It's hard to please everyone when doing a schedule and this time I was the unlucky part.
On a sort of positive note, for the first time, I heard an explanation for the problem with CBERS's CCD relative calibration. Flávio Ponzoni from INPE said, answering a question from the audience, that it seems as though the CCD camera is not radiometrically stable, that the detectors response vary from pass to pass making systematic relative calibration very difficult. Let's hope that the new sensors in CBERS-3 and CBERS-4 will do better.
On friday, May 1st, I was finally able to do some site seeing before catching my flight home. Together with some friends from USGS and NASA, and despite some rain in the morning, we went on a crazy buggy ride on the dunes. I highly recommend it, truly unforgettable.
Nenhum comentário:
Postar um comentário