This introduces the second issue of the Calar Alto Newsletter which is intended to provide an overview of activities which are carried out on Calar Alto. We include three scientific articles by Kranz & Rix, Papaderos et al. and Prada & Zamorano about recent results obtained at the 3.5m and 1.23m telescopes. Two important instrumentation projects for the 3.5m telescope, the NIR wide field imager Omega 2000 and the optical wide field camera LAICA, are described by Bailer Jones and by Fried. Additional information on the recent TWIN upgrade, on changes in the hard- and software of the Calar Alto Computers, and a more general article on the use of programmable controllers, are included as well.
It is of particular pleasure to report on the very successful first NEON summer school on Calar Alto. NEON stands for Network of European Observatories in the North. It describes a possible future collaboration among various northern observatories with the main aim to streamline and to coordinate operations, and to offer observing time to a broader European community. The Summer School is sponsored by the European Community and supported by the European Southern Observatory. It replaces the former ESO/OHP summer schools. Further details may be found on http://www.iap.fr/eas/schools.html .
During the July 9 - 22, 2000, period, 15 students from Hungary, Spain, Czechia, Italy, Austria, and Greece, and France, stayed on Calar Alto to carry out well defined scientific programmes. Daniel Apai, Sara Benlloch, Andrea Budovicova, Elisabetta de Filippis, Maria Cruz Galvez Ortiz, Ana Elia Garcia Perez, Nuria Huelamo, Vanentina La Parola, Belen Lopez Marti, Maria Markoulaki, Ilaria Pascucci, Julie Patris, Giulia Rodighiero, Valeri Stanishev, and Anamarija Stankov (see our gallery of pictures), worked in groups of 3 students, tutored by astronomers from ESO, Asiago, and Calar Alto, using the CCD Camera and MAGIC at the 1.23m and CAFOS at the 2.2m telescope. The observations included an optical and NIR study of the Cygnus OB2 association, the observation of the transit of the extrasolar planet of HD209458, the observational search for substructure within galactic halos and the structure and stellar content of dwarf elliptical galaxies. Last but not least, the school classified the supernova 2000cw in MCG +5-56-007 as type-Ia which it reported in the IAU circular No. 7457.
