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AuScope VLBI Project
The
School of Mathematics & Physics is excited to be involved in the
"AuScope VLBI Project" and on Tuesday, February 9, 2010, our new
telescope, located in the grounds of our Mount Pleasant 26 m radio
telescope, was officially opened by the Governor of Tasmania, The Honourable Peter Underwood AC.
For information regarding the AuScope VLBI Project read here.
We will be reporting soon on new students and what projects they will be undertaking in 2010.
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2007
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| Welcome to Undergraduate Research Student in Astrophysics |
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We welcome Jay Blanchard & Anita Titmarsh, third year physics and astronomy students, to the astrophysics
research group. Both Jay and Anita will be undertaking a research project with Dr Melanie Johnston-Hollitt.
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| UTas wins bid to host Inaugural Australian Theoretical Astrophysics Summer School |
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UTas
has won the bid to host the Inaugural Austronomical Society of
Australia Summer School on Theoretical Astrophysics. The 2 week school
will take place on the Cradle Coast Campus in Burnie in Jan 2008 and
will draw a selection of the world's best theoretical astrophysicists
and 50 PhD students and Australian academics to UTas for the event. The
bid put together by Dr Melanie Johnston-Hollitt comprised $15,000 in
cash and over $20,000 in kind from UTas and regional partners. This
will be supplemented by and additional $35,000 from other sources. The
bid beat some tough competition from GO8 university, UWA and the event
is bound to be a highlight on the Australian Astronomical communities
calendar. Dr Johnston-Hollitt has susequently been appointed a member
of the SOC and will chair the LOC.
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| Scholarship Success |
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Congratulations
to 3rd year student Simon Areaud for being awarded a full scholarship
to attend the ANSTO Winter School on Nuclear Physics in Sydney. Simon
was selected as the UTas representative to attend the week long school
held over the July break. The annual winter school run by ANSTO gives
students from a diverse ranges of disciplines including, physics,
chemistry, mathematics, biology, geology and medicine the chance to
learn about cutting edge technology in nuclear science and it's
applications.
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| New Astrophysics Satff |
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Dr
Jim Lovell has commenced a position as project scientist for the $7M
AuScope telescopes being built by UTas under part of the successful
Geosciences Australia NCRIS bid. Jim completed his PhD at UTas and was
previously at ATNF. He has a long history with vlbi and intraday
variability. Jim commenced his position with UTas in March and will be
based in Canberra at Geosciences Australia until June when he will move
to Hobart. Welcome back Jim!
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| Astrophysics Scholarship Success! |
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Congratulations
are due to four honours students for 2007 for obtaining prestigious
scholarships. Anne-Marie Brick who completed her undergraduate degree
at Monash University was awarded a UTas Honours Scholarship worth
$9,500 - this was one of only 10 given out across the entire
University. Rob Gregor who completed his undergraduate degree in
physics at Murdoch University was also awarded one of the 4 UTas
Honours scholarships worth $4,500. Minnie Mao who completed her
undergraduate degree at Monash and James Gill who completed his degree
at UTas were both awarded Dave Warren Scholarships in Astrophysics
worth $4,500. Minnie, Anne-Marie and James are all former scholars of
the Summer Research program in Astrophysics at UTas; James and
Anne-Marie were students over the 2005/2006 summer and Minnie was a
student over the 2006/2007 summer. All four students will be working on
projects under the supervision on Dr Melanie Johnston-Hollitt.
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| Welcome to 2007 Honours students in Astrophysics |
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There
are seven honours students in astrophysics for 2007. Tristan Brookes
will be working with Dr John Greenhill and Associate Professor Peter
Jarvis on statistical detection methods for extrasolar planets using
mircolensing. Shaun Inglis will be working with Dr Simon Ellingsen and
Professor Larry Forbes on modelling of ultra-compact HII regions. Ben
Lewis will be working with Dr Simon Ellingsen on a maser survey.
Anne-Marie Brick, Rob Gregor, James Gill and Minnie Mao will all be
working under the supervision of Dr Melanie Johnston-Hollitt on
research associated with galaxy clusters. Anne-Marie will be
undertaking a multi-wavelength analysis of A3128 to understand the
putative radio relic. Rob will be examining the polarisation of double
the relics in A3667 & A3376. James is determining the Radio
Luminosity Function of the Horologium-Reticulum Supercluster and
Minnie's project is entitled "Head-Tailed Galaxies as Barometers of
Cluster Weather." Welcome to all these students and especially, Minnie,
Anne-Marie & Rob who completed their undergraduate degrees at other
universities.
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2006
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| Staff Promotion |
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Congratulations to Dr Melanie Johnston-Hollitt who was promoted in the 2006 academic promotions round.
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| New PhD Students |
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Welcome
to our 2007 PhD students, Shari Breen, Sol Jacobsen & Luke Yate.
Shari will be working with Dr Simon Ellingsen and Dr Jim Caswell (ATNF)
to investigate the use of masers are tracers of massive star formation.
Luke and Sol will both join the theorectial physics group under the
supervision of Associate Professor Peter Jarvis.
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| Astrophysics Summer Students |
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Welcome
to our 2006/2007 summer students! This year we are pleased to have Ms
Minnie Mao (Monash), Ms Anita Titmarsh (UTas), Mr Andrew Pilgrim
(UTas), Mr Simon Arneaud (UTas) and Mr Jay Blanchard (UTas). Minnie,
Anita, Simon and Andrew will all be working under the supervision of Dr
Aidan Hotan and Dr Jamie Stevens on aspects of the Mt Pleasant
observatory upgrade. Jay will be working with Dr Melanie
Johnston-Hollitt on understanding the ionospheric contribution to
extragalactic Faraday Rotation measures.
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| Astrophysics Grant Success |
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Congratulations to the following staff members who have recently been successful in obtaining research grants:
Prof John Dickey, Dr Simon Ellingsen & Prof Peter McCulloch
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ARC Discovery Grant
"Radio Interferometer Studies of Compact Astronomical Sources"
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| Astrophysics Scholarship Success |
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Congratulations
to 3rd year student James Gill for being awarded a summer scholarship
at the Anglo-Australian Observatory in Sydney and Honours student
Warren Hankey who was awarded a grant to attend the Synthesis Imaging
Workshop at the CSIRO Australia Telescope National Facility in
Narrabri, NSW.
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| UTas plays vital role in Moon Mission! |
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26m Mt Pleasant telescope was one of a nextwork of radio telescopes to
recently observe the impact of the European Space Agency's SMART-1
probe when it hit the surface of the moon. Telescopes from
Australia (ATCA, Mt Pleasant, Chile (TIGO), Brazil (Fortaleza), Finland
(HUT) and Italy (Medicina) were combined in a VLBI network to observe
the historic imapct. Postdoctoral Fellow, Dr Jamie Stevens and
Technician, Brett Reid recorded the event on Sunday 3rd of September.
The Mt Pleasant telescope and the Brazilan instrument were the only two
to actually record the impact which reuired instruments at extreme
Southerly declinations. Data from the experiment is expected to assist
with understanding the composition of the Luna surface. More
information here. |
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| Astrophysics Scholarship Success |
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| Congratulations
to honours student Warren Hankey and 3rd Year students James Gill &
Kylie Haugstetter for being awarded full scholarships to attend the
Swinburne University of Technology Winter School on Astrophysics.
Warren, James and Kylie, who have all been working on galaxy clusters
under the supervision of Dr Melanie Johnston-Hollitt, will spend
2 days in Melbourne at the Centre for Astrophysics and
Supercomputing over the winter break learning about modern
astronomical data visualisation before returning to UTas to continue
their studies. |
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UTas Astrophysicist Wins Vice-Chancellor's Award
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| Congratulations
to Dr Kym Hill for winning the Vice-Chancellor's Award for Exceptional
Performance by a General Staff Member. The prize of $5,000 will enable
Dr Hill to obtain further professional training. |
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| Scholarship Success |
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Congratulations
to 3rd year student James Gill for being awarded a full scholarship to
attend the ANSTO Winter School on Nuclear Physics in Sydney. James was
selected as the UTas representative to attend the week long school held
over the July break. The annual winter school run by ANSTO gives
students from a diverse ranges of disciplines including, physics,
chemistry, mathematics, biology, geology and medicine the chance to
learn about cutting edge technology in nuclear science and it's
applications.
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UTas Astrophysicist Wins Faculty Research Prize
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Congratulations
to Dr Melanie Johnston-Hollitt for winning the Faculty of Science,
Engineering and Technology Early Career Researcher Prize. Dr
Johnston-Hollitt won this prize for her work on understanding the
dynamics and evolution of galaxy clusters. The prize of $5,000 will be
presented by the Governor of Tasmania at a function on the 29th of
March.
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XMM Time Granted to UTas Astrophysicst
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Congratulations
to principal investigator Dr Melanie Johnston-Hollitt and her
collaborators Dr Alexis Finoguenov (MPE & UMaryland) & Dr
Francesco Miniati (Zurich) for obtaining time on the XMM-Newton X-ray
space telescope to study the dynamical properties of a merging cluster
of galaxies. Time on space telescopes is very hard to obtain with
proposals typically required to be in the best 15% of those submitted
to be successful.
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UTas Astronomers Part of International Team to Detect Rocky Extrasolar Planet
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An
international team of 73 astronomers, of which 3 are from the
astrophysics group at the University of Tasmania, have reported the
discovery of a 5.5 Earth-mass extrasolar planet at about 3 AU
from the parent star. The represents the first discovery of an
Earth-like terrestial or "rocky" planet orbiting sufficiently far from
the parent star that it would be possible (although unlikely) to
support life and it is only the 3rd detection of a planet using the
technique of microlensing. Results of the work were published in the
25th of Jan, 2006 edition of the Journal Nature.
Further information is available off the Nature website.
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Lightcurve of the microlensing event which detected the Earth-like planet OGLE-2005-BLG-390Lb.
Insert: The solid curve is the best binary lens model described in the text with q = 7.6  0.7 10 -5 , and a projected separation of d = 1.610 0.008 R E
. The dashed grey curve is the best binary source model that is
rejected by the data, and the dashed orange line is the best single
lens model.
From Beaulieu J.P., et al . Nature , 439 . 437 - 440 (2006) |
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Artists impression of the extrasolar planet OGLE-2005-BLG-390Lb orbiting it's parent M-dwarf star. Credit G. Bacon STScI.
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2005
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| Astrophysics Grant Success |
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Congratulations to the following staff members who have recently been successful in obtaining research grants:
Dr Melanie Johnston-Hollitt
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University of Tasmania Internal Research Grant Scheme
"Understanding Environmental Effects on Radio Emission in Clusters of Galaxies"
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Dr John Greenhill & Dr Stefan Dieters
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University of Tasmania Internal Research Grant Scheme
"Searching for Planetary Systems About Other Stars"
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| Welcome to Undergraduate Research Student in Astrophysics |
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| We
welcome James Gill, a third year physics and astronomy student, to the
astrophysics research group. James will be undertaking a research
project with Dr Melanie Johnston-Hollitt to analyse statistical
properties of a multi-ojbect spectroscopic data of the galaxy cluster
A3376 taken with the Anglo-Australian Observatory. This research is
part of a larger multi-wavelength study of the cluster being undertaken
by Dr Johnston-Hollitt and her collaborators. |
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| Welcome to Astrophysics Summer Students |
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Welcome
to Madhura Kiledar, Tim Dolley and Anne-Marie Brick, three astrophysics
students selected for our summer scholarship program. Madhura is from
the University of Sydney and will be working with Dr Johnston-Hollitt,
Tim is from Monash University and will be working with Aidan Hotan and
Anne-Marie is from Monash University and will be working with Dr
Stevens. Tim and Anne-Marie will arrive at the start of December and
Madhura will arrive in January.
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| Physics Students Selected for Astrophysics Scholarship |
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Congratulations
to honours student Shari Breen for being selected as a summer vacation
scholar at the Australia Telescope National Facility in Sydney and to
Sally Long, a third year Physics student who has been selected as a
summer vacation scholar at the the Research School of Astronomy &
Astrophysics at ANU. Shari and Sally will spend 10-12 weeks
working with leading astromomers over the summer, before returning to
UTas to continue their studies.
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| Astrophysics Grant Success |
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Congratulations to the following staff members who have recently been successful in obtaining research grants:
Dr Simon Ellingsen, Professor John Dickey & collaborators
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ARC special initivate grant on E-reseach:
"Real-Time Very Long Baseline Interferometry"
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New Postdoctoral Appointments in Radio Astronomy
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Two new postdocs have bee appointed to the radio astronomy group at UTas. Dr Jamie Stevens and Aidan Hotan.
Aidan's background is in pulsar timing and Jamie's has worked on HI in
galaxy groups and with the new Low Frequency Demonstrator in WA. Aidan
commences his appointment on August 8th and Jamie will begin on August
29th. Both will be working on upgrades to the 26m telescope at Mt
Pleasant.
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| Welcome to Undergraduate Research Student in Astrophysics |
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We
welcome Simon Arneaud, a first year physics student, to the
astrophysics research group. Simon will be undertaking a research
project with Dr Melanie Johnston-Hollitt & Chris Hollitt to build
and test different types of infra-red cloud detectors for astronomical
purposes.
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Student Poster Wins Prize
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| Congratulations
to Cliff Senkbeil whos poster "The Southern IDV Survey" won second
prize in the Astronomical Society of Australia's annual graduate
student poster competion |
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Welcome to Undergraduate Research Student in Astrophysics
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We
welcome Lewis Tunstall, a first year physics and astronomy student, to
the astrophysics research group. Lewis will be undertaking a research
project with Dr Melanie Johnston-Hollitt to analyse multi-ojbect
spectroscopic data of the galaxy cluster A3376 taken with the
Anglo-Australian Observatory. This research is part of a larger
multi-wavelength study of the cluster being undertaken by Dr
Johnston-Hollitt and her collaborators.
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Honours Student Grant Success
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Congratulations
to honours student Clair Murrowood for successfully obtaining travel
grants totally $700 to attend the Annual General Meeting of the
Astronomical Society of Australia in Sydney in July. Clair will present
a poster
"Structure in the Horologium-Reticulum Supercluster" at the meeting.
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Welcome CSIRO Research Student
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We
welcome to Mat Creese from the Hutchins High School to the astrophysics
research group. Mat has been selected as a student in the CSIRO student
research scheme which allows final year students with an interest in
science to spend some time working on a short research project with an
local scientist. Mat will be working with Dr Melanie Johnston-Hollitt
on a research project to investiagte the dynamical properties of the
galaxy cluster A4059.
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Mt Canopus Observatory to Support NASA's Deep Impact Mission
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This
year see the second installment of UTas telescopes playing a support
role to space missions. The first was the crucial participation of the
University's radio telescopes at Cambridge, Tasmania and Ceduna, South
Australia in the Doppler Winds Experiment conducted as part of the
Huygens probe mission to Saturn's largest moon Titan in January. The
second will see the Mt Canopus telescope provide ground based support
to the NASA "Deep Impact" mission. This mission will seek to discover
what really lies inside comet Temple -1 by blowing a hole in it! The
aims of the mission are to:
1. observe how the crater forms,
2. measure the crater's depth and diameter,
3. measure the composition of the interior of the crater and its ejecta and
4. determine the changes in natural outgassing produced by the impact.
The actually imapct will occur on July 4th but the Mt Canopus telescope
will start monitoring the object several weeks before that and then for
several weeks after. Further details of the mission can be found here .
For further details of the role that Canopus will play please contact,
UTas, senior research scientist Dr Kym Hill (Kym.Hill at utas.edu.au).
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Comet Temple-1 at a distance of 39.7 million miles. Taken on April 25, 2005. Copyright NASA/JPL
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Altium Donation Provides Astrophysics Scholarship Opportunities
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Altium
Pty Ltd have signed up to work with radio astronomers at the University
of Tasmania to work on two exciting new experiments involving the Mt
Pleasant radio telescope. As part of this work Altium have donated
funds and in-kind project assistance worth over $150, 000. Part of the
money will go toward funding two PhD scholarships in radio astronomy
starting in 2006. Further details can be obtained from the Altium press
resease - click on the link to the right.
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ALTIUM PRESS RELEASE
Click to download
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NASA Award of Recognition
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Congratulations
to Dr Stefan Dieters for recieving a NASA Award of Recognition for his
contribution to the discovery of magnetars. Dr Dieters was one of
a team of 11 people responsible for the 1998 discovery of magnetars,
stars with extreme magnetic fields. The discovery was published in a
paper in Nature Kouveliotou et al, volume 393, p235-237 (1998).
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More Astrophysics Grant Success
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Congratulations to the following staff members who have recently been successful in obtaining research grants:
| Dr Melanie Johnston-Hollitt |
ANSTO Access to Major Research Facilities grant
" The connection between radio galaxies and cluster formation: Deep radio observations of the highest redshift galaxy clusters"
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Astrophysics Scholarship Success
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Congratulations
are due to several of our astrophysics students for their success in
obtaining scholarships for 2005. Succesful students include Ms Claire
Trenham who obtained and APA to undertake a PhD on modelling properties
of the Interstellar Medium with Professor John Dickey and Professor
Larry Forbes; Mr Cliff Senkbiel who obtained an APAI for a PhD in radio
astronomy with Professor Peter McCulloch and Dr Simon Ellingsen; Ms
Clair Murrowood who won the 2005 Dave Warren Honours Scholarship in
Optical Astronomy to study the Horologium-Reticulum Supercluster with
Dr Melanie Johnston-Hollitt and Mr Jan Zika who won the 2005 Radio
Astronomy Scholarship to study with Dr Simon Ellingsen and Professor
Larry Forbes. (Also Ms Lisa Miller won the 2005 school of Mathematics
and Physics Honours scholarship and is undertaking honours in
statistics with Dr Wotherspoon.)
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Astrophysics Grant Success
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Congratulations to the following staff members who have recently been successful in obtaining research grants:
Prof. John Dickey, Prof. Larry Forbes & Dr Simon Ellingson (+ collaborators)
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ARC Linkage, Infrastructure, Equipment & Facilities Grant
"A 10 Gbit/s Fibre Optic Link to Mt Pleasant & Mt Canopus Observatories"
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| Prof. John Dickey |
ARC Discovery Grant
"Transient Astronomical Sources at Radio Frequencies:"
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| Dr Melanie Johnston-Hollitt |
University of Tasmania Internal Research Grant Scheme
"Understanding Dynamical Processes in Clusters & Superclusters of Galaxies"
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Visitor to the Astrophysics Group
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From
mid-November until the start of January the Matthew Fleenor from the
University of North Carolina, USA will visit the astrophysics group.
While here Matt will work with Dr Melanie Johnston-Hollitt on
multi-wavelength analysis of the Horologium--Reticulum Supercluster.
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Welcome to Astrophysics Summer Students
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Welcome
to Mayumi Sato, Steve Ambrose and Min-Young Lee, three astrophysics
students selected for our summer scholarship program. Mayumi is from
Keio University, Japan and will be working with Dr Johnston-Hollitt,
Min-Young is from Yonsei University, Korea and will be working with Dr
Cimo and Steve is from UTas and will be working with Prof Dickey.
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Mt Pleasant and Ceduna Telescopes Take Part in Cassini-Huygens Mission
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The
Mt Pleasant and Ceduna radio telescopes operated by the discipline of
physics are gearing up to participate in the NASA operated
Cassini-Huygens space probe mission which is examining the rings of
Saturn and the moon Titan. The spacecraft which as already returned
amazingly detailed data about the rings of Saturn will soon launch the
Huygens probe to the surface of Titan. Tracking for part of the mission
has been entrusted to the Mt Pleasant and Ceduna radio telescopes.
Currently testing is underway to ensure we record the data for the
probe's mission. The timeline of the mission is as follows:
Dec. 25, 2004: Huygens probe separates from the Cassini orbiter and begins its 21 day journey to Titan.
Jan.
14, 2005: Huygens begins its descent through Titan's atmosphere and
will land on the surface about two and half hours later.
Further details about the mission are on the NASA website and the Cassini-Huygens site .
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"Huygens
probe jettison. In this artist's rendition, the Huygens probe is
finally ejected by the Cassini spacecraft and begins its 22-day coast
phase toward Titan." Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech.
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2004
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Physics Student Selected for Astrophysics Scholarship
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Congratulations
to Clair Murrowood, a third year Physics student who has been selected
as a summer vacation Scholar at the Anglo-Australia Observatory,
NSW. Clair will spend 10-12 weeks at the AAO headquarters in
Sydney working with leading optical astromomers over the summer, before
returning to UTas to continue her studies.
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| New Associate Lecturer in Physics |
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From December 2004 the Discipline of Physics will have a new lecturer,
Dr Stefan Dieters . Stefan is an astrophysicist whos principal research
interestes are X-ray binaries. Stefan completed his PhD on " Hard X-ray
observations of Sco X-1 and GX 1+4 " at the University of Tasmania in
1990. Prior to commencing at the University of Tasmania, Dr Dieters
held several positions in the United States and Europe. |
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New Professor of Astrophysics
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The
University of Tasmania has recently appointed Professor John Dickey as
the chair of Radio Astronomy in the Discipline of Physics. John arrived
shortly after the start of the second semester this year to take up his
position. John's research area is radio spectroscopy of the Milky Way
and nearby galaxies. His specialty is 21-cm line studies of the atomic
hydrogen in the interstellar medium. In addition he is the principal
investigator of the Southern Galactic Plane Survey, a large project to
survey the 21-cm emission and absorption from the inner Milky Way
galaxy using the Australia Telescope National Facility telescopes and
Parkes and Narrabri in New South Wales. You can read more about John's
work on his personal page.
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New Associate Lecturer in Physics
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From July 2004 the Discipline of Physics will have a new lecturer, Dr
Melanie Johnston-Hollitt. Melanie is an astrophysicist whos principal
research interestes are clusters and superclusters of galaxies and
cosmic magnetic fields. Prior to commencing at the University of
Tasmania, Dr Johnston-Hollit worked as a LOFAR Fellow in the
Netherlands. More details of Melanie's research and other interests can
be found on her personal webpage.
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