Australia Telescope Compact Array Open Day July 16, 2008
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The Australia Telescope Compact Array, at Culgoora, near Narrabri in north-western NSW is holding an Open Day on Saturday 19th July from 10 am to 4 pm. The telescope is part of the CSIRO Australia Telescope National Facility that also includes radio telescopes at Mopra, near Coonabarabran, and the famous Dish at Parkes. These open days are only held every two years and provide a rare opportunity for the public to tour inside an antenna and the control building.
Activities include:
- Antenna tours
- Control building tours
- Astronomer talks
- Ask an expert
- Art Display
There will be other activities onsite and food and drink will be available. For more details visit the Open Day page.
Introducing the Plutoids. June 12, 2008
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Welcome Pluto and Eris, the first of the Plutoids. The International Astronomical Union (IAU) has finally resolved the naming of Solar System objects such as Pluto. At their General Assembly in Prague in 2006 the IAU voted to reclassify Pluto. It was no longer a planet but instead was known as a dwarf planet. At the time terms such as pluton were suggested but this was already used in geology. From the media release:
Plutoids are celestial bodies in orbit around the Sun at a distance greater than that of Neptune that have sufficient mass for their self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that they assume a hydrostatic equilibrium (near-spherical) shape, and that have not cleared the neighbourhood around their orbit. The two known and named plutoids are Pluto and Eris.
Ceres does not qualify as it resides in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
There is a useful teaching resource about the initial naming controversy that is freely available from the Astronomy Education Review site. This provides teachers and other educators with some effective learning strategies.
Astronomy Ambassador Summer School at ARCC, UTB June 10, 2008
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I’m here in the Sci-fi looking Arecibo Remote Command Center (ARCC) within the Center for Gravitational Wave Astrophysics (CGWA) at University of Texas Brownsville. I’m surrounded by a keen if slightly nervous group of high school students from Texas and Puerto Rico who are about to embark on a three-week long Astronomy Ambassadors summer school. This is one of three summer schools, the others in computer science and mathematics, that the university is running over the next few weeks.
Students meet at 10 am each day for a subject-specific session that is then followed by a scientist from the university or elsewhere giving a lecture to the combined groups. Today’s talk will be about gamma-ray bursts. The afternoon session is a two-hour lab with a range of activities. I’m only here for the first four days as I fly home to Australia on Friday. Nonetheless I’m looking forward to working with the students on some introductory activities and giving Wednesday’s talk to the whole group about telescopes of the world.
Unfortunately I miss out on the camping trip next week to western Texas. There the students will construct their own Dobsonian telescope that they get to keep then use it under the dark skies of the region to observe the stars. They will also visit McDonald Observatory, home of the 9.2 m Hobby-Eberley Telescope and other telescopes.
When I arrived at ARCC late Friday afternoon they were busy mounting large, flat-screen LCD displays from the ceiling and walls. On Saturday afternoon there was a welcome and briefing for the five new undergraduates who have just been accepted as ARCC Scholars. They have a four-year program at UTB studying Physics and related subjects whilst working closely with scientists at the CGWA and using the ARCC to observe pulsars using the famous 300 m Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico.
On Sunday we welcomed the students and parents involved in the Astronomy Ambassadro program. They were able t observe an actual observing session at Arecibo conducted by UTB students using the ARCC as you can see below.
ASP Symposium: Weekend Workshops - Day One June 2, 2008
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I arrived in St Louis on Friday night after a long flight from Australia sans luggage. Oh well! Fortunately Jim Small from the St Louis Astronomical Society helped me out by taking we down to a couple of Jazz/Blues bars near the BUSCH Stadium where the local Cardinals were playing Pittsburgh (baseball). Had a nice Cajun meal, a few restorative beers and managed to buy a t-shirt from BBs so I was respectable for the following day’s workshop. Just got back to the hotel before a massive thunderstorm struck. Lots of others didn’t quite make it so there were many drenched people arriving in the hotel lobby. Thunder and sleep don’t mix hen combined with jet lag so only got a few hours sleep.
Saturday saw day one of the weekend workshops organised by the ASP. Three were on offer and I had selected Amateur Astronomers as Champions of IYA 2009. This turned out to be a sound choice as the workshop had a range of presenters and topics and gave overview of some IYA activities an how amateurs can get involved. I’ll try and summarise the sessions below.
- The workshop was introduced and hosted by Marni Berendsen and Vivian White from the Astronomical Society of the Pacific.
- First topic was by Sun-Earth Day Opportunities by Lou Mayo and Isabel Hawkins.
- Marin and Vivian then gave an overview of of the IYA Program for Amateur Astronomers.
- Stephen Pompea and Rob Spark from NOAO presented Teaching with the Galileoscope in the IYA. This was a really useful session and I was impressed how the team working on the Galileoscope have reined the concept and have what appears to be a workable, flexible and engaging solution. he plan now is for a scope with about 45x magnification, 1 degree field of view and a large eye relief. This will give a telescope that is suitable for urban students to view the Moon and the planets. The telescope can also double a an optical lab and is reusable so different groups can construct their own telescope. The aim is a scope for about $10 per unit.
- Following lunch Vivian showed us how to make a comet from dry ice and some other ingredients. This is always a fun activity. An engaging addition was getting each group to design and decorate their own Comet Cook aprons.
- Brian Day introduced us to LCROSS, (Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite) a lunar mission that will send a Centaur rocket stage crashing into a polar crater on the Moon. The collision and resulting cloud of ejecta will be monitored by the LCROSS probe following 4 minutes behind. They hope to find evidence of water in the cloud. One point that grabbed my attention was the that high school students in the GAVRT scheme using the 32m dish at Goldstone will be monitoring the LCROSS trajectory from the Earth to the Moon. Depending on the launch date (currently projected as late December 08) this could take a few months. Brian and I chatted about the possibility of some Australian students involved in PULSE@Parkes also getting involved and observing the probe. Marni then consolidated this by presenting some cratering activities and simulations including the bowl of flour dusted with cocoa powder and some useful hints as how to maximise the impact (pardon the pun) of these.
- Dark Skies from the Ground up: Amateur Astronomers as Ambassadors for GLOBE at Night covered by Connie Walker from NOAO and Dark Skies Discovery Sites by Terry Mann from the Astronomical League. GLOBE at Night is a wonderful project set up by Connie and her team. It runs during March each year and involves anyone going outside at night, finding Orion the trying to compare what they see with one of six diagrams available from the website. There is an excellent range of online and support materials. What I particularly like is that it is designed for use anywhere and caters for southern hemisphere observers
After a long but stimulating day I returned to the hotel to find that my luggage had finally arrived intact! I didn’t have much time to relax though as I was soon heading off with a group about 30 km out of St Louis for a great party at Pamela Gay of StarStryder and Astronomy Cast fame’s home. This was a wonderful way to end the day and meet lots of people. I finally met Phil Plait (of Bad Astronomy) and Chris Lintott having been a regular reader of all their blogs. Phil in his former employment had worked on the GLAST Outreach materials whilst Chris is one of the team heading up Galaxy Zoo. I’ll be attending their workshop on new media in astronomy on day two. Another heavy thunderstorm enlivened the evening but was mixed with some fine food, beer and conversation.
Off to the USA - ASP/AAS Joint Meeting May 30, 2008
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I’m about to fly across across the Pacific to St Louis, Missouri for a joint meeting between the Astronomical Society of the Pacific and the American Astronomical Society. The theme for the ASP meeting is Preparing for the International Year of Astronomy, a Hands-On Symposium. This starts on Saturday 31 may with two days of IYA-related workshops then three days for the actual ASP meeting. The AAS conference runs from Monday to Thursday. I’ll be attending the weekend workshops and the four days of meeitngs. I have a poster paper about ATNF Education Initiatives plus a 10-minute oral presentation on Tuesday about PULSE@Parkes.
I’m looking forward to this trip! I’ve been to few ASP meetings, the last in Tucson three years ago, so it will be good to catch up with some American colleagues and meet many new ones. It will be my first AAS meeting though so this should be interesting. ATNF has a display in the exhibitor’s hall so we should get lots of visitors.
Hopefully between long days and conference dinners and evening events I’ll get a chance to post some useful and interesting educational and astronomy items.
GLAST Due to Launch May 26, 2008
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This has been a big day for space missions. Earlier today Phoenix landed successfully on the arctic plain in the northern polar region of Mars. It is alrady sending back some wonderful images from the Martian surface.
Now news comes through confirming a rumour I heard earlier today. The GLAST (Gamma-Ray Large Area Space Telescope) is due to launch from 3 June. This is great news! I’m involved in a project, PULSE@Parkes, which allows Australian high school students to control the 64m Parkes radio telescope remotely over the internet to observe pulsars. The students analyse their observations to determine properties of the pulsars and compare their results with those obtained by other schools. The observations that students obtain also suppprt other programs undertaken by ATNF astronomers including the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array that is seeking to make the first direct detection of gravitational waves. The other key program are observations in support of the GLAST mission. One area of interest to the GLAST team is the study of pulsars that are glitching, showing sudden increase in their rotation rates. Radio observations of pulsars will alert the GLAST team as to potential targets for observation with GLAST. Perhaps some Australian students will make an observation that triggers observations by this new space telescope!
There is a useful and diverse range of educational resources developed by the GLAST Outreach team based at Sonoma State University. Topics include black holes, supernovae and active galactic nuclei.
WorldWide Telescope released May 13, 2008
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Microsoft Research have now released WorldWide Telescope.
I haven’t had a chance to use it yet as the system requirements are beyond my four-year old desktop PC at work and I don’t have Windows running on my Mac either. A pity as it certainly looks engaging and powerful from the visualisations provided on the website.
It appears that the developers have approached it very much as an educational tool. I’m impressed with the simple (Flash) homepage with the three sections: Telling stories, The visual experience, and Context. The download seems pretty hefty and 10 GB of hard disk space is recommended. For Windows PCs they suggest: 3D accelerated card with 128 megabytes (MB) RAM; discrete graphics card with dedicated 256-MB VRAM recommended for higher performance.
Hopefully I’ll get a chance to try it in the next few days. No doubt there will be lots of discussion on various sites. I’m interested in seeing how practicable it is is the average school.
Now, all I need is more time to play with this and Google Sky to get a better feel for them.
It’s About Time…It’s About Space! April 16, 2008
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Here is an event that should interest those of you in Sydney: Naomi is this year’s Powerhouse Wizard, a Science Leader at the CSIRO Australia Telescope National Facility and a great speaker. This will be well worth attending.
“The Powerhouse Discovery Centre at Castle Hill is hosting its next monthly Open Day on Saturday 10th of May 2008 titled It’s About Time…It’s About Space! The Open day program will include a range of activities themed around space, astronomy, and timekeeping, including, a very special behind-the-scenes tours of astronomy and timekeeping objects in the Powerhouse Museum Collection hosted by Sydney Observatory curator Dr Nick Lomb, solar telescope viewings, a free water rocket workshop for kids, and an illustrated lecture on the Milky Way by astrophysicist Dr Naomi McClure Griffiths. There will also be an evening of star-gazing from 6 – 8pm with the Sydney Observatory astronomers which will include complimentary tea, coffee, and pizza.”
International SKA Forum talks now available. April 16, 2008
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I spent a few days in Perth last week. The main purpose of my trip as to attend the International SKA Forum. This one-day meeting gave participants and up-to-date report on the Science case for this ambitious radio telescope, the Square Kilometre Array. Other sessions addressed engineering developments, business engagement and presentations from the two short-listed candidate countries to hot the SKA; Australia and South Africa, on their sites and pathfinder telescopes, ASKAP and MeerKAT.
My presence was due to the inclusion of a half-hour slot on the education potential of the SKA. This was a pleasing inclusion and generated lots of interesting questions and ideas from the audience. Hopefully this will spur continued education programs over coming years as the SKA is developed. All of the talks are now available for download from the AuSKA website forum page. They provide a useful introduction to the scale and scope of this exciting project.
My first NACAA March 27, 2008
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So, how was NACAA? This was my first experience of this biannual convention of Australian amateur astronomers but hopefully not my last. I didn’t manage to attend the workshops on the Friday or Monday or the dinners on Saturday and Sunday but got along to many of the daytime sessions on Saturday and Sunday. Fortunately my talk about the PULSE@Parkes project was well attended and I received lots of positive feedback and comments. The panel session on the International Year of Astronomy 2009 on the Saturday afternoon also went well and generated lots of lively discussion and ideas from the amateur community. Due to the number of submissions for sessions the program ran parallel sessions for much of the weekend so of course I couldn’t get to all the sessions I wanted. Overall though I was very impressed with the event, the turnout and the mix of presentations. As is typical of any conference some sessions or talks are more relevant or interesting to an individual than others but there was enough to choose from and the fact that the presentation rooms were only a short distance apart made swapping between talks easy.. Over 100 participants attended which I believe is a record.
The conference began with a Keynote address by Prof Matthew Colless, Director of the AAO on the Future of Optical Astronomy in Australia. Australia’s contribution to the wider global community was clearly outlined specifically through the development of multi-fibre spectroscopy in instruments such as 2dF, 6dF and AAOmega. The challenges and opportunities of the next generation ELTs such as GMT are exciting. Antarctica also offers an outstanding site that will be explored using the proposed PILOT 2.4m telescope.
The funniest talk I attended (and the one that probably attracted most envy) was from Ray Johnston who runs the observatory on Hamilton Island in the Whitsundays. His Astronomer (to a) Royal was hot of the press or more accurately straight off the boat. The Royal in this case referring to the Cunard ship the QE2 which has just toured Australia on its final round-the-world voyage. Ray was jammy enough to get a berth on the Australia to Singapore leg as a guest lecturer!
Ian Maclean’s talk about his work with Aboriginal students and homeland schools in Arnhem Land was inspiring and encouraging. Visit his blog to see what he is up to. His work resonated with the Wildflowers in the Sky project I was involved with in outback WA last year.
Martin George, Immediate Past-President of the International Planetarium Society, Director of the Launceston Planetarium in Tasmania gave an interesting overview of planetaria of the world.
The plenary by Dr Arne Henden, Director of the AAVSO (American Association of Variable Star Observers) discussed the role of the amateur scientist in modern society, focusing on the fine work done by many members of the AAVSO with some examples of professional-amateur collaborations. Astronomy is one of the few areas of science where amateurs still make a valuable contribution and can make significant discoveries.
I was inspired by the willingness of amateur astronomers to develop new skills and push the capabilities of their instruments and techniques. One such example was David Gault from ASNSW who used his 10 inch telescope to take part in observations of an occultation of Pluto to study its atmosphere.
A large part of an event such as this is the chance to meet old friends, meet new people and discuss ideas over lunch or coffee. I was not disappointed in this regard at NACAA.
The 2010 event will be in Canberra. I’ll certainly try and get along.
