From dcroton at astro.swin.edu.au Tue Oct 22 16:50:13 2013 From: dcroton at astro.swin.edu.au (Darren Croton) Date: Tue, 22 Oct 2013 16:50:13 +1100 Subject: [ASA] ANITA online lecture -- Applied Bayesian Astronomy, Aaron Robotham -- Wed 1pm (ADST) 23rd Oct Message-ID: <2C37567A-3AA6-485A-A500-7CCD521D862B@astro.swin.edu.au> Dear ANITA and ASA members. Tomorrow (Wednesday) at 1pm (ADST) ANITA will hold the last online lecture in the series of four from Aaron Robotham on Bayesian Astronomy. All are welcome to join! The target audience will range from undergrad to postdoc, however anyone interested is sure to get something out of it. More details (including lecture notes and slides) are available at: http://anita.edu.au/lectures/ -------------------------------- Title: Applied Bayesian Astronomy Speaker: Aaron Robotham (aaron.robotham at uwa.edu.au) Having established a grounding in R, Bayes theory and the main concepts surrounding computational Bayesian techniques (in particular, Markov chains for exploring posteriors, and Metropolis-Hastings as a Monte-Carlo Markov-Chain -aka MCMC- method), in this lecture we go on to explore how we would combat real astronomical problems. This will cover constructing realistic mock survey data from a luminosity function, and using Bayesian techniques to recover the input parameters. By the end of the lecture you should be confident enough to describe arbitrarily complicated problems using the toolkit we?ve gradually put together -------------------------------- The lecture will be held through Google Hangouts on Air. You'll first need a Google account (e.g. gmail). Log in to it. If you've never done a Google Hangout before you'll need to install a plugin for your browser. See https://www.google.com/tools/dlpage/hangoutplugin On Google+ search for "Anita Chapter" and head to our page. Alternatively, go directly to our Chapter page here: https://plus.google.com/u/0/104967001091880466806/posts You'll see a post for the Hangout on Air at around 12pm - hit play and enjoy! Some hints for a better experience: You can breakout the small video window on the Google+ page by opening it in YouTube. This gives you a much bigger view. Post any comments/questions under the video in the comments box on the Google+ or YouTube page. We'll try and answer them in real-time. I don't believe that comments are updated automatically; you may need to reload the page to see the latest. All lectures will be hosted on our ANITA YouTube page for later viewing. Thanks, and see you there! Darren -- Darren Croton Associate Professor & QEII Research Fellow Centre for Astrophysics & Supercomputing Swinburne University of Technology PO Box 218, Hawthorn, VIC 3122, Australia Phone: 61-3-9214-5537; Fax: 61-3-9214-8797 http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/~dcroton -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tara at physics.usyd.edu.au Thu Oct 24 10:15:24 2013 From: tara at physics.usyd.edu.au (Tara Murphy) Date: Thu, 24 Oct 2013 10:15:24 +1100 Subject: [ASA] Exploring the Radio Transient Sky: 5th/6th December 2013 Message-ID: VAST Workshop Announcement Exploring the Radio Transient Sky 5th and 6th of December, 2013 Sydney Institute for Astronomy The University of Sydney http://caastro.org/event/2013-vast The ASKAP Variables and Slow Transients project (VAST) is a suite of surveys designed to comprehensively explore variable and slow transient behaviour on timescales from seconds to years. The scientific goals cover a wide range of areas, from gamma-ray bursts and supernovae, to extreme scattering events and scintillation, to magnetars, X-ray binaries and brown dwarfs. ASKAP commissioning is well underway, and early science observations are expected to commence at the end of 2014. With this in mind, we are holding a meeting to discuss the latest developments in scientific areas of interest to VAST and also plan our Early Science strategy. Confirmed speakers include: * Martin Bell (University of Sydney) * Hayley Bignall (Curtin University) * Steve Croft (University of California, Berkeley) * George Djorgovski (California Institute of Technology) * Ciro Donalek (California Institute of Technology) * Giancarlo Ghirlanda (INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera) * Matthew Graham (California Institute of Technology) * Aidan Hotan (CSIRO Astronomy and Space Science) * Simon Johnston (CSIRO Astronomy and Space Science) * J-P Macquart (Curtin University) * Stuart Ryder (Australian Astronomical Observatory) * Brian Schmidt (Australian National University) * Randall Wyath (Curtin University) * Peter Williams (Harvard University) Everyone is welcome to attend. Registration is free, and morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea are included. More information is available on our website: http://caastro.org/event/2013-vast The workshop is limited to 40 attendees and the deadline for registration is November 8th. Tara -- DR TARA MURPHY | Senior Lecturer Sydney Institute for Astronomy | School of Physics | Faculty of Science School of Information Technologies | Faculty of Engineering and IT THE UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY Room 565, School of Physics, A28 | Room 448, School of IT, J12 The University of Sydney | NSW | 2006 T +61 2 9351 4723 | T +61 2 9351 3041 E tara at physics.usyd.edu.au | E tm at it.usyd.edu.au http://www.physics.usyd.edu.au/~tara http://www.ncss.edu.au -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From john.obyrne at sydney.edu.au Fri Oct 25 08:51:14 2013 From: john.obyrne at sydney.edu.au (John O'Byrne) Date: Fri, 25 Oct 2013 08:51:14 +1100 Subject: [ASA] ANITA 2014 Workshop and N-body Summer School - 1st Announcement Message-ID: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ANITA 2014 WORKSHOP AND N-BODY SUMMER SCHOOL 17th-21st February 2014 The University of Sydney INITIAL ANNOUNCEMENT ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------ ANITA 2014: ------------------ The 8th Annual Theory Workshop of the Australian National Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics (ANITA), will be held on the 17th and 18th of February 2014 at the Sydney Institute for Astronomy within the School of Physics, University of Sydney. Website and registration will be available soon. Please save the date in your calendars! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- N-body Summer School ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The ANITA meeting will be followed by a 3 day N-body simulations summer school, from the 19th-21st of February. The school with cover techniques and resources for use in astrophysical N-body simulations. Topics covered will include: * A hands-on introduction to setting up and running codes such as GADGET, NBODY6 and SWIFT; * Generating initial conditions for planetary, star cluster, galaxy and cosmology simulations; * Introduction to publicly available analysis and visualisation tools; * Hands-on programming classes to analyse data produced by the codes. The summer school will be open to all advanced undergraduate, honours and PhD students as well as active Astronomy and Astrophysics researchers within Australia and New Zealand. Be aware that numbers may be limited and so when allocating spaces priority will be given to students. Registration and website will be available soon. Looking foward to seeing you there. On behalf of the SOC (Geraint Lewis, Chris Power, Orsola De Marco, Krzysztof Bolejko and Weiguang Cui) and the ANITA steering committee. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR JOHN O?BYRNE Associate Head (Teaching & Learning) Chair, School Teaching & Learning Committee Secretary, Astronomical Society of Australia Inc. Sydney Institute for Astronomy School of Physics | Faculty of Science THE UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY Rm 222, 44-70 Rosehill St Redfern H90 (see map) | (alternate: Rm 205, Physics Building A28) Postal address: School of Physics | The University of Sydney | NSW | Australia | 2006 T +61 2 9351 3184 | F +61 2 9351 7726 E john.obyrne at sydney.edu.au | W http://sydney.edu.au/science/physics/~obyrne CRICOS 00026A This email plus any attachments to it are confidential. Any unauthorised use is strictly prohibited. If you receive this email in error, please delete it and any attachments. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This email uses 100% recycled words and ideas. Do you really need to print it? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bryan.gaensler at sydney.edu.au Sun Oct 27 10:12:35 2013 From: bryan.gaensler at sydney.edu.au (Bryan Gaensler) Date: Sun, 27 Oct 2013 10:12:35 +1100 Subject: [ASA] Reminder: PASA Editorial Board - Call for Applications In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <91C66549-D96D-4BB4-8B6C-77867BDC160C@sydney.edu.au> PASA EDITORIAL BOARD - CALL FOR APPLICATIONS Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia (PASA) is an ISI-listed, fully-refereed journal for new and significant research in astronomy and astrophysics. PASA seeks up to three suitably qualified astronomers to join its Editorial Board for three-year terms, beginning January 2014. Applications can be made by sending a statement of strengths and suitability and a brief CV to the Chair of the PASA Editorial Board, Bryan Gaensler (bryan.gaensler at sydney.edu.au) by 31 Oct 2013. Further details on the journal, the responsibilities of the Editorial Board, and how to apply are at http://www.sifa.org.au/PASA .