From ausgo at aao.gov.au Tue Mar 11 11:56:35 2014 From: ausgo at aao.gov.au (Australian Gemini Office) Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2014 11:56:35 +1100 Subject: [ASA] Call for Magellan Proposals in Semester 2014B Message-ID: <531E5F43.9040308@aao.gov.au> Proposals for Australian access to the Magellan telescopes for Semester 2014B (mid-Jul 2014 - mid-Jan 2015) are due by *5:00pm AEST, Monday 7 April 2014*. (A separate call for Gemini and Subaru proposals in Semester 2014B with a 31 March 2014 deadline was issued last week - please see http://www.physics.usyd.edu.au/pipermail/asa/2014-March/000474.html) What's new for Semester 2014B? ------------------------------ * There will be a single f/5 block in October 2014 (MMIRS followed by MegaCam), as well as a single adaptive optics MagAO run of between 28 and 35 nights beginning early in November. Between 30 and 50% of the MagAO nights are reserved for the University of Arizona, with the remaining nights distributed by Magellan shares. Note that whenever either the wide-field f/5, or the AO adaptive secondary mirror are mounted on the Clay telescope, none of the f/11 instruments (MIKE, MagE, LDSS3, PFS, M2FS) are available. * The Magellan Adaptive Optics (MagAO ) facility is a new natural guide star system for the Clay telescope that uses a high-order wavefront sensor and adaptive secondary mirror to deliver near diffraction-limited imaging performance with either an optical (VisAO ) or an infrared (Clio2 ) camera. It is planned to replace the Clio2 detector to provide lower read-noise in the J- and H-bands, so Clio2 is offered as shared-risk in these bands for 2014B. Those interested in using MagAO in 2014B should contact Laird Close (lclose at as.arizona.edu) before submitting a proposal. * The MMIRS detector is currently being upgraded, so MMIRS will be offered in shared-risks mode in 2014B. The new Hawaii-2RG array will offer QE in Y, J, H, and K of 80%, 78%, 82%, and 80%; read-noise as low as 3e-; dark current of 0.006 e-/sec/pix; and lower cross talk and persistence. Note that the instrument may be moved to the MMT in 2015 for at least a couple of years. * A new CCD camera with much-improved red sensitivity is due to be commissioned in March and become the default detector for LDSS3, although programs focusing on bluer wavelengths will have the option to use the original CCD in certain blocks. Interested PIs should contact Jacob Bean (jbean at cfa.harvard.edu) about the new CCD before applying. * The Carnegie Institution for Science and Astronomy Australia Limited (AAL) have signed an agreement to continue Australian access to fifteen nights per year on the Magellan telescopes until 2017B. How to apply ------------ Further information about all Magellan instrumentation on offer, travel funding, and the application procedure is described at: http://ausgo.aao.gov.au/magellan.html Need help? ---------- For any enquiries about Australian usage of Magellan please contact the Australian Gemini Office (ausgo at aao.gov.au). Stuart Ryder Australian Gemini Office ausgo at aao.gov.au -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dcroton at astro.swin.edu.au Tue Mar 11 14:37:19 2014 From: dcroton at astro.swin.edu.au (Darren Croton) Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2014 14:37:19 +1100 Subject: [ASA] Fwd: ANITA Google Hangout March Lecture: "Density Estimation and Clustering" References: <33E38AB5-7F9B-4DED-A58A-62B169734B9D@astro.swin.edu.au> Message-ID: <640195D1-532B-4C9F-A291-FD1254DFE41C@astro.swin.edu.au> Dear ASA community. A quick reminder to mark your calendars for tomorrow (Wednesday) at 1pm (Melbourne time). Streaming details will be posted on the ANITA webpage about 15 minutes beforehand. http://anita.edu.au/lectures/density-estimation-and-clustering-sanjib-sharma/ Thanks, Darren Croton & Chris Power Begin forwarded message: > From: Darren Croton > Subject: ANITA Google Hangout March Lecture: "Density Estimation and Clustering" > Date: 4 March 2014 1:37:14 PM AEDT > To: ASA ASA > Cc: Darren Croton , Chris Power , Sanjib Sharma > > Dear ANITA and ASA members. > > I'd like to announce the next in our ongoing Google Hangouts on Air lecture series. > Speaker: Sanjib Sharma, University of Sydney > Title: "Density Estimation and Clustering" > Date: Wednesday 12th March 1pm (AEST) > Where: The internets > Abstract: Estimating density of a given set of points and identifying clusters are two important techniques to reveal hidden information in data. With recent advances in technology, today we have data which is both large (number of objects per data set) and rich (amount of information in each object). This poses a unique challenge for data mining. In multi dimensional spaces, not all the algorithms work equally well. Also, not all algorithms are computationally efficient for analyzing large amounts of data. In this lecture, I will discuss various algorithms and highlight their strengths and weaknesses. I will then concentrate on a few algorithms that work well in multi dimensional spaces and are also fast and efficient to be applied on large data sets. I will also show a few applications of these algorithms to astronomy. > > The lecture will be broadcast over Google?s Hangouts on Air. Lecture slides and links will be available closer to the day at http://anita.edu.au/lectures/density-estimation-and-clustering-sanjib-sharma/. > > Looking forward to "seeing" you there! > Darren Croton & Chris Power -- 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 brad.tucker at anu.edu.au Wed Mar 12 09:46:06 2014 From: brad.tucker at anu.edu.au (Brad E. Tucker) Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2014 22:46:06 +0000 Subject: [ASA] Canberra WG3.2 TH announcement In-Reply-To: <25288_1393589280_53107C1F_25288_7090_1_20711195-DA19-46CD-9DF5-9760D84221B6@sydney.edu.au> References: <25288_1393589280_53107C1F_25288_7090_1_20711195-DA19-46CD-9DF5-9760D84221B6@sydney.edu.au> Message-ID: The third Town Hall meeting of Working Group 3.2 will be held at the Mt. Stromlo Observatory, ANU from 2-4pm on Tuesday, the 18th of March. The meeting will take place in the Duffield Lecture Theatre. Video conferencing facilities will be available. If you plan to attend the meeting can you please RSVP to Brad Tucker (brad at mso.anu.edu.au) stating whether you will be present in person or on-line/video. Working Group 3.2 is concerned with Education, Outreach and Careers - key aspects of our science that engage a wide range of participants, well beyond the professional astronomy community. We are seeking your input to understand how best to promote astronomical education in schools, in the public, and in training new generations of professional astronomers. All are welcome to participate in this meeting. We will distribute more information prior to the meeting. For now, we summarise below the recommendations made in the ?2006 ? 2015 Decadal Plan for Australian Astronomy? and 2011' Mid-Term Review? and we would like your feedback on whether you have seen these goals achieved or not achieved. Professional astronomers need to work more closely with public facilities (like planetaria, observatories, museums and science discovery centre?s) and amateur groups to: 1. Assist with the delivery of programs that target school students and teachers; 2. Assist with the delivery of programs that target under-served groups, such as those living in outer metropolitan, regional and remote areas; Indigenous communities; people for whom English is a second language; and people who are disabled or have limited mobility; 3. Raise awareness among young people of opportunities in science and research; and 4. Promote science and astronomy to a wider audience. What should our new goals be? We look forward to your input. If you are unable to attend this meeting, please consider taking part in one of our Town Hall meetings: late March in Canberra, and 15th April in Perth. We would also welcome written feedback (submitted to amanda.bauer @ aao.gov.au), whether you attend a meeting or not. Brad Tucker Virginia Kilborn Amanda Bauer John O'Byrne for WG3.2 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Kate.Brooks at csiro.au Wed Mar 12 22:34:25 2014 From: Kate.Brooks at csiro.au (Kate.Brooks at csiro.au) Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2014 11:34:25 +0000 Subject: [ASA] Decadal Plan: Call for submissions from National and Institutional-scale Facilities Message-ID: <7C873A626F3F754A8569D8A5ECE22F211B250D49@exmbx03-cdc.nexus.csiro.au> To Directors and Leaders of National and Institutional-scale Astronomy Facilities I am writing to you in my capacity as Chair of the Decadal Plan Working Group 2.2. for National and Institutional-scale Facilities. On behalf of the Working Group members I invite you to submit a written report on your facility before 30 April 2014. Your submission will provide valuable input to the report that our Working Group must compile by August 2014. I also give you the opportunity to make a short (5 min) presentation at one or more of the upcoming Town Hall meetings. Working Group 2.2 Terms of Reference Information on the Working Group for National and Institutional-scale Facilities is available from the Working Group's website: https://sites.google.com/site/australiandecadalplanwg22/home As established by the National Committee for Astronomy, this Working Group report must: 1. Report on progress against objectives of the previous Decadal Plan. 2. Provide a stock take of current or future proposed capabilities/resources in the area. 3. Identifies any new national or international opportunities/requirements in the area over the period 2016-25. 4. Suggests strategies and the resourcing levels required to maximise these new opportunities. We are using the same process as that for the 2005-2015 Decadal Plan process, whereby each facility submits a written report. The reports are collated and a summary report will then be written by the Working Group. Submitted facility reports from 2005 are available for download from our website (University Infrastructure.pdf & WG3.2 Report.pdf) Instructions for written submissions: Your written submission should be no more than 3 pages in length and provide information under the following sub-headings: I. Status Update II. Capabilities III. Funding Arrangements for next 10 years IV. Operational arrangements (including community access) V. High Profile Work done by the Facility (checked against Decadal Plan Key Science Goals) VI. Immediate Future of the Facility VII. Future Vision of Facility As part of the section "Status Update", you should make reference to the priorities noted in your 2005 submitted Facility reports (if applicable). The funding information should be brief and is in no way binding. The preferred format is the Estimated cost projections (broken down into Capital Expenditure and Operational Expenditure) for 1-3 years, 4-6 years and 7+ years with some indication about the status of the future funding (i.e. Not funded, funding applied for, not funded yet or contingent on other developments). Please refer to the 2005 summary (WG3.3 report.pdf) We will leave it to you to determine how you want to flag the high profile work done by your facility over the past decade (e.g. Impact factor, media release, state-of-the art instrument development, official openings). The information provided at this time need only be a set of 3-4 bullet points. This may be expanded upon later to use for "pop-up" boxes in the final Decadal Plan publication. It would be useful to check the high-profile work you list against the Key Science Goals of the 2005-15 Decadal Plan. Please note that all 2014 submissions will be preserved electronically and released publicly. Note also that the information provided in the 2014 submissions will be used by the Working Group and the Editorial Board to prioritise the facilities in some way in order to arrive at a final set of key recommendations for future resourcing. Town Hall Presentations A series of four Town Hall meeting will be taking place over the next 3 weeks that are relevant for this discussion: Mar 25: Sydney Town Hall with WGs 2.2-3.4 (W2.2 Chair Michael Burton) (location: CSIRO Astronomy and Space Science, Contact: Sarah Pearce Mar 26: Melbourne Town Hall with WGs 2.2-3.4 (W2.2 Chair Kate Brooks) (location: Swinburne University VR Theatre, Contact: Karl Glazebrook) Mar 27: Canberra Town Hall with WGs 2.2-3.4 (W2.2 Chair Andrew Hopkins) (location: ANU, Contact: Martin Asplund) Apr 3: Perth Town Hall with WGs 2.2-3.4 (W2.2 Chair Steve Tingay) (location: UWA ICRAR, Contact: Lister Staveley-Smith) The final agenda for these meetings will be available from early next week on our website. At each of these meetings there will be a short presentation from the Working Group on National and Institutional-scale Facilities (the slides will be distributed ahead of the meeting, early next week). In addition some time has been set aside for presentations from the facilities themselves. This is an excellent way for the facilities to share their future vision and flag any discussion points. We already have confirmed presentations from AAO, ATNF, ANU, MWA and Antarctica. If you would like to make a short (5 min) presentation at one or more of the Town Halls then please contact me as soon as possible. Please also call me if you have any queries about the submission process. Kind regards, Kate Brooks --- Dr Kate Brooks Deputy Head Operations, Australia Telescope National Facility CSIRO Astronomy and Space Science E Kate.Brooks at csiro.au T +61 2 9372 4649 M 04253 79907 Office 206B, Cnr Vimiera and Pembroke Roads, Marsfield 2121, NSW -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From andrew.hopkins at aao.gov.au Thu Mar 13 17:14:34 2014 From: andrew.hopkins at aao.gov.au (Andrew Hopkins) Date: Thu, 13 Mar 2014 17:14:34 +1100 Subject: [ASA] Reminder: AAO PhD scholarships deadline 15 March Message-ID: <53214CCA.9020207@aao.gov.au> The Australian Astronomical Observatory (AAO) is pleased to be able to offer PhD Scholarships in 2014. The deadline for applications is ************* 15 March 2014 ************* Full details are available here: http://www.aao.gov.au/students/studentsgrad.html PhD Scholarships: ----------------- The AAO is offering up to two AAO PhD Scholarships, and up to two Trevor Burgess PhD Scholarships to students at Australian universities. All scholarships are for a period of 3 years, with a possible extension for a further 6 months. The value of the scholarships will be $5000 per annum. Annual renewal is conditional upon satisfactory performance by the student. The scholarships are open to any student accepted for a PhD programme at any Australian university who are substantially co-supervised by an AAO staff member. The Trevor Burgess PhD Scholarships are only open to Australian Citizens. Please consider whether your incoming students this year, and their planned projects, would benefit from an association with the AAO, and discuss the possibility of co-supervision with an AAO staff member. Any questions about the AAO PhD Scholarship Scheme can be addressed to the Head of AAT Science, Andrew Hopkins, at ahopkins at aao.gov.au. Andrew Hopkins -- A.Prof. Andrew Hopkins, Head of AAT Science Australian Astronomical Observatory P.O. Box 915, North Ryde, NSW 1670, Australia ph: +61 2 9372 4849 fax: +61 2 9372 4880 From gas2014 at swin.edu.au Thu Mar 13 17:17:56 2014 From: gas2014 at swin.edu.au (gas2014) Date: Thu, 13 Mar 2014 06:17:56 +0000 Subject: [ASA] The Role of Hydrogen in the Evolution of Galaxies Message-ID: Dear Colleagues, We are pleased to send out the first announcement of the conference: **The Role of Hydrogen in the Evolution of Galaxies** to be held in Kuching, Borneo (Malaysia) on September 15-19, 2014. (apologies if you receive this email more than once) Please feel free to forward this announcement to other colleagues. Best regards, the SOC *********************************************************************** First Announcement of the conference: The Role of Hydrogen in the Evolution of Galaxies Kuching, Borneo (Malaysia), September 15-19, 2014 website: http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/research/conferences/gas2014 As the most abundant element in the Universe, hydrogen is an ubiquitous tracer of structures at various scales and plays a fundamental role in galaxy formation. Accretion of hydrogen from the intergalactic medium (IGM) feeds galaxies with the raw material necessary for the formation of stars. Environmental effects and complex internal mechanisms, such as supernovae or AGN feedback, affect the evolution cycle of hydrogen and consequently the physical properties and appearance of galaxies. Observations of hydrogen in its various forms (atomic, ionised or molecular), along with refined models and simulations, are essential to better assess the role of hydrogen in the formation and evolution of galaxies. This conference will bring together observers and theorists to review our current understanding in the field, and discuss the main science questions that can be addressed in the pre-SKA era. The scientific topics covered at this conference will include: - Evolution of hydrogen in the cosmological context - Environmental effects and the role of groups and clusters - Outflows, accretion and the IGM - The ISM and the link with star formation - The Milky Way and the Local Group - State-of-the-art surveys. If you are interested in this conference, please sign up for future announcements at: http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/research/conferences/gas2014/pre_registration.php SOC: Virginia Kilborn (Chair), Barbara Catinella, Luca Cortese, Danny Dale, Romeel Dav?, Loretta Dunne, Thibault Garel, Desika Narayanan, Chris Power, Mary Putman, Jessica Werk, Martin Zwaan For more information, please contact the LOC: gas2014 at swin.edu.au -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From andrew.hopkins at aao.gov.au Fri Mar 14 17:03:45 2014 From: andrew.hopkins at aao.gov.au (Andrew Hopkins) Date: Fri, 14 Mar 2014 17:03:45 +1100 Subject: [ASA] Monday 17 March: WG1.1 Town Hall Meeting at AAO Message-ID: <53229BC1.2080103@aao.gov.au> Dear colleagues, Recognising there are numerous reminders of the decadal plan town hall meetings going out on the ASA mailing list, I'll keep this brief. 9:30-12:30 at the AAO, 105 Delhi Rd North Ryde. Meeting room 1 (behind security). Please plan to arrive early to account for security signing in large numbers of visitors. For those who would like to participate remotely, you can find details here: http://ozastro.pbworks.com/w/page/76937945/AAO%20Galaxies%20and%20Cosmology%20Town%20Hall%20Meeting All the WG1.1 Galaxies and Cosmology town hall meetings are listed here: http://ozastro.pbworks.com/ Please direct any questions to me, as Chair of WG1.1: ahopkins at aao.gov.au Andrew Hopkins -- A.Prof. Andrew Hopkins, Head of AAT Science Australian Astronomical Observatory P.O. Box 915, North Ryde, NSW 1670, Australia ph: +61 2 9372 4849 fax: +61 2 9372 4880 From kglazebrook at swin.edu.au Fri Mar 14 12:31:54 2014 From: kglazebrook at swin.edu.au (Karl Glazebrook) Date: Fri, 14 Mar 2014 01:31:54 +0000 Subject: [ASA] Position papers on International Facilities Message-ID: Dear ASA Members, As Chair of the Decadal Plan WG 2.1 on International-Scale Facilities I'd like to announce the public availability of 'position papers' highlighting current issues for the community to consider. I'd also like to request that department heads circulate this email to all members of their departments who may not be ASA members. These papers have been developed by the WG Exec with extensive input from the full WG and are available at: https://sites.google.com/site/australiandecadalplanwg21/documents The papers are intended to be succinct and raise/provoke key points of discussion for the forthcoming Town Hall meetings. They are not intended to be exhaustive discussions/analyses of all possible issues related to international facilities. I'd urge everyone attending the Town Halls to read these in advance as it is not possible to cover everything in the limited amount of time available for presentations and we prefer to have extended times for discussion. The Town Halls are in Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra and Perth on Mar 25,26,27 and Apr 3rd respectively shared with WGs 2.* and 3.*. (Detailed at http://australianastronomydecadalplan.org)/. Streaming information will be available shortly. As well as input at the Town Halls we'd also like to extend an open invitation to community members to send us there own 'white papers' discussing any issues or ideas they have in relation to our WG's remit. These white papers should be emailed to myself by Apr 30th, as PDF documents limited to 5 pages, and will be made public on our web site. yours sincerely, Karl ---------------- Karl Glazebrook Director & Distinguished Professor Centre for Astrophysics & Supercomputing, Swinburne University of Technology Contact: +61-3-9214-4384 kglazebrook at swin.edu.au astronomy.swin.edu.au/karl @karlglazebrook