From dcroton at astro.swin.edu.au Wed Jul 24 13:02:10 2013 From: dcroton at astro.swin.edu.au (Darren Croton) Date: Wed, 24 Jul 2013 13:02:10 +1000 Subject: [ASA] ANITA online lecture, Friday 3pm (AEST) 26th July Message-ID: <2F37A88A-2E1B-441B-952F-D684263233E1@astro.swin.edu.au> Dear ANITA and ASA members. This Friday at 3pm (AEST) ANITA will hold its first online lecture. 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. http://anita.edu.au/lectures/damn-you-little-h-darren-croton/ 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 3pm - 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. I don't believe that comments are updated in real time; you may need to reload the page to see the latest. I'll be broadcasting video and slides. There'll be time for questions throughout and at the end. If you have a question please post it as a comment and prefix it with "QUESTION: ..." so it stands out. I'll then try to answer it as best i can. All lectures will be hosted on our ANITA YouTube page for later viewing. In the coming weeks we'll set up the appropriate links from the ANITA homepage etc. Finally, this is a bit of an experiment! Our trial ran fairly smoothly, but please bear with us. Any feedback on your experience will help make future lectures more valuable for all. Thanks, and see you on Friday! Darren %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% Title: Damn you little h! Speaker: Darren Croton, Swinburne University Date: 3pm (AEST) Friday 26th July Abstract: The Hubble constant, H_0, or its dimensionless equivalent, ?little h?, is a fundamental cosmological property that is now known to an accuracy better than a few percent. Despite its cosmological nature, little h commonly appears in the measured properties of individual galaxies. This can pose unique challenges for users of such data, particularly with survey data. In this talk I show: how little h arises in the measurement of galaxies, how to compare like-properties from different datasets that have assumed different little h cosmologies, and how to fairly compare theoretical data with observed data, where little h can manifest in vastly different ways. This last point is particularly important when observations are used to calibrate galaxy formation models, as calibrating with the wrong (or no) little h can lead to disastrous results when the model is later converted to the correct h cosmology. I'll argue that in this modern age little h is an anachronism, being one of least uncertain parameters in astrophysics, and propose that observers and theorists instead treat this uncertainty like any other. I'll conclude with a ?cheat sheet? of nine points that should be followed when dealing with little h in data analysis. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% -- 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 Kate.Chow at csiro.au Thu Jul 25 08:28:44 2013 From: Kate.Chow at csiro.au (Kate Chow) Date: Thu, 25 Jul 2013 08:28:44 +1000 Subject: [ASA] Second announcement and registration for the "Astroinformatics 2013: Knowledge from Data" Conference (9-13 December, 2013) Message-ID: <55B15CE3-302E-4934-8E60-9BEE97CCC53C@csiro.au> Dear Colleagues, This is the second announcement for the conference "Astroinformatics 2013: Knowledge from Data". The conference will be held from 9-13 December, 2013, at the CSIRO Astronomy and Space Science (CASS) Headquarters in Sydney, Australia. Please forward this email onto any colleagues who might be interested. Astroinformatics is an emerging discipline at the intersection of astronomy/astrophysics and applied computer science and engineering, arising from the need to address the challenges and opportunities of exponential growth of data volumes, rates, and complexity from next-generation telescopes. Invited speakers so far include: Brian Schmidt, Tony Hey, Alex Szalay, Tim Cornwell, Matthew Graham, Tara Murphy and Chris Fluke. Registration and abstract submission is now open, so please visit the website http://tinyurl.com/astroinfo to register, and for more information. A limited number of places are available for participants, so please register as early as possible. Early registration and abstract submissions (talks and posters) close on August 31, but registrations will be taken until we reach the maximum number of participants (90). Some travel grants will also be available to students and those from less privileged countries, and more information about these grants will be available soon (including application forms and deadlines). Please indicate whether you plan to apply for one of these grants when you register. If you wish to receive email updates, click "email updates" on the conference logo on the website and fill in your details, or follow us on Twitter (@astroinfo2013). We will also be posting updates on the "Astroinformatics" page on Facebook, and you can "Like" this page from the conference website. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact the LOC at astroinformatics at csiro.au. Kind regards, Kate Chow On behalf of the organising committees. Dr. Kate Chow (nee Randall) Executive Officer CSIRO SKA Site & Infrastructure CSIRO Astronomy and Space Science PO Box 76, Epping, NSW 1710, Australia Phone: +61-2-9372-4516 Email: Kate.Chow at csiro.au -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Robert.Hollow at csiro.au Thu Jul 25 13:33:40 2013 From: Robert.Hollow at csiro.au (Robert.Hollow at csiro.au) Date: Thu, 25 Jul 2013 03:33:40 +0000 Subject: [ASA] 2013 CSIRO Astronomy and Space Science Undergraduate Vacation Scholarships Message-ID: <9B633350-B90B-4D4D-836A-FEA22A267CA8@csiro.au> Applications are now open for the the CSIRO Astronomy & Space Science (CASS) Undergraduate Vacation Scholarship Program. The 2013 CSIRO Astronomy & Space Science (CASS) Vacation Scholarship Program is a fantastic opportunity to undertake a research project at one of the world?s leading radioastronomy facilities. As part of this program scholarships are being offered in astrophysics and computing. Students will be based at CASS headquarters in Marsfield, Sydney. Each student will undertake a research project under the supervision of CASS staff. In addition to their research project they will also have the opportunity to complete a fieldwork trip to either Parkes, home of ?the Dish?, or Narrabri where the Australia Telescope Compact Array is situated. The costs of this field trip will be included in the scholarship as will travel to and from Marsfield at the start and end of the program for non-Sydney based scholars. These scholarships are open to undergraduate students who have completed (by November 2013) at least three years of undergraduate study, have maintained a credit average or higher and are available for 12 weeks from 25 November 2013. Participation in this program has influenced previous scholarship holders in their choice of further study and future career options. Many have gone on to pursue a PhD in CSIRO or to build a successful research career within CSIRO, a university or industry. Applications close at 11.30pm AEST on Sunday 1 September 2013. For a full description of this year's Vacation Student positions and to apply see job number NSW13/02929 in the Positions Vacant section at: http://www.csiro.au/en/Portals/Careers.aspx. or visit: http://www.atnf.csiro.au/research/summer_vacation/index.html Regards Robert Hollow Education Officer, CASS Undergraduate Vacation Scholarship Program Coordinator CSIRO Astronomy and Space Science robert.hollow at csiro.au http://csirouniverseblog.com http://www.atnf.csiro.au PO Box 76 Epping, NSW 1710 ph: +61 (0)2 9372 4247 fax: +61 (0)2 9372 4444 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: