From chris.lidman at aao.gov.au Mon Sep 14 11:36:57 2015 From: chris.lidman at aao.gov.au (Chris Lidman) Date: Mon, 14 Sep 2015 11:36:57 +1000 Subject: [ASA] AAO workshop on the science of ULTIMATE Message-ID: <7138C20C-144A-4A69-87D1-C667A63E2D52@aao.gov.au> Dear Colleagues, We are planning a half-day workshop at the AAO to discuss the science of ULTIMATE, which is a future instrument on the Subaru Telescope in the initial stages of planning. The main capabilities of ULTIMATE are: 1. Multi-object IFU spectroscopy of several tens of objects, with a resolution of a few thousand. 2. Near-IR spectral coverage (0.9-1.7 microns) 3. Wide-field, ground-layer AO correction It is expected that the first two capabilities will be available when the instrument is first made available, and that the capability to do ground-layer AO correction will be made available later. If you are interested in attending the workshop, either in person or remotely, or in giving a talk, then please sent an e-mail to me letting me know that you will attend. The meeting will occur on October 16th, starting at 9:30am. We?ll be done by lunchtime. The venue is room #7 at the AAO offices in North Ryde. The format of the meeting will be: - Overview of ULTIMATE (20 min) - Individual contributions (10 min each) - Group discussion and next steps The AAO will provide coffee and snacks for morning tea. Kind Regards, Chris Lidman Head of National Facilities Support Australian Astronomical Observatory PO Box 915 North Ryde NSW 1670 Australia E-mail: chris.lidman at aao.gov.au Phone: +61 2 9372 4823 FAX: +61 2 9372 4880 From c.tinney at unsw.edu.au Wed Sep 16 09:01:25 2015 From: c.tinney at unsw.edu.au (Chris Tinney) Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2015 23:01:25 +0000 Subject: [ASA] The Second FunnelWeb Workshop - November 9-10, 2015 Message-ID: <12FB828F-94E8-447E-B9EB-9E9FD66CE772@unsw.edu.au> Second FunnelWeb Workshop 2015 The Second FunnelWeb Workshop will be held at the Australian Graduate School of Management, UNSW on November 9-10, 2015. The FunnelWeb survey aims to create the "HD Catalogue for the 21st Century", by delivering uniform spectroscopy for a factor of 10 or more of the brightest stars in the Southern sky than any previous survey. It will target SNR>100 spectra at R>2000 between 390 and 880nm of all stars down to I=12 and south of +10, plus all candidate M dwarfs down to I=14. FunnelWeb utilises the Starbugs technology (developed by the AAO), to enable a faster spectroscopic survey than any other technology. With the survey set to commence ob serving in July 2016, this meeting is an important next step in defining the mechanisms required to implement the survey, as well as the science the survey will address. Issues the meeting will seek to address include: * What catalogues will be cross-matched with the resulting FunnelWeb database? * Strategies for selecting observing fields (i.e. tiling, object selection) from the Input Catalogue. * Survey Implementation * Scheduling of the observers (which will be required for at least the first 12 months? * Planning each night's observing? * Implementing each nights observing, Maintaining observing logs? Updating the input catalogues. * Tools required to do the above * Processed data through to extracted spectra. Calibrating to external photometry. * Object Classification Algorithms (i.e. Spectral types, Binarity, etc) * Object Parameter Estimation (i.e. Teff, log(g), [Fe/H], [alpha/Fe] * Data distribution * Within the team * To the world * All the science FunnelWeb will address Venue - There meeting will be hosted by the Exoplanetary Science at UNSWgroup at the Australian Graduate School of Management (AGSM) conference venue at UNSW. Registration - Please register by e-mailing c.tinney at unsw.edu.au. Breaks and meals will be provided. There will be no registration fee. Program - will be made available at this site closer to the date of the meeting. A preliminary list of expected speakers is provided below. The purpose of this meeting is to host a discussion within the project on key decisions for the project. So this list is not exclusive, and we would welcome other speakers to present on the same subjects, as well as other talks that members of the community would like to present. ________________________________ Chris Tinney - FunnelWeb Overview Kyler Kuehn - The TAIPAN instrument Mike Ireland - TESS Simon Murphy - Input Catalogues Sanjib Sharma - Tiling and Object Selection Strategies Sarah Martell - Observing Systems: The GALAH experience TBD - Data Reduction : The GALAH experience Mike Ireland - Data Reduction: pyFunnelWeb Andrew Hopkins - Plans for the Taipan (galaxy) survey TBD - Website and Internal Database TBD - External Databse and Data release ___________________________________________________________ Professor Chris Tinney | Associate Dean (Research), UNSW Science ARC Discovery Outstanding Researcher, School of Physics, UNSW Exoplanetary Science at UNSW, http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/~cgt c.tinney at unsw.edu.au, +61 2 9385 5168, 131 Old Main Building -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eade8151 at uni.sydney.edu.au Fri Sep 18 09:46:18 2015 From: eade8151 at uni.sydney.edu.au (Eromanga Adermann) Date: Thu, 17 Sep 2015 23:46:18 +0000 Subject: [ASA] Call for Nominations for the HWSA SOC 2016 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Dear ASA members, Thank you to everyone who has already made a nomination for membership of the HWSA SOC 2016! I would like to remind anyone who is still interested in nominating a student (or themselves) to do so before 5:00 pm AEST today. It has also been pointed out to me that the wording I used to describe the selection criteria in my previous email was not very clear. To clarify, I did not mean that members would be selected on the basis of characteristics that cannot be changed or controlled (e.g. gender). Such characteristics will only be taken into account so that we can form an SOC that reflects the diverse student membership of the ASA as much as possible. Institution and research area will be taken into account for the same reason. What is most important is the nominee's willingness and ability to contribute to the organisation of the HWSA program. Best wishes, Eromanga ________________________________ From: asa-bounces at physics.usyd.edu.au on behalf of Eromanga Adermann Sent: Thursday, 10 September 2015 12:16 PM To: asa at physics.usyd.edu.au Subject: [ASA] Call for Nominations for the HWSA SOC 2016 Dear ASA Members, My name is Eromanga, and I'm a second year PhD student from The University of Sydney. I will be serving as the Chair of the Scientific Organising Committee for the Harley Wood School for Astronomy 2016 (HWSA SOC 2016), and I am currently looking to recruit student members to join the committee. This email is a call for nominations for membership of the HWSA SOC 2016. The job of the SOC is to create a program of talks and workshops for the School that will be valuable to the student membership of the ASA, regardless of their stage of study, area of research, and career goals. Specifically, the SOC will determine the central theme of the HWSA, decide on the talk/workshop topics, and find speakers to give talks and/or hold workshops. I am keen for the SOC to have a healthy representation of minority groups* within the community. For this reason, I would like to encourage all potential nominators to take note of students you know to be members of minority groups, and consider nominating them to serve on the SOC. I would also like to encourage any students who are particularly keen on joining the SOC to self-nominate. Members will be selected based on the information provided in the nomination form. The selection process will take into account the following: * whether or not the nominee will make an effort to contribute (based on answer to the question, "Why do you think the nominee should be considered for membership of the HWSA SOC 2016?") * nominee's gender * whether or not the nominee is a member of one or more minority groups (please include this information in your answer to the above question) * nominee's institution (to ensure representation of as many institutions as possible, especially those that have not had representation in recent years) * nominee's research area (to ensure representation of as many distinct research areas as possible) Nobody will be disadvantaged as a result of having fewer nominations than others. The nomination form can be accessed here: https://ero.wufoo.com/forms/z1uo66jj1wgqozo/ I will be closing the form at 5 pm on Friday 18 September (AEST). No nominations will be accepted after that time. Thanks for helping me assemble the SOC! Best regards, Eromanga *Note: "minority group" as used in this email refers to (but is not limited to) gender minorities, racial/ethnic minorities, cultural/religious minorities within the student community, mature age students, LGBTI students, and students who have a disability. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From michael.ireland at anu.edu.au Fri Sep 18 11:14:21 2015 From: michael.ireland at anu.edu.au (Michael Ireland) Date: Fri, 18 Sep 2015 01:14:21 +0000 Subject: [ASA] RSAA Higher Degree Research information day travel scholarships and Masters Advanced scholarships Message-ID: The Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics (RSAA) at the Australian National University (Canberra) calling on prospective students at honours, Masters Advanced and PhD level to apply for a travel scholarship to attend small-group information days during October. The preferred dates are Thursdays/Fridays from 1-2 October to 29-30 October, where you will get the chance to hear about the latest research at RSAA from many of Australia?s top astronomers, discuss potential projects, socialise with current students and tour RSAA and the Advanced Instrumentation and Technology Centre. Travel scholarship applications received before 24 September will receive full consideration. To apply, please send a description of any previous research experience, your academic transcript and curriculum vitae to masters at anu.edu.au. RSAA is also in now running the Masters of Astronomy and Astrophysics (Advanced) program. This Masters Advanced is a new prestigious pathway into a PhD in Astronomy & Astrophysics which can be taken instead of, or in addition to, Honours. The Masters Advanced is a 2-year advanced coursework masters, which includes 50% coursework and 50% research. The total time spent on research is one full-time year, spread over two years, and is equivalent to the Masters that is taken before PhD in Europe and the US under the Bologna Model. We believe this kind of program is necessary to give Australian students the breadth and depth to compete internationally. We are offering Masters Advanced scholarships with tax-free stipends of AUD$10,000 p.a., and also have a range of PhD scholarships and top-up scholarships available. RSAA is the premier astronomical research institution in Australia. Our staff and students have access to world-class facilities and instruments such as the Hubble Space Telescope, the Gemini 8m telescopes in Hawaii and Chile, the Keck 10m telescopes in Hawaii, the 6.5m Magellan Telescope in Chile, the Anglo-Australian telescope 4m (AAT), the ANU 2.3m telescope, and radio telescopes based in Australia and overseas. The RSAA has premium access to the Australia?s fastest supercomputers based at the National Computational Infrastructure supercomputing facility in Canberra. The Advanced Instrumentation & Technology Centre at the RSAA combines research excellence with technical capability to deliver innovative astronomical instrumentation for ground-based astronomy and small satellites. The RSAA is a partner in the international Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) consortium. In particular, our researchers are designing and building the integral-field spectrograph for the GMT, and have major projects underway using adaptive optics for space situational awareness (http://www.serc.org.au). For more information, see: http://rsaa.anu.edu.au/study. From yeshe.fenner at astronomyaustralia.org.au Fri Sep 18 16:07:37 2015 From: yeshe.fenner at astronomyaustralia.org.au (Yeshe Fenner) Date: Fri, 18 Sep 2015 16:07:37 +1000 Subject: [ASA] Call for nominations: AAL committees and new Multi-Messenger Astronomy Working Group. Applications due 9th Oct 2015 Message-ID: <001401d0f1d8$519a48c0$f4ceda40$@astronomyaustralia.org.au> Dear ASA members, Astronomy Australia Ltd (AAL ) is seeking applications for positions on its: * Advisory Committees * Astronomy Supercomputer Time Assignment Committee * Newly-established Multi-Messenger Astronomy Working Group See our advertisement for more details. Applications are due by 4PM AEDT on Friday 9th October 2015. AAL encourages applications from everyone with the appropriate expertise and skills. We have a target of at least 25% female representation on our committees, and strongly encourage applications from women. Feel free to circulate this email to your colleagues and suitable candidates. Note: a separate call for nominations to the AAL Board will be circulated shortly. Kind regards, Yeshe ______________________________ Dr Yeshe Fenner, PhD, PMP Executive Officer Astronomy Australia Ltd T: 03 9214 5520 M: 0430 708 995 E: yeshe.fenner at astronomyaustralia.org.au W: astronomyaustralia.org.au P: P.O. Box 2100 Hawthorn VIC 3122 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Joanne.Dawson at csiro.au Sun Sep 20 08:15:30 2015 From: Joanne.Dawson at csiro.au (Joanne.Dawson at csiro.au) Date: Sat, 19 Sep 2015 22:15:30 +0000 Subject: [ASA] Next ATUC Meeting 24-25th November 2015 Message-ID: <7E104195-7B52-4982-A094-D9E51825E729@csiro.au> Dear Users of the Australia Telescope National Facility, The Australia Telescope Users Committee (ATUC) meet regularly to discuss issues that affect users of the ATNF. The next ATUC meeting is to be held at the ATNF headquarters in Marsfield on the 24th and 25th November, 2015. The programme will be posted on the ATUC web pages a week or two before the meeting. On the morning of the 24th, an Open Session will be held that consists of reports and updates on the various aspects of ATNF operations. All users are welcome to attend the Open Session which usually runs until mid afternoon. An agenda for the Open Session will be made available on the ATUC web page. On the afternoon and on the 25th, ATUC hold a Closed Session, during which a report to the ATNF Director is drafted. If you, as a user (or potential user) of the ATNF, are aware of any issues that need to be raised at the next ATUC meeting, or would like to offer praise or feedback on ATNF activities, please contact any member of ATUC over the next few weeks. Information on ATUC and how to contact its members can be found at: http://www.atnf.csiro.au/management/atuc Regards, Jo Dawson (for) Virginia Kilborn ATUC Chair -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: