From james.murray at astronomyaustralia.org.au Mon Nov 20 09:05:33 2017 From: james.murray at astronomyaustralia.org.au (James Murray) Date: Mon, 20 Nov 2017 09:05:33 +1100 Subject: [ASA] Reminder...nominations to the Murchison Widefield Array Board Message-ID: <4A1A9CC4-F90A-4B0C-B271-510EA4212A32@astronomyaustralia.org.au> Call for nominations to the Murchison Widefield Array Board Applications close on Friday 24th November 5PM AEDT Dear ASA members, On behalf of the Australian Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) Consortium, Astronomy Australia Ltd (AAL) is inviting applications from suitably qualified Australian-based astronomers to represent Australia on the MWA Board. Australia currently has 4 positions on the MWA Board, one of which is intended to be filled through this open call for nominations. The successful applicant will be expected to work with the Australian MWA Partners and AAL to understand Australian perspectives on, and represent Australian interests in, the MWA project. The successful applicant must be an Australian-based astronomer with an active and successful research career of direct relevance to the MWA. The successful applicant should have demonstrated ability to represent the interests of the broad Australian astronomy community. Experience serving on groups such as Boards and advisory committees, and previous involvement with international projects, would also be highly relevant. The term of this appointment is 1 year, commencing December 2017, with the possibility of renewal. The MWA Board meets twice per year in person, usually once in Australia and once overseas, with regular teleconferences in between. AAL will fund travel expenses associated with attending MWA Board meetings. The next meeting of the MWA Board will be held on 12th December 2017 in Sydney. Applicants are encouraged to be available to participate in this meeting in person. About MWA: The MWA is a low-frequency radio telescope located at the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory (MRO) in Western Australia, the planned site of the future Square Kilometre Array (SKA) low band telescope. The MWA has been developed by an international collaboration, including partners from Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, the United States, Japan and China. MWA has been funded from partner contributions and national funding agencies, including the Australian Government?s Australian Research Council (ARC) and National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS). Applications If you consider yourself well placed to contribute to the MWA Board via your expertise, ideas, and experience, please email AAL with a maximum three page application with: a brief CV, your relevant expertise, any relevant conflicts of interest. AAL is committed to equity and diversity and encourages applications from everyone with the appropriate expertise and skills. Applications close on Friday 24th of November 5 PM AEDT. Late applications will not be accepted. Applications will be evaluated by a panel comprising members of the Australian MWA Consortium and chaired by an AAL representative. This panel will nominate a candidate for appointment to the MWA Board, with the nomination to be ratified by the Australian MWA partners. Queries can be made to James Murray, AAL Senior Program Manager, or Randall Wayth, MWA Director. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From francois.rigaut at anu.edu.au Mon Nov 20 13:47:55 2017 From: francois.rigaut at anu.edu.au (Francois Rigaut) Date: Mon, 20 Nov 2017 02:47:55 +0000 Subject: [ASA] VLT visible MCAO science workshop, November 27, Stromlo Message-ID: <4FB74B1E-13A5-454F-9944-5F3AE333C9D3@anu.edu.au> Dear colleagues, In the past couple of years, ESO has been looking at the opportunity and the possibility of building 3rd generation VLT instrumentation. This has focused on the new UT4 Adaptive Optics facility. A visible Multi-Conjugate AO system seems to be of particular relevance and interest, as prioritised by ESO and the ESO STC. There will be a call for Phase A sometime next year. A consortium is forming to answer this call, including institutes like INAF Arcetri (Italy, Simone Esposito and team), INAF Padova (Italy, Roberto Ragazzoni and team), Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille (France, Benoit Neichel, Thierry Fusco and team), and in Australia, AAO and RSAA ANU. All signals are that Australia is in a good position to take the leadership of this development. In a few words, taking advantage of the existing UT4 Adaptive Optics Facility infrastructure (essentially, the lasers and the deformable secondary mirror), this VLT instrument would deliver 0.015? FWHM images over a field of view of 30" to an imager and, possibly, to a fibre-based MOS and/or an IFU. At least that is the current thinking, to be driven/modified by the science. Current performance targets Strehl ratio of about 30% at 500nm. Preliminary simulations show that, on unresolved sources, this instrument on the VLT would lead to SNR 2 to 5x that of the HST, and 3x the angular resolution. We are currently in the interesting and exciting period in which we have to define the science and, consequently, the instrument capability and early design. A workshop to discuss the science that could be enabled by this instrument will be held at ANU RSAA (Stromlo) on Monday, 27 November. Geraint Lewis, Karl Glazebrook, Sarah Martell, Chris Lidman, Michele Trenti, Richard McDermid and Stuart Ryder have accepted to animate discussions related to how their science area could benefit from this facility. Everybody is encouraged to participate in these discussions and shape this instrument design. We are planning to start late and finished early-ish in the day for people flying in or out (and have a short break for a catered lunch). The agenda for the meeting is: -------------------------------------------------- VLT Visible MCAO science workshop, RSAA, Monday 27 November 09:50AM - 10:00AM Welcome 10:00AM - 11:00AM AO and post-focal instrumentation straw man description (Francois Rigaut and Jon Lawrence) 11:00AM - 04:00PM (with a few breaks for coffee and catered lunch). Presentation of various possible science cases + discussions with people mentioned in email text above. 04:00PM Adjourn -------------------------------------------------- Any question please contact Francois Rigaut or Jon Lawrence (emails in the header). Please let us know if you are coming so that we can arrange catering. Sorry for the short notice. We hope to see you there ! Francois and Jon. Associate Prof. Francois Rigaut francois.rigaut at anu.edu.au Adaptive Optics Principal Scientist www.rsaa.anu.edu.au Research School of Astronomy & Astrophysics Telephone: +61-2-6125-0210 The Australian National University Mobile: +61-499-680-000 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From simon.driver at uwa.edu.au Mon Nov 20 19:26:44 2017 From: simon.driver at uwa.edu.au (Simon Driver) Date: Mon, 20 Nov 2017 08:26:44 +0000 Subject: [ASA] WFIRST Town Hall meeting announcement References: Message-ID: <5A6B6B7E-B3F5-4B25-9D7F-1CAA437AC8EF@uwa.edu.au> SECOND AND FINAL REMINDER: Dear ASA members, Please be advised of the following one-day meeting: WFIRST TOWN HALL MEETING at AAO, 4th DECEMBER, 10AM - 4PM Following the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, WFIRST will be NASA?s next flagship mission, providing extraordinarily deep and wide field optical and near-infrared imaging at high spatial resolution, wide-field grism spectroscopy, the possibility of integral field spectroscopy, and a coronagraph for direct imaging and spectra of exoplanets. Its science goals include: cosmology, galaxy evolution, nearby galaxy studies, exoplanet studies, and gravitational wave follow-up, amongst many other exciting science programs. WFIRST is scheduled for launch in 2026 and will operate predominantly in survey mode (75%), with some time available for specific supported programs (25%). NASA is exploring a potential partnership which would allow Australian Astronomers to participate in this exciting facility, from the critical survey design phase through to operations and science exploitation. The purpose of this Town Hall meeting is to provide awareness of this opportunity, understand the capabilities of the facility, and to discuss the potential for science outcomes either from WFIRST alone or in combination with other facilities available to Australian astronomers and in particular: SKA, ESO, 4MOST, LSST, and eROSITA. To register please complete the form at: https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/9OVQB5UEMe19IR?domain=icrar.org Regards, Simon Driver ICRAR/UWA -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Paul.Francis at anu.edu.au Tue Nov 21 14:41:17 2017 From: Paul.Francis at anu.edu.au (Paul Francis) Date: Tue, 21 Nov 2017 03:41:17 +0000 Subject: [ASA] Fwd: SkyMapper Call for Proposals - 2018A Message-ID: SkyMapper Call for Proposals for non-survey time on the SkyMapper Telescope: Semester 2018A (Jan-Jun) Application deadline: 23:59 on Monday, 4 Dec 2017 Hours available: --------------------- dark: 13hrs -- ANU: 8hrs, AU: 5hrs grey: 11hrs -- ANU: 6hrs, AU: 5hrs bright: 6hrs -- ANU: 4hrs, AU: 2hrs -------------------------------- Total: 30hrs -- ANU: 18hrs, AU: 12hrs Moon phase definitions: dark - Moon phase < 35%, or Moon phase 35-65% when Moon below the horizon grey - Moon phase 35-65% when Moon in the sky, or Moon phase 65-94% bright - Moon phase > 94% ------------ How to apply ------------ For full instructions for proposals and information on SkyMapper please refer to http://www.mso.anu.edu.au/~skymap/instructions_SMprop.html You can only apply for images that will not replicate the observations of the public SkyMapper Southern Sky Survey (all-sky dec < +2, 100 sec images in u,v (6 visits) and g,r,i,z (4 visits), operating through 2019). The SkyMapper team can prioritise public survey fields to a limited extent in any given semester. If you'd like a field to be observed with priority, please do not submit a proposal, but contact the SkyMapper team (skymapper at anu.edu.au) who will help on a best-effort basis. Proposals should not directly compete with SkyMapper legacy science projects, which are listed at http://skymapper.anu.edu.au/science-projects/ All proposals MUST specify how their time is to be broken down between ANU and other Australian time. All proposals MUST specify the required Moon phase (bright/grey/dark) for their observations. This is necessary to ensure the long-term balance between survey and non-survey observations. Proposals should include a two-page scientific and technical justification. Please email your proposal to paul.francis at anu.edu.au before the deadline. If you do not receive confirmation that we've received your e-mail within 24 hours, please contact us again. Your proposal will be ranked by the ANU-TAC and, if successful, forwarded to the SkyMapper team for scheduling and robotic observation. All images will receive basic processing by the SkyMapper Science Data Pipeline alongside survey observations (and thus will be done in temporal order). We also remind users of the availability of SkyMapper Discretionary Time. Requests for this time can be sent at short notice during the observing semester by email to christian.wolf at anu.edu.au , but will only be granted for urgent and potential high-impact observations that exploit the uniqueness of SkyMapper under circumstances, where a regular proposal could not have been anticipated. ----------------- Telescope Summary ----------------- SkyMapper is a 1.3m telescope with a 5.7 sq. deg. FoV and a 268 Megapixel camera. There are six primary filters (u,v,g,r,i,z), plus an H-alpha filter subject to strong scheduling constraints. If you have any questions not answered in the documentation, the SkyMapper team is available to help (skymapper at anu.edu.au). ________________________________ Prof. Paul Francis ANU Distinguished Educator Mt Stromlo Observatory and Physics Education Centre Room 104, Building 38a Tel: +61 2 6125 2824 or +61 2 6125 8031 The Australian National University http://www.mso.anu.edu.au/pfrancis/ CRICOS Provider #00120C -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: