The first SKA-low antennas are being installed today in Australia!
Here's a feature article I wrote (2021) that outlines the road that has led to the development of the world's largest radio telescope for #SpaceAustralia
MAUNAKEA, Hawaiʻi - The University is working on the termination of the CSO (Caltech Submillimeter Observatory) sublease, and is preparing for the removal of the Hōkū Keʻa teaching telescope.
Guys, this is very exciting to me. Friday night is predicted to be clear and warm, and my neighbourhood will probably be loadshedding till 10pm.
For the first time since moving to this house, I'm gonna set up the telescope and look at some actual stuff with my actual eyes.
I've planned for years now to sell the big C8 on the equatorial wedge bolted to an old surveyor's tripod and replace it with something a little more portable, something that takes less work to set up, and I just can't find a way to make that happen. Like.. the resale value is practically nothing, and any new scope that I can afford is going to feel like such a step down that I'm not sure I even want to.
Besides, that scope always technically belonged to my uncle, who along with my aunt, nurtured and encouraged my love of astronomy since I was a child. This was the telescope he had mounted in his observatory, before moving back to the city. This is the scope he sent to me, because he had gotten too old and frail and sickly to be able to use it anymore. And now, more than a decade later, he's died and it's officially mine... but it'll always be his, ya know?
So the new plan is to just start using the damn thing. Light pollution be damned, lousy high suburban horizons be damned, none of those things bothered me when I was a teenager! All the different scopes he loaned me over the years, from the 8" Maksutov on the Vixen equatorial, to the 100mm fluorite refractor, down to the little vintage 60mm f/15 starter scope he gave me when I turned 13, I was outside almost every single night, hunting down all manner of objects from the photocopies he'd given me of his Norton's Star Atlas, and usually failing to find them. I had grit and enthusiasm back then. I want that back.
🛰️ I have a job where I work with systems and data from radio telescopes to track satellites.
📡 I have another job where I operate radio telescopes to collect data for geodesy, astronomy, etc.
Today, for the first time, I operated a radio telescope to collect my own data for my own experiments. It’s such a small thing but… it’s weirdly exciting to have done the whole process myself?
This week, we hosted at @LAM_Marseille (#CNRS / #AMU / @cnes) an #hybrid workshop to organise and plan the future ground-based follow-up observations of #ESA's upcoming #PLATO mission.
The follow-up observations will aim at characterising the mass of transiting #exoplanets discovered by this #space mission, down to #Earth analogs. This will mainly be done with state-of-the-art #instruments and #telescopes at #ESO, in #Chile.
"For the first time, we now have a good colour image 🌌 of this particular object because we're able to observe it at other #wavelengths that you just couldn't see 👀 from ground #telescopes 🔭. And that will help us get into what's really happening in the jets" https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-67243772
Back home after a wonderful week at the Australian Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) in #Narrabri. It was such a wonderful week to connect with other PhDs, and hear from experts in our field, along with go inside the telescopes and control them for observing.
Going through my DSLR photos from our visit, here's a not-so-good one, that is still kinda good. Others are much better.
This is a night shot! The illumination on the dishes comes from the Moon! (see the lights are on)
A couple of Kangaroos in the foreground keeping watch of me.
Will process more this week, but am now spending time with my little doggo mate and other half!
Read up on why some science requires a telescope outside Earth's atmosphere 🌏 and compare ground-based images with the first images of #Euclid. Our new blog post: “Why is going to space crucial to map dark matter?”
Random question for the Fediverse. Friend looking at a #NexStar 8SE for a #telescope for a house in a great dark sky location. Opinions? Alternatives? Mainly for looking at live, but if there are good alternatives for casual astrophotography, I think they would appreciate the capability. Thanks! #astronomy#photography#space#astrophotography#telescopes