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CSIRO Astronomy and Space Science

ATNF News

Issue No. 75, October 2013

ISSN 1323-6326

CSIRO Astronomy and Space Science - Undertaking world-leading astronomical
research and operating the Australia Telescope National Facility.

[pic]

CSIRO's Australia Telescope Compact Array - celebrating 25 years of
achievement in 2013.

Editorial

Welcome to the October 2013 issue of ATNF News.

Monday 2 September was the 25th anniversary of the formal opening of the
Compact Array. We report on the public Open Day, formal ceremony and
science symposium held to mark this milestone, and Phil Edwards examines
the telescope's scientific impact.

While the Compact Array celebrates its maturity, work continues apace on
our newest telescope, the Australian SKA Pathfinder. The sixth and final
first-generation phased array feed (PAF) has been installed on an ASKAP
antenna at the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory, and commissioning
tests continue. In July came welcome news of a $6m SIEF grant from the
Australian Government and a further $6m from CSIRO: together, these sums
will fund the construction and installation of additional PAFs, bringing
the total to 30. In more good news, the PAF technology has won awards for
its engineering excellence.

The larger SKA project also passed an important milestone this year, with
the SKA Office announcing the international work-package consortia. CSIRO
has received funding from the Australian Government that will enable it to
lead two of the consortia and participate in others.

Observing from the Science Operations Centre in Marsfield is now in full
swing for the Parkes telescope and VLBI sessions, as our Operations report
notes. The same report gives a reassuring update on the Mopra telescope,
which was swept by bushfire in January.

ATNF facilities are used by a thriving astronomical community. Three
science articles in this issue present:

a study of the 'superwind' in NGC 253 that combined observations from Mopra
and ALMA (the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array);

a new source catalogue, derived from the AT20G survey, that should prove
useful for selecting populations for future studies and identifying high-
quality calibrators; and

a study of shells and shocks in a star-forming region, RCW 49.

In other news, CASS's Naomi McClure-Griffiths has received a major award
from CSIRO for her scientific achievements, and the Tidbinbilla 70-m
antenna has acquired new capabilities. CASS says 'hello' to a bumper crop
of new science appointments and 'goodbye' to the Parkes Analogue
Filterbanks, finally switched off after many years of service. And there
are our regular updates on graduate students, education and outreach,
engineering developments and publications, along with a new section on
meetings, past and future.

We hope you enjoy this issue of ATNF News. Your comments and suggestions
are always welcome. If you would like to contribute to a future issue,
please contact the newsletter editors, below.

Helen Sim and Tony Crawshaw

ATNF News



From the Chief of CSIRO Astronomy and Space Science

Lewis Ball (Chief of CASS)

This newsletter comes at a very exciting time as CASS, and especially the
ATNF, looks both forward with anticipation and backward with pride. The
Australia Telescope Compact Array is 25 years young and the astronomical
community has celebrated its scientific achievements so far with events in
Narrabri and at the observatory itself in September, with some of the talks
from the 'birthday' symposium being presented again for a second time in
Marsfield. The latest upgrades to the Compact Array, the 4-12 GHz
receivers, are performing well, and the observatory is continuing to
deliver world-class science that is changing our understanding of the
Universe. In recent times the ATNF has also developed other new
capabilities, such as remote operability of Parkes, the Science Operations
Centre in Marsfield coming into full use, and the implementation of On-the-
Fly mapping using the Tidbinbilla 70-metre antenna and a new wide-band

20-GHz receiver system. Of course, adopting new ways of doing things
usually involves, or even requires, moving on from the old ways. The
decommissioning of the Parkes analogue filter banks is an example of a
phenomenally successful instrument that has played its role and now makes
way for new technologies.

The science stories in this newsletter demonstrate the value of ATNF's
complementary capabilities. A new catalogue from the AT20G survey made with
the Compact Array will be useful for many further studies. The study of NGC
253 shows how single-dish data can complement that from a synthesis array,
with Mopra data filling in the gaps of observations made with the world's
largest and most capable millimetre observatory, the $1.6 billion Atacama
Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array. And the RCW 49 science demonstrates
how observations in completely different wavebands (radio, X-ray, optical)
can tell us so much more than observations in one band alone.

The success of the ATNF arises from three sources: its people and their
expertise, its facilities and their capabilities, and its relationships.
This newsletter welcomes a number of exceptional new staff, who bring fresh
ideas, energy and relationships with them. It also welcomes Jim Jackson as
a Distinguished Visitor, notes a number of conferences and workshops, and
details the graduate-student program and a range of outreach activities.
These people and interactions are important aspects of ATNF's role as a
National Facility and support both the astronomical community and the
practice of astronomy.

We also note a range of developments associated with the new kids on the
block, ASKAP and the MWA, and the path to the SKA. After years of work by
many dedicated people ASKAP is getting close to delivering data that will
lead to new science. It has taken its first tentative steps towards the
measurement of the radio sky, and although we will all need to be patient,
we can now start to see the radio waves at the end of the tunnel. And while
ASKAP will deliver outstanding science, it is a stepping-stone to even
bigger things to be enabled by the SKA. With the start of SKA pre-
construction work and the establishment of CSIRO's SKA Centre, led by
CASS's Deputy Chief Sarah Pearce, we are well and truly on that train now.
I hope you find this newsletter informative and exciting, and are looking
forward to the challenges and opportunities of 2014 as much as the staff of
the ATNF.



ATCA 25th Anniversary Science Symposium

Phil Edwards (CASS)

[pic]

The Compact Array. Photo: David Smyth

Following a successful public Open Day on Sunday 1 September, and on-site
commemoration of the opening of the Compact Array on Monday 2 September
(both described on page 6), we celebrated the Compact Array's 25th
Anniversary with a three-day Science Symposium.

The meeting was held in one of the cinemas at the Crossing Theatre in the
town of Narrabri. Top billing on the first day was given to Bob Frater, who
led the construction project ("Prime Minister, we have delivered!") and
John Brooks, the Project Engineer ("Project Management ATNF Style").
Further insights into the history, and pre-history, of the Compact Array
were provided by Dick Manchester, Mal Sinclair, Warwick Wilson, and Mark
Bowen, with Ron Ekers describing the opportunities and challenges presented
by Australia's first National Facility, the ATNF.

The workshop covered all the major fields of research that the Compact
Array has contributed to, including HI studies, the early mosaiced images
of the LMC and SMC, masers, gamma-ray burst afterglows, supernovae, star
formation, polarimetry, intra-day variability, pulsars, clusters, Very Long
Baseline Interferometry, and surveys large, deep and wide.

Peter Tuthill described the Narrabri Stellar Intensity Interferometer, the
forerunner to the Sydney University Stellar Interferometer (SUSI) that now
lives alongside the Compact Array. Robin Wark gave an entertaining review
of Compact Array operations, and showed an early memo from Officer-in-
Charge Graham Nelson which noted that the expected mode of operations was
that observing schedules would be loaded up in the afternoon and the array
left to run unattended overnight - a mode still yet to be realised! Robin
also recognised the efforts of generations of Duty Astronomers who have
provided front-line observing support, identifying Vince McIntyre as the
person who had done the largest (documented) number of DA shifts, with
Maxim Voronkov and Naomi McClure-Griffiths following close behind.

Among the other interesting snippets, facts, and opinions that emerged
during the meeting were:

. that there was an early proposal for an additional two antennas
between the Compact Array and Mopra, which went unfunded;

. that it was Dave Jauncey (CASS) who had proposed the name 'the
Australia Telescope';

. that the design and production of 3,000 VLSI (very-large-scale
integration) chips for the correlator was recognised with the issue of
an Australian postage stamp in 1987;

. John Brooks' 'three people happy' and 'man-month myth' rules*; and

. a recurring appreciation of the fact that the Compact Array is 'a
child-friendly observatory', allowing families to be accommodated on
site and, through its remote-observing capability, providing a means
of observing from one's home institution (or indeed, home!) when
travelling to the Observatory would be disruptive to family life.

Compact Array-themed crosswords were provided to participants on the first
two days, with the first correct entries drawn being presented with a
bottle of wine: Dave McConnell and Stuart Ryder were the successful
cruciverbalists.

The symposium was well attended, with over 60 registered participants. An
encore performance has now been held at Marsfield, allowing those who were
unable to attend to hear these key talks. All presentations will be
archived online, and discussion is under way as to how best to capture in
one document both the information presented at the symposium and
contributions from those who could not be there.

The smooth running of the meeting was thanks to the behind-the-scenes
efforts of staff at Narrabri and Marsfield, with Margaret McFee and Amanda
Gray deserving special mention.

*This requires some explanation. On the first point, John used to tell
disgruntled workers that "if you resign, you'll make three people happy:
you, your boss and your replacement". On the second, John said that if a
job takes one person X months, it will take X people more than one month.
(Ed.)



25 years of Compact Array science

Phil Edwards (CASS)

[pic]

Supernova 1998bw, the subject of the Compact Array's most highly cited
paper. Image: ESO

The ATCA 25th Anniversary Science Symposium provided the opportunity to
look back over the scientific productivity of the Compact Array. It should
be noted up front that the 25th Anniversary of the official Compact Array
opening does not exactly coincide with the start of regular astronomical
observing: operations formally began in 1990, but useful data was being
taken the previous year during the testing and commissioning phase.

One measure of the Compact Array's productivity is the number of refereed
papers produced, and last year this reached a new high, with seventy-six
papers published. A better measure of impact is the number of citations to
those papers, and this was the approach adopted on the occasion of the
Compact Array's 20th birthday: see ATNF News no. 65, October 2008.
Cumulative citation counts naturally favour older papers, and so not
surprisingly, the most highly cited papers from five years ago remain some
of the most highly cited papers today. The exercise was repeated for the
25th symposium, with the NASA/ADS database used to determine the citations,
from all sources, for refereed publications in the ATNF publications
database. From this, papers presenting new Compact Array results were
selected.

Radio emission from the unusual supernova 1998bw and its association with
the gamma-ray burst of 25 April 1998, (Kulkarni et al., 1998, Nature)
remains the Compact Array's most highly cited paper, as it was in 2008,
with over 380 citations. However, the order has changed after that.

The large-scale HI structure of the Small Magellanic Cloud (Stanimirovic et
al., 1999, MNRAS) is currently the second most highly cited paper, but with
Studies of ultracompact HII regions - II. High-resolution radio continuum
and methanol maser survey, (Walsh et al., 1998, MNRAS) breathing down its
neck! A list of the 25 most highly cited papers includes several other
papers on gamma-ray bursts, and other papers on HI imaging of the Small and
Large Magellanic Clouds, as well as several papers on radio observations of
X-ray binary systems. There are also many papers which are not primarily
Compact Array papers but for which Compact Array observations have been
important: for example, The 1000 Brightest HIPASS Galaxies: HI Properties,
(Koribalski et al., 2004, AJ) is based on almost 5,000 hours of Parkes
observations, but with the addition of Compact Array observations of a
number of fields to clarify identifications with optical galaxies.
Similarly, PSR 1259-63 - A binary radio pulsar with a Be star companion,
(Johnston et al., 1992, ApJ) used Parkes to discover the pulsar, but relied
on pinpointing its position with the Compact Array to associate its
companion with a Be star.

The bias against younger papers inherent in cumulative total counts can be
overcome by considering citation count rate with time, and this reveals
three outstanding recent papers. The first, Extragalactic Millimeter-wave
Sources in South Pole Telescope Survey Data: Source Counts, Catalog, and
Statistics for an 87 Square-degree Field (Vieira et al., 2010, ApJ) uses
Compact Array follow-up of the South Pole Telescope discoveries to help
characterise the sources. The Australia Telescope Compact Array Broadband
Backend: description and first results, (Wilson et al., 2011, MNRAS)
combines a detailed description of the CABB system with examples of the
science it is enabling. (The high citation rate of this paper was
acknowledged in a recent email from the journal to the authors, which noted
it had helped raise the journal's impact factor.) Finally, The Australia
Telescope 20 GHz Survey: the source catalogue, (Murphy et al., 2010, MNRAS)
is likely to become one of the Compact Array's most highly cited papers in
absolute terms, in the same way that the paper describing the NRAO VLA Sky
Survey is by far the most highly cited paper produced by the Very Large
Array.

The ATNF Annual Report for 2011 noted that ". the ATNF achieves the best
science outcomes, in terms of publications and citation counts, when
science teams include both Australian and overseas astronomers", and this
is borne out by the list of highly cited Compact Array papers. Twenty-two
of the top 25 papers have overseas-affiliated co-authors, and 21 have ATNF-
affiliated co-authors. The majority also have a 'non-ATNF Australia'
affiliated co-author and, not surprisingly, the largest class of such a
breakdown, constituting almost half the top 25, includes ATNF, and other
Australian, and overseas-affiliated authors.

We look forward to revisiting these studies in five years' time!

The Compact Array's 25 most highly cited papers

Radio emission from the unusual supernova 1998bw and its association with
the gamma-ray burst of 25 April 1998

Kulkarni + 8, Nature, 395, 663 (1998) - 389 citations

The large-scale HI structure of the Small Magellanic Cloud

Stanimirovic + 4, MNRAS, 302, 417 (1999) - 306 citations

Studies of ultracompact HII regions - II. High-resolution radio continuum
and methanol maser survey

Walsh + 3, MNRAS, 301, 640 (1998) - 304 citations

The cored distribution of dark matter in spiral galaxies

Gentile + 4, MNRAS, 351, 903 (2004) - 275 citations

An HI Aperture Synthesis Mosaic of the Large Magellanic Cloud

Kim + 6, ApJ, 503, 674 (1998) - 266 citations

Correlated X-Ray Spectral and Timing Behavior of the Black Hole Candidate
XTE J1550-564: A New Interpretation of Black Hole States

Homan + 8, ApJS, 132, 377 (2001) - 242 citations

Optical and Radio Observations of the Afterglow from GRB 990510: Evidence
for a Jet

Harrison + 19 ApJ, 523, L121 (1999) - 241 citations

Relativistic motion in a nearby bright X-ray source

Tingay + 19, Nature, 374, 141 (1995) - 235 citations

Radio/X-ray correlation in the low/hard state of GX 339-4

Corbel + 4, A&A, 400, 1007 (2003) - 213 citations

A common origin for cosmic explosions inferred from calorimetry of
GRB030329

Berger + 10, Nature, 426, 154 (2003) - 195 citations

Quenching of the Radio Jet during the X-Ray High State of GX 339-4

Fender + 10, ApJ, 519, L165 (1999) - 192 citations

Coupling of the X-ray and radio emission in the black hole candidate and
compact jet source GX 339-4

Corbel + 6, A&A, 359, 251 (2000) - 194 citations

HI Shells in the Large Magellanic Cloud

Kim + 3, AJ, 118, 2797 (1999) - 182 citations

The Radio Structures of Southern 2 Jy Radio Sources

Morganti + 2, MNRAS, 263, 1023 (1993) - 177 citations

The 1000 Brightest HIPASS Galaxies: HI Properties

Koribalski + 39, AJ, 128, 16 (2004) - 173 citations

The Deep X-Ray Radio Blazar Survey. I. Methods and First Results

Perlman + 6, AJ, 115, 1253 (1998) - 165 citations

A Survey for OH (1720 MHz) Maser Emission Toward Supernova Remnants

Frail + 5, AJ, 111, 1651 (1996) - 166 citations

The extended radio emission in the luminous X-ray cluster A3667

Rottgering + 3, MNRAS, 290, 577 (1997) - 154 citations

The Southern Galactic Plane Survey: HI Observations and Analysis

McClure-Griffiths +5, ApJS, 158, 178 (2005) - 152 citations

1E 1547.0-5408: A Radio-emitting Magnetar with a Rotation Period of 2
Seconds

Camilo + 3, ApJ, 666, L93 (2007) - 148 citations

A high-sensitivity survey of radio continuum emission from Herbig Ae/Be
stars

Skinner + 2, ApJS, 87, 217 (1993) - 145 citations

A Long, Hard Look at the Low/Hard State in Accreting Black Holes

Miller +7, ApJ, 653, 525 (2006) - 141 citations

An HI aperture synthesis mosaic of the Small Magellanic Cloud

Staveley-Smith + 4, MNRAS, 289, 225 (1997) - 141 citations

Synthesis images of 6.7 GHz methanol masers

Norris +4, ApJ, 412, 222 (1993) - 140 citations

Chandra Discovery of a 100 kiloparsec X-Ray Jet in PKS 0637-752

Schwartz + 20, ApJ, 540, 69 (2000) - 140 citations



Celebrations at the Compact Array

Helen Sim (CASS)

Albert Einstein doesn't go to many birthday parties these days, but he came
to the Compact Array's on Sunday 1 September. After all, this was a special
event: a public Open Day to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the
telescope's formal opening on 2 September 1988. Einstein (played by Patrick
Helean of Questacon) was just one of more than 800 visitors. The others
were members of the general public, mostly from northwest NSW, who enjoyed
themselves by taking guided tours of antennas and the control building,
viewing the Sun through solar telescopes, listening to presentations about
astronomy, being entertained by Einstein, and talking with CASS staff. The
anniversary also allowed CASS to engage with the community (both local and
national) through the media, promoting the telescope's scientific
contributions. Chris Hollingdrake, former manager of the Parkes
Observatory's visitors centre, was responsible for organising the Open Day,
but it couldn't have happened without the contributions of 50-odd
volunteers, mostly CASS staff, many of whom travelled from Sydney and
Parkes. The staff at the Paul Wild Observatory put in an especially large
effort, shouldering most of the load.

The following day, Monday 2 September, the observatory also hosted a formal
'marquee' event for invited guests. Most attendees had strong connections
to the Compact Array, having built, worked at, or been users of the
telescope. Arriving mid afternoon, guests mingled and renewed their
acquaintance with both each other and the inside of a Compact Array
antenna. In the early evening a representative of the local Gomeroi
community, Ms Jody Sevil, gave a Welcome to Country: speeches followed from
Brett Hiscock (Site Manager - Paul Wild Observatory), Simon Johnston (CASS
Assistant Director - Astrophysics), Ron Ekers (ATNF Foundation Director),
Elaine Sadler (past chair of the National Committee for Astronomy) and Bob
Frater (former Chief of CSIRO's Division of Radiophysics, and responsible
for leading the telescope's construction). Douglas Bock (CASS Assistant
Director - Operations) was the master of ceremonies. The formalities
finished with a three-minute slideshow, heroically compiled by CASS's Robin
Wark, which covered life at the Compact Array over the last 25 years.
Finger food, birthday cake and champagne rounded off the evening. Again,
the success of this event was largely due to the hard work of the Narrabri
staff.

These celebrations were followed by the ATCA's 25th birthday symposium,
held in Narrabri, which is described on page 4.



Engineering update

Graeme Carrad (CASS)

In recent months, CASS Engineering resources have largely been focussed on
aspects of the ASKAP project, but that is by no means all that they have
been committed to.

Compact Array 4-12 GHz receivers

The Compact Array antennas got their new 4-12 GHz (6-cm) receivers in a
timely fashion; however, the spare parts, including a suite of amplifiers,
had to wait for that delivery before they could be given much attention. An
entire spare receiver was delivered in July and other spares will soon be
completed. Documentation also went on the back-burner while we were getting
the receivers on the telescope: we are now focussed on completing this too.

FAST Multibeam Receiver Feasibility Study

The FAST Multibeam Receiver Feasibility Study has progressed, and three
engineers from the National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of
Sciences (NAOC) visited in October in connection with the project. The
receiver is a weighty part of the receiver suite for the 500 m-diameter
dish currently under construction, and the visitors were keen to discuss
the findings of the feasibility study and take part in measurements of a
single-pixel receiver fabricated from parts representative of those that
might be used in the final 19-pixel receiver. Of similar form to other
hydrogen-line multibeams, this 1.05-1.45 GHz design has had its feed and
orthomode transducer designed by CASS's sister division, now known as CSIRO
Computational Informatics. All other elements have been designed by CASS
engineers and made in the CASS workshops. The low-noise amplifier design
resulted in modules with noise temperatures of around 5 K. Commercial
transistors, whose performance was never expected to match that of the
indium phosphide 'specials' currently used in CASS receivers, were used in
this application. All indications point to the receiver being realisable: a
receiver noise temperature of 7 K has been achieved; a structural analysis
of the cryostat housing indicates that the design is robust; and thermal
calculations show that the receiver package will be able to maintain the
required cryogenic environment. We will deliver a final feasibility report
to the FAST project team in the near future.

Parkes receivers

Effort has also been directed toward studies into possible receivers for
Parkes that fit well with the operating model of more remote control and
fewer receiver changes. Under consideration are a 700 MHz-4 GHz receiver, a
4-24 GHz receiver, and a Phased Array Feed. The sensitivity of any new
receivers must match or excel that of the current receiver suite. We are
investigating designs for the receivers and back ends, considering both the
technologies needed to achieve the wide bandwidths and digitise signals at
the receiver and the strategies needed to cope with radio-frequency
interference (RFI).

Visits and visitors

Alex Dunning recently travelled to the US to meet with Sander Weinreb, a
recognised 'guru' of radio astronomy instrumentation. On the same trip he
visited NRAO's facilities on the east coast, where his interactions with
the staff engendered enthusiasm in both him and them.

October seemed dominated by international visitors as CASS played host to
three engineers from the Max Planck Institute for Radioastronomy (MPIfR) in
Germany. Discussions with the MPIfR representatives, Gundolf Wieching,
GЭnter Knittel and Pablo Tornes Torres, were focussed on making an ASKAP
Design Enhancements (ADE) Phased Array Feed for use on the 100-metre dish
at Effelsberg. MPIfR have been keen to install a PAF, and discussions
centred on the response of a PAF to the challenging RFI environment at
Effelsberg, and how the receiver might be modified to work with the
observatory's existing infrastructure and electronic systems. Members of
the ASKAP commissioning team were able to convey valuable insights into
beamforming and Brian Jeffs, a visitor from Brigham Young University (USA)
at CASS for 11 months, was able to share ideas on dealing with RFI using
beamformers.



Awards

Tony Crawshaw and Helen Sim (CASS)

CSIRO Phased Array Feeds win engineering awards

CSIRO's new phased array feed (PAF) receiver system, developed specifically
for ASKAP and radio astronomy, has now won awards for its engineering at
both the State and national levels.

Earlier this year the PAF was entered in the Engineering Excellence Awards
(Sydney division) of Engineers Australia, winning the Innovations &
Inventions category and receiving an 'honourable mention' in the Research &
Development category.

As a category winner, the PAF was eligible for entry to the national
finals. In late-breaking news, it has received a national Engineering
Excellence Award - an award given to recognise world-class expertise and
innovation.

The PAF is the first chequerboard receiver built specifically for radio
astronomy.

Six first-generation ASKAP PAF systems are already installed on ASKAP
antennas at the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory (MRO) in Western
Australia, along with associated digital systems, beamformers and a
hardware correlator. Continued commissioning tests have already produced
the first multibeam image with a three-PAF system, as well as the first
detection of a spectral line with an ASKAP system, another step in
validation of the use of PAFs for radio astronomy.

The PAF systems were developed through a close collaboration between two
areas of CSIRO: Astronomy and Space Science, and Computational Informatics.

Newton Turner Award for Naomi McClure-Griffiths

Dr Naomi McClure-Griffiths, Deputy Astrophysics Group Leader at CSIRO
Astronomy and Space Science, has received CSIRO's prestigious Newton Turner
Award for 2013-2014.

The Award is designed to further the scientific careers of exceptional
senior scientists in CSIRO, and recipients receive a grant to assist their
professional development.

Naomi obtained her doctorate in 2001 from the University of Minnesota and
joined CSIRO Astronomy and Space Science that year, initially as a Bolton
Postdoctoral Fellow. She has more than 90 refereed papers to her name and
has received a number of previous awards, most notably the 2006 Prime
Minister's Malcolm McIntosh Prize for Physical Scientist of the Year.

Naomi's research speciality is the interstellar medium (ISM) of our Galaxy;
she also makes occasional forays into Galactic structure and the Magellanic
System. During the time she's been studying the ISM, the greatest change,
she says, has been our ability to use molecular tracers to better
understand the Galaxy's 'ecosystem': how its stars and gas interact over
time. "The more you learn, the more you realise how complex it is," Naomi
says.

Naomi has led two major surveys, the Southern Galactic Plane Survey (SGPS)
and the Parkes Galactic All-Sky Survey (GASS). She will co-lead the
Galactic Australian SKA Pathfinder Survey (GASKAP), one of ASKAP's large
Survey Science Projects, and will also lead its northern hemisphere
counterpart, the Galactic and Magellanic Evolution Survey (GAMES), which is
to be carried out with the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope.

To make progress on the understanding the life cycle of the ISM, Naomi will
use the funding provided by the Newton Turner award to bring together a
select group of observational astronomers and theoreticians in two tightly
focused meetings in Australia. The first of these, Phase transitions in the
diffuse ISM in late 2013, will address the participants' areas of common
interest and create collaborations; the second meeting will build on those
collaborations.

The Newton Turner Award, named after CSIRO geneticist Dr Helen Alma Newton
Turner (1908-1995), was established by CSIRO in 2008. Dr Turner's work was
focused on genetic improvement of sheep for wool production, and had
national and international impact.



Meetings

Simon Johnston (CASS)

Recent meetings and workshops

The ATNF has hosted and/or played the major part in organising six
international meetings and workshops in the six months from April 2013.

A Neapolitan of Masers: Variability, Magnetism and VLBI, 20-22 May

This meeting, held at the ATNF's Sydney headquarters, brought together
experts to review the current state of important branches of maser
research. It attracted some 50 participants, from 14 countries, and was
followed by two days of informal discussion aimed at developing
collaborations. CASS's Shari Breen, Jimi Green and Ioannis Gonidakis led
t