Staff Activities

STAFF ACTIVITIES

Honours, Awards and Grants

Mr M Allen

Travel grant from the DIST program "Space Science with the Hubble Space Telescope" to attend the 191st meeting of the AAS, and visit Johns Hopkins University, the European Southern Observatory and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories.

Dr T Axelrod

DIST MACHO travel grant awarded for three years.

Dr M S Bessell

MNRF grant of $20,000 for facilitating collaboration with Japanese astronomers.

Dr D Bersier

Swiss Society of Astronomy and Astrophysics travel grant of $1,800 to attend overseas conference.

Mr M Bureau

$400 Travel Grant from the Astronomical Society of Australia to attend the IAU 23rd General Assembly and related meetings in Kyoto, Japan, August 17-30.

Y160 000 (AU$1800) Grant from the Local Organizing Committee to attend the IAU 23rd General Assembly and related meetings in Kyoto, Japan, August 17-30.

Dr M Colless

Made a member of the International Astronomical Union (Commission 47).

DIST International Science and Technology Program grant of $17,000 for the AUSTRALIS design study in collaboration with the European Southern Observatory.

DIST Bilateral Science and Technology Collaboration Program grant of $5,500 for collaborative research with Prof. R S Ellis (Cambridge) and others on "A Very Large Anglo-Australian Redshift Survey".

DIST Bilateral Science and Technology Collaboration Program grant of $4,150 for collaborative research with Prof. D Burstein (ASU) and others on "Large Scale Motions in the Universe".

MSSSO Annual Report 1997

DIST Bilateral Science and Technology Collaboration Program grant of $1,950 for collaborative research with Dr S Raychaudhury (IUCAA) on "Large Scale Structure in the Direction of the Local Bulk Flow".

Dr G Da Costa

President of IAU Commission 37 "Star Clusters and Associations" from September.

ANU Major Equipment Expenditure Funding of $70,000 for Data Acquisition and Analysis Facilities for the Wide Field Imager Project.

ARC RIEF Program Funding of $120,000 (MSSSO Share $70,000) for Data Analysis Facilities for the Wide Field Imager Project.

Prof. M Dopita

ISTAC Major Grant: "Space Science with the Hubble Space Telescope", $93,000 for 1997.

MNRF Grant for Antarctic Astronomy: jointly with UNSW partners in JACARA, $112,500 for 1997-98.

Dr P Francis

DIST Hubble Space Telescope Research Grant: $5,500

ANU Faculties New Starter grant: $2,500

ARC Small grant (for 1998): $6,000

Prof. K Freeman

DIST Bilateral Science and Technology Collaboration Grants to Prof. K.C. Freeman for (i) dynamics of globular clusters and the inner regions of galaxies, with Prof. T. de Zeeuw (Leiden University) and (ii) dynamics of the outer halos of elliptical galaxies and the intracluster medium of clusters of galaxies, with Prof. R. Kudritzki (University of Munich).

ANU Major Equipment Expenditure grant for a dedicated spectrograph for extragalactic planetary nebulae.

Visiting Fellow, Merton College, Oxford, April-June 1997.

Dr B Gibson

Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Postdoctoral Fellowship, $28,000.

Staff Activities

Mr A Graham

Astronomical Society of Australia travel grant of $400 to attend overseas conferences.

Dr C Heisler

IAU Grant of $500 (USD) to attend IAU 164 in New Mexico, USA.

Dr H Jerjen

A 3 Year research grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation, starting from Aug 1997 - July 2000.

Mr D H Jones

Australian Postgraduate Award (APA)

ASA Student Travel Assistance

Prof. J E Norris

Prof. J .E. Norris and Dr G. S. Da Costa, with Dr J. Lattanzio of Monash University, were awarded a grant of $8,850 from the Bilateral Science and Technology Collaboration program of the Department of Industry, Science and Tourism to enable Dr P. Denissenkov of St. Petersburg University to undertake research on "The Origin of Star-to-Star Abundance Variations in Globular Clusters" at MSSSO during the period 1 March - 31 May.

Dr B Schmidt

DIST International Science and Technology Program: Space Science with the Hubble Space Telescope award of $3,655 for travel to Aspen USA, and Toronto Canada.

ANSTO Travel grant to major facility award of $3,634: for travel to CTIO 4m telescope, Chile.

DIST International Science and Technology Program: Space Science with the Hubble Space Telescope award of $974 for travel to Seattle, USA to meet with collaborators.

DIST International Science and Technology Program: Space Science with the Hubble Space Telescope award of $2,019 for travel to Keck Observatory, USA.

DIST International Science and Technology Program: Space Science with the Hubble Space Telescope award of $4,157 for travel to the Kitt Peak National Observatory and the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) Observatory and Seattle, USA for meeting with collaborators.

MSSSO Annual Report 1997

Prof. D W N Stibbs

Honorary Appointment as Librarian to the School of Mathematical Sciences in recognition of his services in restoring the School Library in the Kurt Mahler Room.

Dr P Wood

DIST grant under the Bilateral Science and Technology Collaboration Program to visit collaborators in Italy, Germany, France and The Netherlands: $4,650.

Staff Activities

External Collaborations

Twenty one MSSSO astronomers took part in 115 collaborations during 1997. These collaborations involved 65 European astronomers, 171 from the Americas, 26 from the UK and 15 from Asia. (These are raw statistics; individuals are counted twice if they are involved in separate collaborative projects.) Reported collaborations with Australian institutions are shown in the accompanying diagram.

Institutional affiliations of collaborators mentioned explicitly in the research section of this report are as follows:

Dr P Appleton, Iowa State University

Dr T Armandroff, Kitt Peak National Observatory

Dr J Bailey, Anglo-Australian Observatory

Dr T C Beers, Michigan State University

Dr B Binggeli, University of Basel

Dr J Bland-Hawthorn, Anglo-Australian Observatory

Mr M Bransford, Iowa State University

Dr G Busarello, Naples Observatory

Dr N Caldwell, Whipple Observatory

Prof. M Capaccioli, Osservatoria di Capodimonte, Naples

MSSSO Annual Report 1997

Dr F Castelli, Observatory of Trieste

Dr R Ellis, Cambridge University

Dr H Ferguson, Johns Hopkins University

Prof. H Ford, Johns Hopkins University

Prof. O Gerhard, Observatory of Basel

Dr A Green, University of Sydney

Prof. H Habing, Leiden University

Dr D Hatzidimitriou, University of Crete

Prof. C T Hua, Lab. Ap. Spatiale, Marseilles

Dr D Jauncey, Australia Telescope National Facility

Dr E King, Australia Telescope National Facility

Prof. R Kudritzki, University of Muenchen

Dr G Longo, Naples Observatory

Dr S Lumsden, Anglo-Australian Observatory

Mr M Mayor, Geneva Observatory

Dr G Meurer, Johns Hopkins University

Dr R Mendez, University of Muenchen

Dr G Orton, Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Dr J O'Mara, University of Queensland

Dr R Norris, Australia Telescope National Facility

Dr B Plez, Neils Bohr Institute, Copenhagen

Dr J Reynolds, Australia Telescope National Facility

Dr S Ryan, Anglo-Australian Observatory

Dr See Woo Lee, Seoul National University

Dr P Seitzer, University of Michigan

Dr L Sparke, University of Wisconsin

Dr Z Tsvetanov, Johns Hopkins University

Dr W van Breugel, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Dr R Watson, University of Tasmania

Dr S Zaggia, Naples Observatory

Members of the MACHO team not affiliated with ANU are: Prof. C Alcock, Dr D Alves, Dr D Bennett, Dr K Cook, Dr S Marshall, Dr D Minniti (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory), Dr K Griest, Dr J Guern, Dr M Lehner, Dr M Pratt (Center for Particle Astrophysics, Berkeley), Dr A Becker (University of California, San Diego), Dr D Welch (McMaster University, Ontario), Dr W Sutherland (Oxford).

A full listing of external collaborations is given in the ANU annual report for 1997.

Staff Activities

Conferences Attended

Mr M Allen

Astronomical Society of Australia Scientific Meeting, UNSW, Sydney.

Contributed talk: "UV Diagnostics for the Emission Line Gas in Active Galaxies", Allen, M G, Dopita, M A, Tsvetanov, Z I.

Contributed poster: "The LINER disk in M87", Allen, M G, Dopita, M A, Koratkar, A P.

ASA, Harley Wood Winter School, Jenolan Caves, NSW.

2nd Stromlo AGN Workshop.

Contributed talk: "UV Diagnostics for Emission line Gas".

Joint ESO/Australia workshop, Looking Deep in the Southern Sky, Sydney.

Contributed poster: "UV Emission Line Diagnostics".

Dr T Axelrod

Aspen Center for Physics Microlensing Workshop.

Paper: "Current Status of the MACHO Project".

Dr M S Bessell

IAU Symposium 189 Fundamental Stellar Properties: The Interaction between Observation and Theory, Sydney, NSW.

Invited paper: The Temperature Scale for Cool Stars.

PASP Symposium on Antarctic Astrophysics: Chicago, Illinois.

IAU General Assembly 23: Kyoto, Japan.

Dr D Bersier

IAU Symposium 189: Fundamental Stellar Properties: The Interaction between Observation and Theory, Sydney, 13-17 January.

Paper: "A Refined Version of the Baade-Wesselink Method", Bersier, D.

A Half Century of Stellar Pulsation Interpretations: A Tribute to Arthur N. Cox, Los Alamos.

Paper: "LMC Cepheids in the MACHO Database: Constraints on the Star Formation Rate and on Stellar Models", D Bersier, C Alcock, et al (the MACHO Collaboration).

Poster paper: "Do Overtone Cepheids Exhibit a Resonance Effect at 3.2 Days in Their Radial Velocity Curve?", F Kienzle, F Pont, D Bersier, and P Moskalik.

MSSSO Annual Report 1997

Mr M Bureau

American Astronomical Society 189th Meeting, Toronto, Canada.

Poster paper: "New Clues on the Structure and Dynamics of Boxy/Peanut Bulges in Disk Galaxies", Bureau, M, & Freeman, K C.

IAU Symposium 184: The Central Regions of the Galaxy and Galaxies, Kyoto, Japan.

IAU 23rd General Assembly Joint Discussion #2: Dwarf Galaxies: Probes for Galaxy Formation and Evolution, Kyoto, Japan, 21 August.

Poster paper: "Large Scale Structure and Kinematics of the Dwarf Irregular Galaxy HoII", Bureau, M, & Carignan, C.

IAU Symposium 186: Galaxy Interactions at Low and High Redshift, Kyoto, Japan.

Poster paper: "Formation of Boxy/Peanut-Shaped Bulges in Spiral Galaxies: Accretion or Bar-Buckling Instability?", Bureau, M, & Freeman, K C.

Dr M Colless

Arizona State University, Tempe.

Talk: "Observing Galaxy Evolution - Current Status and Future Prospects".

The Observatories of the Carnegie Institute of Washington, Pasadena.

Talk: "Observing Galaxy Evolution - Current Status and Future Prospects".

Canberra Astronomical Society, Canberra.

Public Lecture: "2dF and AUSTRALIS - Tools for Exploring the Universe".

Workshop, 'Untangling Coma Berenices: A New Vision of an Old Cluster', Marseille.

Invited Conference summary: "A New Vision of the Coma Cluster: Conference Summary".

Conference, Astronomical Society of Australia, Sydney.

Talk: "The 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey".

Conference, International Astronomical Union, XXIII General Assembly, Joint Discussion Meeting 11, Kyoto.

Talk: "Redshift Surveys with 2dF", Colless M M & Boyle B J.

Workshop, ESO-Australia Workshop, 'Looking Deep in Southern Skies', Sydney.

Talk: "The 2dF Survey of Galaxies".

Staff Activities

Dr G S Da Costa

IAU Symposium 190, Fundamental Stellar Properties: The Interaction Between Theory and Observation, Sydney.

Anglo-Australian Observatory & Australia Telescope National Facility Joint Symposium, Sydney.

Oral presentation: "The Wide Field Imager Project".

IAU General Assembly, Kyoto, Japan.

Poster paper at Joint Discussion 2 - Dwarf Galaxies: "Variable Stars in the M31 Dwarf Spheroidal Companion Galaxy Andromeda I", Da Costa G S, Drake, A, Armandroff, T E, and Caldwell, N.

Visit to Kitt Peak National Observatory, NOAO, Tucson, Arizona, for two weeks in July for discussions on Hubble Space Telescope projects with Drs Taft Armandroff and Nelson Caldwell.

Visit to the International Gemini Project Office, Tucson, Arizona, for five days in September to attend the Gemini Instrument Forum as the Australian representative.

Prof. M A Dopita

The IAU General Assembly, Kyoto, Japan.

M87 Workshop: Ringberg Castle, Germany:The Shocked Accretion Disk in M87.

ATNF lunchtime talk: "Towards a Truly Unified Model of AGN".

Visit to the Pedagological College of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

Visit to the University of Hanoi, Vietnam.

Seminar at the IOA, University of Cambridge, UK: "Towards a Truly Unified Model of AGN".

Visit to Space Telescope Science Institute, USA.

BIMA Seminar, University of Maryland: "Towards a Truly Unified Model of AGN".

JILA/CASA seminar at the University of Colorado: "Towards a Truly Unified Model of AGN".

Dr D J Faulkner

Astronomical Society of Australia, 31st Annual Scientific Meeting, University of NSW (UNSW).

MSSSO Annual Report 1997

Dr P Francis

American Astronomical Society meeting, Toronto.

Poster: "Discovery of a New Type of High Redshft Galaxy"

Harley Wood Winter School, Jenolan Caves, lectured on CCDs and Optical/IR imaging.

Astronomical Society of Australia Annual Meeting, UNSW.

Talk "Red Galaxies in the Early Universe"

ANUATC Workshop on Compact Stars and Accretion Disks.

"The Young Universe", international conference held at Osservatorio di Roma, Monteporzio Catone (near Rome).

Invited review talk "Large Scale Structures at High Redshifts".

ANUATC 2nd Annual AGN Workshop, organising committee.

Talk: "The Mystery of the Red Quasars".

"Looking Deep in the Southern Sky", Joint ESO Australia workshop, Sydney.

Poster "Red Galaxies in the Early Universe".

"Astronomy Weekend" for members of the public at Mt Buffalo National Park, Victoria.

Prof. K C Freeman

Visit to University of Oxford and Merton College, for outside studies program.

Seminar: "Extragalactic Planetary Nebulae". Three graduate lectures on interacting galaxies.

Attended dynamics conference at Academia dei Lincei, Rome.

Invited talk "Where do the Disks of Galaxies End".

Visits to University of Durham and Imperial College London in June for seminar: "Extragalactic Planetary Nebulae".

Visit to European Southern Observatory, Garching, for collaborative work. Seminar: "Dark Matter in Galaxies".

Visit to Inter-University Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pune, for meeting of Science Advisory Committee and workshop on centers of galaxies.

Invited talk "Bulges and Ellipticals".

Staff Activities

Attended Lorentz Workshop, Leiden Observatory.

Talk "Figure Rotation of a Triaxial Dark Halo".

Attended General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union, and IAU Symposium 186, Kyoto.

Invited talk: "What Can We Learn from the Local Group about the Role of Interactions in Galaxy Formation".

Visit to Basel Observatory for collaborative work. Seminar: "Dark Matter in our Galaxy".

Dr B Gibson

ASA Meeting, Sydney.

Paper: Galactic Chemical Evolution.

IAU Symposium #187, Cosmic Chemical Evolution, Kyoto.

Paper: Stellar Yields and the Initial Mass Function.

Abundance Profile Workshop, Quebec.

Paper: Abundance Gradients in the Intracluster Medium.

Mr A Graham

Astronomical Society of Australia, 31st Annual Scientific Meeting, UNSW, Sydney.

Talk, "A new Virgo-Fornax Distance Modulus.

University of California Santa Cruz Workshop on Galactic Haloes, UCSC, USA.

Poster presented.

Views on Distance Indicators, S.Agata, Italy.

Poster presented.

Visit to Caltech and Carnegie Mellon University in August for discussions with several staff members.

Invited lecture at CMU, Pennsylvania, USA, on "Structural and Dynamical Variance of Elliptical Galaxies".

Dr C Heisler

IAU Colloquium No 164, Socorro, New Mexico, USA.

Paper: "Compact Radio Cores in 60 micron Peakers", Heisler, C.A, Norris, R., Jauncey, D., Reynolds, J. & King, E.

MSSSO Annual Report 1997

Astronomical Society of Australia Annual General Meeting.

Paper: "Invited Review of Active Galactic Nuclei".

The Second Annual AGN Workshop, ANUATC.

Paper: "Radio Properties of Warm IRAS AGN".

The ESO/Australia Workshop Looking Deep in the Southern Sky, Sydney.

Paper: "Radio Properties of 60 micron Peakers: Precursors to Radio Ellipticals?".

Dr H Jerjen

Max Planck Institut für Radio Astronomie (Bonn, Germany).

Talk: "Luminosity Functions of Galaxies".

Astronomical Institute of the University of Basel (Basel, Switzerland).

Talk: "The Dwarf Galaxy Population in the Cen A and Sculptor Groups".

Mr D H Jones

International Workshop "Prospects for the AAO/UKST Galactic Plane H-alpha Survey", Sydney NSW.

Invited talk: "TTF: A Revolution in Flexible Narrowband Imaging".

Conference "Clusters of Galaxies at Different Redshifts", Ruidoso, New Mexico.

Poster paper: "Tunable Filter-Selected H-alpha Emission-Line Galaxies in the Rich Cluster ACO 3665 (AC 106)".

Harley Wood Winter School, Jenolan Caves, NSW.

Astronomical Society of Australia, 31st AGM, Sydney.

Poster paper: "Tunable Filter-Selected H-alpha Emission-Line Galaxies in the Rich Cluster ACO 3665 (AC 106)".

Invited Colloquium "Review of the Cluster of Galaxies Conference", AAO/ATNF, Sydney NSW.

Workshop "Looking Deep into the Southern Sky", Sydney NSW. Poster Paper: "Tunable Filter-Selected H-alpha Emission-Line Galaxies in the Rich Cluster ACO 3665 (AC 106)".

Dr P J McGregor

ATNF-AAO Joint Symposium, Sydney.

Oral paper: "Intermediate Radio-Loud IRAS Galaxies", McGregor, P. J.

Staff Activities

Harley Wood Winter School, Jenolan Caves, NSW.

Invited lecture: "Infrared Instrumentation".

Second MSSSO AGN Workshop, Canberra.

Oral paper: "Optical Spectroscopy of Intermediate Radio-Loud IRAS Galaxies".

Joint ESO/Australia Workshop: Looking Deep In The Southern Sky, Sydney.

Poster paper: "Searching For High Redshift Galaxies In Radio And Far-Infrared Surveys", McGregor, P .J. and Sadler E. M.

Prof. J R Mould

Astronomical Society of Australia, 31st AGM, Sydney.

Invited talk: "Constraints on the Cepheid Luminosity Relation from M101".

ATNF-AAO Joint Symposium, Sydney.

Invited talk: "The Age of the LMC Globular Cluster, NGC 1651".

Aspen Winter Conference in Astrophysics, Aspen, Colorado, USA.

Invited talk: "The Hubble Space Telescope Key Project on the Extragalactic Distance Scale: An Interim Report on the Calibration of the Tully Fisher Relation".

University of Michigan, colloquium: "The HST Key Project, an Interim Report".

Caltech, colloquium: "The Star Formation History of Galaxies Near Us".

Joint ESO/Australia Workshop: Looking Deep In The Southern Sky, Sydney.

Invited introductory talk.

IAU General Assembly, Kyoto, Japan.

Lorentz Centre, Leiden, the Netherlands.

Invited talk: "The Star Formation History of Galaxies studied with WFPC2".

Prof. J E Norris

Fundamental Stellar Properties: The Interaction between Observation and Theory, Sydney, Australia, January.

Invited review:" Stellar Chemical Evolution".

Mr D Pfitzner

Harley Wood Winter School, Jenolan Caves, NSW.

MSSSO Annual Report 1997

Astronomical Society of Australia, 31st AGM, Sydney.

Poster paper: "A Nonparametric Analysis of the Density Profiles of Simulated Dark Matter Halos".

Dr B P Schmidt

Aspen Winter Conference in Astrophysics, Aspen Colorado, USA, " Measuring the Global Properties of the Universe with Type Ia Supernovae".

American Astronomical Society Meeting, Toronto, Canada, "Measuring Cosmic Deceleration and the Global Geometry of the Universe with High-Z Supernovae". ­

Institute for Astronomy Colloquium, Honolulu USA, "Measuring Cosmic Deceleration and the Global Geometry of the Universe with High-Z Supernovae".

Astronomy Colloquium University of New South Wales, Sydney, "First results from the High-Z SN search".

Astronomical Society of Australia Meeting, Sydney, "First results from the High-Z SN search".

The Center for Particle Astrophysics workshop on Supernovae, Santa Barbara, USA, "The Diversity of Core Collapse Supernovae".

The Center for Particle Astrophysics workshop on Supernovae, Santa Barbara, USA, "The High-Z SN Search: First Results".

Steward Observatory Colloquium, Tucson, USA, "The High-Z SN Search: First Results".

Dr P Wood

IAU Symposium 189, "Fundamental Stellar Properties: The Interaction Between Observation and Theory", Sydney.

Invited review: "Properties of Cepheids and Long-Period Variables".

"Views on Distance Indicators", Sant'Agata, Italy.

Oral presentation: "Deriving Distances from Nonlinear Pulsation Models of Bump Cepheids".

Colloquia were presented in Heidelberg, 12 September and in Leiden. Title: "Success in Modelling Cepheids and Failure to Understand the LPVs".

Staff Activities

Courses Taught

Lecture Courses

The following lecture courses were given during 1997, mostly in conjunction with BSc courses in the Faculties:

Semester 1:

D. Wickramasinghe: Introductory Astrophysics (Maths C51H)

D. Faulkner, P. Wood: Stellar Structure, Evolution and Pulsation

(Maths C53H)

M. Dopita: Physics of the Interstellar Medium (Physics 3043)

C. Savage, D. McClelland: Astronmy and Planetary Science (Physics A03)

G. Da Costa, C. Savage: Introduction to Astrophysics (Physics A05)

Semester 2:

J. Mould, K. Freeman: Galaxies and Cosmology (Maths C52H)

G. Bicknell: Magnetohydrodynamics (Maths C54H)

P. Francis, B. Schmidt: Extragalactic Astronomy and Cosmology (Physics A06)

The following lectures were also given:

Dr D J Faulkner

Two presentations of the nine-week lecture series 'Astronomy for Fun', one in each of the autumn and spring programs of the ANU Centre for Continuing Education, Mount Stromlo.

Dr P Francis

Taught 60% (12 lectures) of PHYS1006.

Dr P J McGregor

Twelve-lecture course on "Observational Techniques" to MSSSO PhD students.

Prof. D W N Stibbs

Research Student Seminars on Parametric and Non- Parametric Hypothesis-Testing Procedures in Data Analysis: First Series, 6th June to 4th July.

MSSSO Annual Report 1997

Dr R Sutherland

Developed new coursework in 1997 for the new Mathematics AM4 course (12 lectures+ Tutorials) in a short course on Fourier Analysis.

Developed new workshop components for the third year honours physics interstellar medium (ISM) physics course (C43H) and delivered a guest lecture and workshop.

Conducted postgraduate level workshop/lectures in ISM physics and modelling at Mount Stromlo Observatory for interested PhD students on an occasional basis.