September General Meeting

20 09 2011

The September GM will be tonight at Regis Hall, 7:30 pm, as usual. Our speaker is Dr. David Frew, from Macquarie Uni. His abstract follows:

“In this talk I will describe the latest discoveries and research on planetary nebulae, emphasizing the huge diversity of their central ionizing stars, which is only now being appreciated on the basis of recent discoveries. I will relate some of these recent finds to stellar evolution theory, noting how the formation of some rare central stars is still a mystery.”


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NSAS Activities for September

3 09 2011

We start off September tonight with the NSAS Public Star Party for the Lane Cove Cameraygal Festival. If you’re not involved, and want to come along, the details are on the NSAS website. Tuesday the 13th the Theory Group will meet at the new time of 7:45. Tuesday the 20th is the General Meeting, where we will vote for the Geoff Welch Prize winner(s), and our speaker is Dr David Frew from Macquarie University. The topic is something related to planetary nebulae, his specialty (details later). The NAG finished up last month for this time around, so we will have to wait for a new group of budding observers next year to start up again. Observing at N. Turramurra this month is the 23rd and 30th.


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Categories : Events, General Meeting, Meetings, NAG, Observing, Speakers, Theory Group

NSAS August General Meeting

13 08 2011

The NSAS August General Meeting will be on Tuesday the 16th of August at Regis Hall, Regis Campus, St Ignatius College. Please note that we are using a classroom under Regis Hall due to a scheduling conflict. Our speaker this month is Daniel Yardley from University of Sydney who will speak on detecting gravitational waves. His abstract follows:

A millisecond pulsar is a rotating magnetised neutron star that completes several hundred rotations every second. This leads to remarkable stability in its rotation, which provides a wealth of applications, such as improving the accuracy of terrestrial time standards, improving our measurements of the parameters of solar system bodies and studying gravitational waves. This talk describes my recently-submitted PhD thesis, which addresses the problem of gravitational-wave detection using radio timing observations of millisecond pulsars. In particular, I will present recently-published results from the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array.


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NSAS Activities for August

8 08 2011

We start out August with the Theory Group on Tuesday the 9th, and the August General Meeting will be Tuesday the 16th. Our speaker this month is Daniel Yardley, a Ph.D candidate at University of Sydney, who will talk on “Detecting Gravitational Waves Via Radio Timing of Millisecond Pulsars” (should be interesting to those who toured the Dish in June!). On Tuesday the 23rd the New Astronomers Group will meet, and the subject should be Astrophotography. Observing this month at North Turramurra will be the Fridays 19th and 26th. As usual, all meeting start at 7:30PM at Regis Hall, Regis Campus, St. Ignatius (see directions on our website).


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Categories : General Meeting, Meetings, NAG, Observing, Speakers, Theory Group

NSAS July General Meeting

18 07 2011

Tomorrow night, 19th July, is the July GM. As is now the case, the meeting will be at Regis Hall, St Ignatius, starting at 7:30PM. Our speaker for July is Dr Baerbel Koribalski, from CSIRO, who will talk on “The WALLABY Project – Exploring Nearby Galaxies”. Her abstract follows:

I will talk about nearby galaxies and galaxy groups, comparing their stellar and gaseous disks, while exploring their dark matter content. To get you involved I will start with “Astronomy QI” incl. questions related to past, current and future 21-cm sky surveys: HIPASS, LVHIS & WALLABY. So, tune your eyes to a wavelength of 21-cm to explore the sky as only radio telescopescan see it.


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NSAS Activities for July

7 07 2011

After the great success of the Parkes trip, I’m afraid July may be a let-down, but we’ve got a great speaker, and our other programs will continue. Next Tuesday the 12th the Theory Group continues it’s series of lectures on Understanding the Universe. On Tuesday the 19th, we have our GM, and our speaker is Dr. Baerbel Koribalski, who will speak about the WALLABY project she heads up. The NAG will continue its course of enlightenment on observing on Tuesday the 26th, this month looking at collimation and go-to scopes. Observing is scheduled for the Fridays of the 22nd and 29th. For those of you who haven’t been to a meeting last month, don’t forget that we have moved to Regis Hall for all our meetings, which start at 7:30 PM. Directions are on the website.


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Categories : Events, General Meeting, Meetings, NAG, Observing, Speakers, Theory Group

NSAS June GM Tuesday 21st

18 06 2011

NSAS will have the June GM this Tuesday night, at 7:30 PM, and in our new venue, Regis Hall (see the website for directions if you didn’t get them previously by email). If it’s a cold night, dress warmly, as there is no heating. The speaker this month is Dr Jonathon Horner, a post-Doc at Uni of NSW. His presentation is “Jupiter: Friend or Foe”, and his abstract follows:

“It has long been believed that the planet Jupiter has played an important role in the development of life on Earth. Without the particular size and placement of Jupiter, it is argued, the Earth would have experienced a greatly enhanced flux of impacts from asteroids and comets, hindering or entirely preventing the development of life. Despite the vigour with which this belief is held, very little work has been performed to examine the effect of Jupiter on the terrestrial planet impact flux. We have now completed the first detailed study of the effect of Jupiter’s mass on the impact rate of the three types of potentially hazardous objects – the Near Earth Asteroids, the Short Period Comets, and the Long Period Comets, and have found that the situation is, at the very least, significantly more complicated than was previously thought…”

All members and visitors are welcome.


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Categories : General Meeting, Meetings, News, Speakers

Alex Fillippenko Talk – Speaker Change (!)

16 06 2011

Alex Fillippenko has had to pull out at the last moment, and the Sunday talk at the Powerhouse will now be by Prof. Robert Kirshner (Harvard Uni), who also works on Dark Energy. The time is the same, and Fred Watson will introduce the speaker.


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Categories : Events, News, Speakers

NSAS Activities for June

1 06 2011

Once again, another busy month for NSAS in June, with the high point being the field trip to Parkes and the Dish.  Our month begins as usual with the Theory Group on Tuesday the 14th, followed by the General Meeting on the 21st.  Our speaker will be Jonathon Horner from UNSW, and his talk will be “Jupiter – Friend or Foe”.  The GM is followed by the trip to Parkes on the weekend of 25/26 June.  This has been well-advertised, and we have about 25 people going, but if you’ve missed it, please contact us ASAP.  Finally, we finish up the month with the New Astronomer’s Group on Tuesday the 28th.  Observing will be on Friday the 3rd, and while we have it scheduled for Friday the 24th, everyone will be in transit to Parkes, so this will be cancelled.

As many of you know, from June NSAS moves to Regis Hall, Regis Campus, St. Ignatius for all future meetings.  It’s very easy to find, and there will be directions on the NSAS website, and as well.  It’s just as well, as we were outgrowing the Sports Pavilion with all the new members this year.


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Categories : Events, General Meeting, Meetings, NAG, Observing, Speakers, Theory Group

Meeting Report (17/5/11) : The ESO Extremely Large Telescope

19 05 2011

The May General Meeting was held on the 17th at St. Ignatius’. our guest speaker was Jason Spyromilio, from the European Southern Observatory.

Jason’s talked about the history of the ESO and its current observatory sites in Chile at La Silla and Paranal. The Atacama Desert where these observatories are located is one of the driest places on Earth – resulting in only 4% to 8% observing time lost due to weather.

The VLT (Very Large Telescope), located at Paranal, is the world’s most advanced ground-based optical telescope, consisting of an array of four 8.2 metre telescopes.

Jason then spoke about the ESO’s next project – the E-ELT (European – Extremely Large Telescope).

The E-ELT is the largest of the planned future optical/NIR ground based telescopes with a 42-m diameter primary mirror. The project has just concluded the detailed design phase (phase B). Jason talked about the science drivers for the project and the current technical status. Construction should start later this year.

The talk was well attended and was very well received by the members.

Jason Spyromilio with a picture of the proposed E-ELT

For those interested in the the E-ELT, here is a youtube video from ESO which talks about the E-ELT:

Peter Nosworthy


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Categories : General Meeting, Speakers

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