Got my Master's Thesis results back!

The good news is that I got into the high-distinction band, am accepted into the PhD program and got lots of good feedback.

The meh news is that I wanted more - my goal was to be in the 92%+ range. Didn't make that, but got above the 85% mark.

Think I am being petty though! Just a bit disappointed I didn't reach my personal target.

Still, a first-author paper to come from it is not too bad, so taking the feedback as a nice, informal, first-ever experience of the peer review process of my own research work.

And given I don't come from a science background, and beyond four years ago, I was working in digital comms ... it's probably not too bad.

So, am grateful for the examiner's time and feedback, and I guess I better finalise my PhD topic next!

Of course, it will be on pulsars ...

This is a *really* neat find!

The Milky Way's largest Globular Cluster - Omega Centauri (𝜔-Cen) - is thought to be relic of a former disrupted dwarf galaxy.

Now, 13 new isolated & binary pulsars have been discovered, taking the total to 18 in the GC.

The findings were made using MeerKAT (as part of the TRAPUM survey), which looked around the core region of 𝜔-Cen, esp. since there are *many* unassociated X-ray sources ... the previous five were found using the Parkes dish.

Given 𝜔-Cen is a southern target, and these are fresh discoveries, hope someone can do some follow-up work with the new CryoPAF on Parkes around the region, and get some timing out of them (though, unsure of the flux, so integration times might be longer with lower sensitivity).

I'm honestly surprised how few pulsars there are, given other GCs have many times more (though, they are more dense).

Studying the populations, spins and binary configurations of these systems could reveal some insightful info about the evolutionary history of 𝜔-Cen, and maybe tell us a little bit more about our own too.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2301.03864

#RadioAstronomy #Pulsars #Astrodon

We often hear about light pollution being terrible for night sky observing (amongst many things). This is related to human-generated artificial light in our cities and towns that creates a 'fog' that blocks out the fainter objects in the sky.

Anyone living in any of the big cities only ever sees the brightest stars, and often when heading to a remote location, are overwhelmed with the beauty and amount of stars that we are robbed off.

But EM pollution can also occur in the radio regime, and the equivalent of light pollution for radio astronomy is radio frequency interference (RFI) - generated by mobile services, TVs, satellites, wi-fi, airports, radars, etc.

A growing problem of RFI is starting to come from above, rather than around us - that is, satellite RFI. Yesterday, I was observing my pulsar with Parkes when the NAVSTAR-27 satellite moved into the beam. It killed my signal-to-noise! (image 1). There are so many satellites above our telescope at any given time (blue crosses in image 2) with more going up with large constellations. So more chances of RFI from the sky for us.

Human dominance in Low-Earth Orbit is becoming a big risk for radio astronomy.

#Astrodon

The biggest dish in the south! 📡

Continuing to process my images from @canberradsn visit a short while ago ... and came across this beauty of DSS 43.

It really shows the scale of the structure relative to the car, tree and buildings in the foreground.

DSS 43 has a diameter of 70m, which is bigger than Parkes (64m). This makes it the largest, steerable dish antenna in the southern hemisphere.

Unlike Parkes, DSS 43 both receives data AND transmits - so it is used in deep space missions, including humanity's longest distant calls - out to Voyager 2, which are now beyond the orbit of Pluto.

I love spending time with these gentle giants ....

#DeepSpaceNetwork #Artemis #Astrodon #SpaceExploration

When I was a kid, I thought that astronomy needed big telescopes, well out of the financial reach of my family. They're still fairly expensive these days, but prices have come down drastically.

I also think that we are yet to see the mobile phone astrophotography revolution - but there are apps that are showing signs this is coming.

One of the things that has always fascinated me about astronomy is spectra. There is so much data in the light, that nearly all our knowledge of the Universe comes from it.

A couple years back, I bought a small grating filter that allows me to separate star light into its spectrum and measure it from my own backyard telescope. The results are fantastic!

Need to get back into it this summer!

Here's the spectra of a star and of a globular cluster I captured earlier this year.

#Astrophysics #Astrodon #Spectrum