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ATNF News Issue No. 70, April 2011 ISSN 1323-6326 CSIRO Astronomy and Space Science – undertaking world leading astronomical research and operator of the Australia Telescope National Facility. The Parkes Phased Array Feed (PAF) package, partially rotated, showing the chequerboard array minus the weather cover. The ability to invert the PAF package during and after assembly enables efficient final construction and, most importantly, safe transport and readiness for sky testing. Credit: Russ Bolton, CSIRO Cover page image Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) antenna construction. Credit: Antony Schinckel, CSIRO 2 Issue No. 70, April 2011 Contents From the Chief of CSIRO Astronomy and Space Science ..........................................................................................4 New Deputy Chief for CASS ........................................................................................................................................................5 Distinguished Visitors ..........................................................................................................................................................................6 Graduate Student Program.............................................................................................................................................................7 Grote Reber Gold Medal Awarded ..........................................................................................................................................8 CSIRO Chief Visits Parkes ...............................................................................................................................................................9 Ruby Payne-Scott: First Interferometry in Radio Astronomy: Australia Day 1946.................................. 10 Operations Engineering Cadetship Experience .............................................................................................................. 14 ASKAP and SKA News .................................................................................................................................................................. 16 Compact Array 20/13 cm and 6/3 cm Receiver Upgrade .......................................................................................20 CASS Teacher Scholarship ...........................................................................................................................................................22 S-PASS: S-band Polarisation All Sky Survey ......................................................................................................................24 CABB Zoom Modes Produce New Science .....................................................................................................................28 ATCA Discovers an Ionised Jet Associated With a Young High-mass Star G345.5+01.5...................30 SZ and X-ray Peaks Don’t Correspond ...............................................................................................................................32 Education and Outreach ................................................................................................................................................................34 Operations..............................................................................................................................................................................................35 Publications List ...................................................................................................................................................................................37 Editorial Welcome to this the April edition of In other science reports we feature As always, we provide our regular ATNF News for 2011. Once again we a report on the Sunyaev-Zel’dovich in-depth update on CSIRO’s bring you articles and news items effect in galaxy clusters and we ASKAP and SKA related activity. of interest, all associated with the look at some new science emerging It’s a busy year at the Murchison operation of our National Facility. via the new “zoom” modes of the Radio-astronomy Observatory Compact Array spectrometer. with the construction of support In a feature packed issue, Miller infrastructure and ASKAP’s Goss captures the past, detailing We then talk with new CASS remaining antennas both under way. Ruby Payne-Scott’s pioneering Deputy Chief Sarah Pearce who work in radio astronomy and the joins us from GridPP (the UK To conclude, we finish with our first use of a radio astronomical computing grid for particle physics, regular Operations report. interferometer at Dover Heights set up to deal with data from We hope you enjoy the issue. on Australia Day, 1946. CERN’s Large Hadron Collider). Your comments and suggestions Welcome aboard Sarah! We’re then back to the present are always welcome. If you’d day with a number of science In other news, Mark Bowen like to contribute to future articles focused on the latest reports on receiver upgrades editions of the ATNF News, please in radio astronomical research. at the Compact Array, CASS contact the newsletter team. This includes an article by CASS Teacher Scholar Stephen scientist Ettore Carretti who Broderick enjoys his week with Tony Crawshaw and provides his latest update on the the PULSE@Parkes project team, Joanne Houldsworth S-band Polarisation All Sky Survey and we report on this year’s The ATNF Newsletter Production Team (S-PASS). The survey has mapped Grote Reber Gold Medal Award ([email protected]) the diffuse polarised emission of recipient — Jocelyn Bell Burnell. the entire southern sky with the Parkes radio telescope at 2.3 GHz. 3 From the Chief of CSIRO Astronomy and Space Science Phil Diamond Chief of CASS This, the 70th edition of the attendees from CSIRO, and not be final until the CSIRO Board ATNF Newsletter, again the Director of the Australian formally approves it on 29 June. Astronomical Observatory The second day of the meeting demonstrates the breadth of (AAO). The membership can be started with an update of the status found on the ATNF web site. science undertaken with the of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) ATNF facilities; the quality of The Committee’s principal role is to project; this was enhanced by the the engineering that supports offer advice to the ATNF Director. I very welcome announcement by can safely say that they are not shy in the government in the previous the telescopes and the providing such advice, but it is always evening’s budget of $40.2m for professionalism of the operations done in a friendly and positive the pre-construction stage of manner. At the recent meeting the the SKA, scheduled to run from and other support staff that agenda covered those topics that January 2012 until December 2015. enables the whole endeavour to you would expect to be discussed, The delivery of the full amount work at a continuing high level. such as a report on recent science is contingent upon a successful results from the ATNF, an update outcome for Australia–New Zealand This sentiment is strongly supported on the status of engineering projects in the site selection process. and on operations. A major focus by the ATNF Steering Committee, I am sure that the highlight of the of the meeting was a presentation which met on the 10 – 11 May meeting for the Committee was the of the first complete version at Parkes. The Committee was so-called “hay ride” on the Parkes of the science and engineering keen to travel to one of the telescope itself. The telescope operations plan for the Australian telescopes, and will continue to was lowered to almost 0 degrees Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder do so in the future, ensuring that elevation, the committee stepped (ASKAP). It is expected that the it rotates around all CASS/ATNF onto the surface and were then plan will evolve as we receive sites in time. The Committee raised above the observatory input from bodies such as the has a varied membership, as the dish returned to point at Steering Committee, the Users’ with three astronomers from the zenith. The trick is to walk Committee, the ASKAP Science Australian institutes, three from down the dish surface as the local Survey Teams and CASS staff. the international community— horizontal changes! All Committee currently from China, Germany The Committee also received a members managed to do so and and the USA; two other members presentation, and entered into a were later seen safely to the bus are non-astronomers representing discussion on the proposed four- to whisk them off to the airport. the broader Australian community year budget for the ATNF and A great finale to the day! and there are two ex-officio CASS as a whole. This budget will 4 Issue No. 70, April 2011 New Deputy Chief for CASS Tony Crawshaw (CASS) ATNF News Editor Tony Crawshaw spent some time speaking with Dr Sarah Pearce, new CASS Deputy Chief. Hi Sarah. Welcome to CSIRO and more specifically to CASS. Thank you very much. I’m very happy to be here! We’re happy as well. Could you tell us something of your background? I was project manager for GridPP, Dr Sarah Pearce which runs the UK computing grid Credit: Tony Crawshaw, CSIRO for particle physics, set up to deal with data from CERN’s (European Organisation for Nuclear Research) Large Hadron Collider. I worked It was fascinating to see behind And your inspiration in joining CASS? for them for six years, first of all in the scenes how politics worked, Working for GridPP, I really enjoyed a dissemination