Äîêóìåíò âçÿò èç êýøà ïîèñêîâîé ìàøèíû. Àäðåñ îðèãèíàëüíîãî äîêóìåíòà : http://www.atnf.csiro.au/news/newsletter/apr13/ATNFnews_Apr13_lowres.pdf Äàòà èçìåíåíèÿ: Fri May 31 09:47:08 2013 Äàòà èíäåêñèðîâàíèÿ: Fri Feb 28 13:05:11 2014 Êîäèðîâêà: Ïîèñêîâûå ñëîâà: guide 8.0

C S I R O A S T R O N O M Y A N D S PA C E S C I E N C E www.csiro.au

ATNF News
Issue No. 74, April 2013
I S S N 1 3 2 3 - 6 3 26 CSIRO Astronomy and Space Science -- Under taking world- leading astronomical research and operating the Australia Telescope National Facility.


Editorial

Welcome to the Apr il 2013 edit ion of ATNF News. We star t this issue by welcoming Lew is Ball, the newly appointed Chief of C SIRO Astronomy and Space Sc ience and ATNF Direc tor, who returns to C SIRO follow ing two and a half years as Deputy Direc tor of the Atacama L arge Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile. On Sunday 13 Januar y, a massive bushfire swept through the Warrumbungle Nat ional Park and Siding Spr ing Obser vator y, near Coonabarabran in the nor thwest of New South Wales. C SIRO's Mopra radio telescope, close to Siding Spr ing Obser vator y, was also impac ted by the fire. Star t ing on page 4, Narrabr i and Mopra Site Manager Bret t Hiscock gives an account of the fire and damage at Mopra, as well as the current state of site remediat ion. The Compac t Array cent imetre receiver upgrade projec t, outlined by Mark Bowen, has now been substant ively completed w ith the installat ion of new receiver systems on all six antennas. We give an over v iew of the latest A SK AP and SK A news, including successful remote obser v ing w ith A SK AP from Marsfield (a distance of more than 3,4 00 km) and onsite commissioning ac t iv it ies. We repor t on recent changes to the ATNF website, the launch of an astronomy `blog' and a new memor ial dedicated to pioneer ing radio astronomer Grote Reber that has been installed at Parkes Obser vator y, as well as pay tr ibute to the late Dick McGee. In other news, Jill Rathborne gives an account of the first ALMA results presented at a meet ing in December, and Malte Marquarding repor ts on the successful Astroinformat ics Summer School held in Februar y.

The ATNF is at the hear t of an ac t ive sc ience community. Two sc ience ar t icles give a snapshot of the latest radio astronomy research being conduc ted w ith the fac ility, including:

Jimi Green and coauthors' over v iew of the
MAGMO projec t, which used the Compac t Array and OH masers to map the Galac t ic magnet ic field; and

predictions for neutral hydrogen sur veys

to be conduc ted w ith the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder-- WALL ABY (an all- sky sur vey) and DINGO (a deeper and smaller area sur vey)--which Alan Duff y est imates w ill detec t more than 700,000 galax ies.

Our regular contr ibut ions, including updates on new postdoc toral staff, graduate students and v isitors, as well as recent publicat ions, highlight the connec t ions between the fac ility and the astronomy community. We hope you enjoy this issue. Your comments and suggest ions are always welcome. If you would like to contr ibute to future edit ions of ATNF News, please contac t the newslet ter team. Gabby Russell and Tony Crawshaw The ATNF News Editor ial Team (newsletter@atnf.csiro.au)

Front cover image

M op ra radio teles cop e, w ith M opra ro ck in the background, photo graphed by C SIRO 's John Maste r s on in 198 8. O n 1 3 Januar y 201 3 a bushfire swe p t across th e M opra site: see page 4 for more d etail s .

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ATNF News Apr il 2013


Contents

From the Chief of C SIRO Astronomy and Space Sc ience New Chief appointed Bushfire at Mopra telescope Compac t Array cent imetre receivers upgraded A SK A P a n d SK A n e w s New look for ATNF website Astronomy blog launched Memor ial to Grote Reber unveiled at Parkes Vale R X McGee (1921­2012) ALMA first results: punching through a br ick wall Astroinformat ics Summer School 2013 Awards and appointments New postdoc toral staff Graduate student program Sc ient ific v isitors MAGMO: Mapping the Galac t ic magnet ic field through OH masers Predic t ions for A SK AP neutral hydrogen sur veys Educat ion and outreach Operat ions Publicat ions

2 3 4 7 9 15 15 16 17 19 20 21 22 23 23 24 26 30 31 34

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From the Chief of CSIRO Astronomy and Space Science
L E W I S B A L L (C H I E F O F C A SS)
I am pleased to be wr it ing this message shor tly af ter returning to C SIRO and the ATNF. Hav ing prev iously spent nine years w ith C SIRO, I feel r ight at home and would like to thank C A SS staff and the local astronomy community for welcoming me back so warmly. My t ime as Deputy Direc tor of the Atacama L arge Millimeter/ submillimeter Array prov ided me w ith wonder ful exper ience in managing a largescale, mult i- nat ional astronomy projec t, and I look for ward to br inging this exper ience to bear as C SIRO cont inues to play a leading role in the design and development of the Square Kilometre Array. Already, 2013 has had its challenges as well as its high points. The bushfire at Mopra has been an unfor tunate blow. We have poured considerable effor t into assessing the ex tent of the fire damage and the impac t this might have on obser v ing w ith the telescope: for tunately it appears that lit tle damage has been suffered by the telescope and equipment cr it ical to its operat ion. While there has been significant damage to on- site buildings at Mopra, the nearby Siding Spr ing Obser vator y, the Warrumbungle Nat ional Park and pr ivate proper t ies, we are grateful that staff, astronomers and local community members are all safe. The successful complet ion of the Compac t Array cent imetre receiver upgrade projec t earlier this year is already hav ing a big impac t on the sc ient ific capability of the instrument and at trac t ing internat ional interest. It is fit t ing that this upgrade, which complements the recent Compac t Array Broadband Backend projec t, should be completed in 2013--the Compac t Array 's 2 5th anniversar y. I look for ward to shar ing news of the Compac t Array 's September `bir thday ' celebrat ions w ith you in the nex t edit ion of ATNF News. In the meant ime, I'll be get t ing down to work w ith C A SS staff and the astronomy community to ensure our cont inued deliver y of world- class radio astronomy fac ilit ies.

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ATNF News Apr il 2013


New Chief appointed
T O N Y C R AW S H AW (C A SS)

Follow ing an ex tensive internat ional search, Dr Lew is Ball has been appointed Chief of C SIRO's Astronomy and Space Sc ience (C A SS) div ision. He succeeds Dr Philip Diamond who lef t C SIRO in Oc tober 2012 to take up the posit ion of Direc tor General of the SK A Organisat ion. As the new C A SS Chief, Dr Ball leads approx imately 280 staff and is responsible for operat ing and developing C SIRO's Australia Telescope Nat ional Fac ility as well as its newest telescope the Australian SK A Pathfinder (A SK AP); managing (on NA SA's behalf ) the Canberra Deep Space Communicat ion Complex; as well as dr iv ing the organisat ion's contr ibut ion to the first phase of the internat ional Square Kilometre Array (SK A) telescope in Australia. Lew is returned to C SIRO from the Atacama L arge Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) Obser vator y in Chile where he was Deputy Direc tor. There he led the successful commencement of ALMA's sc ient ific operat ion, currently the world's largest and most complex astronomical obser vator y and a par tnership involv ing 20 countr ies.

Prev ious to his ALMA role, he had been w ith C SIRO for nine years in a number of management roles including leadership of C SIRO's astronomy div ision from Februar y 2009 to May 2010, first as Ac t ing Direc tor of the Australia Telescope Nat ional Fac ility (ATNF) and then as Ac t ing Chief of C SIRO Astronomy and Space Sc ience. Lew is earned his PhD in Theoret ical Physics from the University of Sydney. He is a recognised internat ional exper t on radio supernovae and their evolut ion and is best known for his comprehensive record of the evolv ing radio emission from Supernova 1987A . He formally began as C A SS Chief on Monday 18 March.

D r L ew i s B a l l h a s b e e n a p p o i n te d the incoming Chief for C SIRO's A stronomy and Space Sc ience (C A SS) div ision. Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NR AO), M. Alexander (ESO).

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Bushfire at Mopra telescope
B R E T T H I S CO C K (C A SS)

On Sunday evening, 13 Januar y, a bushfire in Warrumbungle Nat ional Park west of Siding Spr ing Obser vator y and C SIRO's Mopra radio telescope suddenly changed direc t ion. The ` Wambelong' fire swept to the east and ran over both sites, and then cont inued eastward where it caused significant damage to proper ty and homes along Timor Road--the access road to Mopra from the nearby town of Coonabarabran. The Sydney Morning Herald repor ted that it was one of the most destruc t ive fires in New South Wales in more than a decade. While an area of 53,000 hec tares was burnt and 53 homes, more than 100 sheds and outbuildings, and stock and w ildlife were lost, thankfully, there was no loss of human life. At Narrabr i, some of the local C A SS staff became aware of the fire and evacuat ion along Timor Road through the NSW Rural Fire Ser v ice and soc ial media connec t ions. We confirmed that nobody was at the Mopra site or expec ted to arr ive there in the nex t lit tle while. A small group then formed, compr ising staff and v isit ing obser vers, in the Narrabr i control room and we began to watch events unfold at Mopra live v ia our communicat ion network: the Mopra web cameras, Mopra antenna protec t ion system (MAPS), and `Monica' monitor ing sof tware.

Looking back at the MAPS informat ion, it was clear that the site had been affec ted by adverse weather throughout the af ternoon: there was a high w ind aler t and air temperatures hovered around 4 0 degrees Celsius between 3 pm and 4 pm. Three separate, br ief power outages followed in the nex t hour; a fur ther power outage and another four w ind aler ts occurred in the follow ing 30 minutes. At approx imately 5.30pm, staff in the Narrabr i control room remotely star ted the Mopra site generator in case the local energy supplier, concerned about fur ther fire r isk from power lines, cut power to the region. Not long af ter, mains power to the Mopra site was cut. By now, the rate at which MAPS w ind aler ts were occurr ing increased. Full logs of data from Mopra were not available, but the max imum w ind speed at that t ime was greater than 55 km/ hr. According to informat ion retr ieved from MAPS, at 5.58pm both antenna w ind vanes issued w ind aler ts and the site fire panel went into its alarm state; this also set off th e M o p r a a u d i b l e a l a r m a t N a r r a b r i . T h e fire alarm, in turn, caused generator power to be removed from all site equipment, even though the generator 's diesel engine remained running at the t ime. Site air temperatures at the weather stat ion recorded a peak around 63 degrees. From this point on, the site uninterrupt ible power supplies cont inued to deliver power to some equipment unt il their bat ter ies ran down. So for a shor t while, items such as network gear, web cameras and site monitor ing equipment remained running, which meant monitor ing informat ion and web images were st ill being sent live to Narrabr i.

A st ill image from Mopra's `sk y ' camera, captured at 5.5 4pm on 13 Januar y, shows bushfire approaching the telescope site.

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ATNF News Apr il 2013


The Mopra int a c t w ith of damage significant building.

antenna remains ve r y l i t t l e ev i d e n ce b ut th e re has b e e n damage to the control

It was ev ident to those watching the web cameras just how incredibly fast the fire was mov ing:

At 5:55 pm the building- mounted web

camera showed that the fire had just star ted to come down the r idge to the west of Mopra. site covered in smoke w ith par ts of the antenna v isible, but the control building was almost inv isible. flames, w ith tree canopies ignited to the east of the control building and glow ing embers blow ing across the site. For the nex t several minutes smoke sw irled around the control building; the staff at Narrabr i were hopeful that the antenna and building had sur v ived. captured its last image before failing; the web camera at the gate failed shor tly af ter wards. image.

At 5.56 pm the cameras showed the

T h e m a i n co n t r o l r o o m o f the control building (at lef t), protec ted by its self- contained concrete struc ture and radio frequenc y inter ference screening around the door and w indows, is largely intac t, however, the accommodat ion, office and liv ing areas have been ruined.

At 5.57 pm the site was surrounded by

At 6.16 pm the building- mounted camera

At 6:2 2 pm the sky camera took its last
The MAPS remote connec t ion between Narrabr i and Mopra, and the live Monica monitor ing, stopped dur ing the above sequence--shor tly af ter power from the generator ceased. While the last web camera images gave the impression that the antenna and building had sur v ived the init ial fire front, the real situat ion wasn't clear. With no fur ther informat ion coming from the site, staff spent an anx ious night wait ing to find out how Mopra had fared. Hav ing seen the feroc ity w ith which the fire had hit Mopra, staff in the Narrabr i control room were concerned for the town of Coonabarabran itself. For tunately, there was a w ind change and the fire changed direc t ion before it reached the town.

Outside the telescope compound, the high - voltage t r a n s f o r m e r t h a t w a s s u p p ly i n g p o w e r t o t h e s i t e w a s burnt to the ground. 5


Assessment of damage
Early the nex t day, Monday 14 Januar y, the Mopra web camera images of the bushfire were being used by telev ision news repor ts. By late morning, staff from the Australian Astronomical Obser vator y had permission to access their site at Siding Spr ing; they did a quick `dr ive by ' Mopra and prov ided a verbal repor t. This was the first indicat ion that Mopra hadn't sur v ived unscathed: the accommodat ion, office and liv ing areas of the control building had been ruined. The repor t also indicated that while the main control room appeared to be intac t, the condit ion inside was not v isible. There remained hope that some equipment had sur v ived as computer network data traffic was making it in and out of the room. On the Monday afternoon, Narrabri staff were prevented from accessing the site as conditions around Coonabarabran worsened. The next day, two staff members were permitted to access the site to inspect the control building. This revealed that nothing inside the equipment room had burnt. The site was then closed because of safety concerns and a site clearance plan put in place. Subsequent site v isits indicated that the antenna and garage had remained intact, w ith very little ev idence of damage. There were signs of very high temperatures around the antenna, including some gearbox oil that has been exhausted onto the cryogenic compressors. The receivers and all equipment inside the antenna looked to be in good condition. There were signs that hot embers had landed on the Gore-Tex cover above the ver tex room. The pedestal room's temperature alarm had gone off, but all equipment looked to be sound. Photogrammetr y has now been per formed on the telescope sur face and sub - reflec tor and, as far as can be measured, there has been no degradat ion as a result of the fire. The control building's control and equipment room appears to have been lucky to have sur v ived, w ith the front door being par tly burnt along w ith par t of the door jam. The fac t that the room was built as a self- contained concrete struc ture, w ith radio -frequency inter ference screening around the door and w indows, seems to be the reason it has sur v ived and is testament to those involved in its design and construc t ion. There was significant damage to other par ts of the building, however: the roof and ceiling had collapsed, and the site's mains power board was destroyed.

Outside the control building, most air condit ioners were destroyed, and the bio - cycle, gut ters and over flow pipes all damaged. Var ious cables in and out of the building were also burnt. The main equipment room air condit ioner was only par tly damaged. It appears that the site generator shut down when the mains board was burnt. There was damage to w ir ing assoc iated w ith the generator 's control in the mains board, fuel tank w ir ing and the fuel hose. Outside the telescope compound, the mains meter box and elec tr ic ity poles were damaged.

Site remediation
The meter board has now been repaired and a temporar y mains board installed at the building so that power is now available all the t ime. The site rubble has been removed and spec ialist contrac tors have filtered and dr ied the air in the control and equipment room. Follow ing this process, the elec tronics in the control room have been cleaned to remove ash residue before it caused fur ther damage. The pedestal room has also been cleaned. The site generator has been ser v iced and a temporar y control commissioned so that it can supply back up power to the site if required. Follow ing cleaning, we have tested and `powered up' the site. Repairs were necessar y to a number of items including an Uninterrupt ible Power Supply and a number of other power supplies, which was a lit tle surpr ising consider ing the items physically looked okay. The L S receiver was removed and transpor ted to Narrabr i as it had been assessed as requir ing significant maintenance as an indirec t result of the fire. The millimetre receiver was repaired in situ and tests were conduc ted firstly w ith the receiver warm to ascer tain that we didn't have significant damage to other systems at Mopra. The millimetre receiver has been successfully cooled. The telescope dr ive systems have been ser v iced, which included changing the gearbox oil, and then the telescope dr iven to point at a strong maser. We are now carr y ing out fault- finding tests o n MO P S . Given this good progress, we hope that obser v ing may be able to star t again in a few weeks' t ime. Updates on the remediat ion of the Mopra site w ill be posted to the `News' sec t ion of the ATNF website, www.atnf.csiro.au.

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ATNF News Apr il 2013


Compact Array centimetre receivers upgraded
M A R K B O W E N (C A SS)
The installat ion of two upgraded 4 ­12 GHz receivers on the Compac t Array in Februar y saw substant ive complet ion of the third and final phase of the Compac t Array cent imetre receiver upgrade projec t, w ith produc t ion 4 - cm receiver systems now installed on all six Compac t Array antennas. The upgrade has breathed new life into the instrument 's 6/ 3- cm receiver systems, which are over 20 years old. As well as now leading the world in bandw idth and sensit iv ity, the receivers w ill ensure the long-term v iability of the array. The 6/ 3- cm receiver upgrade was made possible by a A$1.47 1 million grant from Astronomy Australia Limited (A AL) as par t of the Educat ion Investment Fund (EIF); the grant w ill end in June 2013 when the projec t w ill be offic ially completed. Within hours of the installation of the last two receivers, Minnie Mao (NRAO, USA) made the first image taken with the upgraded Compact Array. The object is a particularly exciting one, being a rare example of a radio galaxy associated with a supermassive black hole embedded within a spiral galaxy. CASS astronomer Shari Breen and her team have also embraced the opportunities afforded by the receivers' extra sensitivity and are currently looking for masers that have never before been observed. The 6/ 3- cm receiver upgrade is the final phase of the Compac t Array cent imetre upgrade and involved replacement of the core components of the receiver systems. The aim of the projec t was to merge the 6- cm and 3- cm bands from the or iginal 4.4 ­ 6.9 GHz and 8.0 ­ 9.2 GHz bands to prov ide cont inuous frequency coverage of approx imately 4 ­12 GHz. The upgrade has delivered a system temperature of less than 20 Kelv in over the frequency range 4.2­10.8 GHz, which const itutes a 2 5% increase in operat ing bandw idth and a 4 0% improvement in the system noise per formance. This upgrade complements the 20/13- cm receiver upgrade, completed in early 2011, which increased the frequency coverage of the 20/13- cm receiver systems from 1.2 5 ­1.8 GHz and 2.2­2.5 GHz bands to approx imately 1.1­3 GHz. Together, these upgrades give the Compac t Array unprecedented access to the cent imetre

radio spec trum from 1.1 GHz to 12 GHz at a sensit iv ity that is improved over that prev iously available by more than a fac tor of two. This high per formance capability w ill enable fundamentally new sc ient ific programs such as follow- up sur veys to fur ther ident if y and understand transients detec ted by C SIRO's Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (A SK AP), as well as explor ing the or igin of magnet ic fields in galaxy disks and ac t ive galac t ic nuclei. The project commenced in 2011, with preliminary work focused on replacing the existing frequency diplexer and low noise amplifiers (LNAs). It became apparent early in the development process that the existing ortho-mode transducers (OMTs) and feed horns would impose significant limitations on the system's performance, however, work on these components was originally outside the scope of the project. Based on the success of the 20/13- cm OMT upgrade and promising results from a preliminary investigation, CASS agreed to proceed with the development of a new 4 ­12 GHz OMT. Laboratory testing of a prototype receiver system incorporating all of these components commenced in October 2011 and was installed on the Compact Array in December 2011. Initial measurements of the system on the Compact Array indicated

This figure was the first image taken w ith the new receivers, a n d w a s o b s e r ve d by M i n n i e M a o w i t h i n h o u r s o f t h e co m p l e t i o n o f the installat ion; it has been signed by m e m b e r s o f t h e ce n t i m e t r e r e ce i ve r u p g r a d e p r oj e c t team. The objec t (0313 -192) is a par t icularly exc it ing one, being a ra re e xa m p l e o f a ra d i o g a l a x y a s s o c i a te d w i t h a s u p e r m a s s i ve black hole embedded w ithin a spiral galax y. In the local Universe nearly all supermassive black h o l e s a r e a s s o c i a te d w i t h e l l i p t i c a l galax ies--galax ies that have e x h a u s te d m o s t o f t h e i r g a s i n star format ion, and are set tling down to a long (and possibly bor ing) middle age. So how come this supermassive black hole is embedded in a v igorous young star- forming galax y? Minnie hopes to find the answer using these obser vat ions, and thereby gain new understanding about how supermassive black holes regulate th e h ost gal ax ies that sur ro un d them.

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the cost and scope of the work required to enable operat ional use of the system at 12.2 5 GHz has been under taken but the work has not yet been funded. The success of the upgrade is testament to the skill and dedicat ion of the team of C A SS engineers and technic ians from the Front End Technologies Group (Alex Dunning, Henr y Kanoniuk, Les Reilly, Yoon Chung and Sant iago Cast illo), machine shop (Michael Bourne, Michael Death, Geoff Cook, Ray Moncay and Paul Cooper) and Narrabr i site staff (Jock McFee, Chr istoph Brem, John Wilson and Bruce Tough).
C SIRO Technical O fficer Sant iago C ast illo w ith o n e of th e up grad e d 4 - cm receiver systems (the vacuum dewar has been removed).

the system temperature was less than 20 Kelvin over the frequency range 4.2­10.8 GHz, significantly exceeding expectations. Original projections were that the planned frequency coverage could be achieved but this would be at the cost of only realising a modest reduction in system temperature. The rollout of fully upgraded receiver systems on the Compac t Array commenced in August 2012. A fur ther two receivers were installed dur ing November 2012, w ith installat ion of the final two receivers dur ing Februar y 2013. Use of the Mopra 6/ 3- cm receiver as an addit ional `spare', w ith the consent of the VLBI community, enabled the receivers to be upgraded in pairs greatly speeding up the process. Work remains to upgrade the spare receiver and incorporate modificat ions to the modules that inter face the receiver systems to the Compac t Array Broadband Backend system (C ABB). Early laborator y test ing of the prototype receiver system showed acceptable per formance beyond 12.2 GHz. This held out potent ial to enable obser vat ion of the methanol (CH3OH) line at 12.2 GHz and gave r ise to a desire to invest igate the feasibility of developing a feed horn capable of ut ilising the frequency coverage of the receiver system. Follow ing their feasibility study, BAE Systems Australia were contrac ted to design and manufac ture two prototype 4 ­12.2 5 GHz feed horns. The first feed horn was delivered in June 2012; af ter deliver y of the second prototype, both 4 ­12.2 5 GHz feed horns were installed on the Compac t Array dur ing September 2012. The C ABB system is only capable of operat ion up to 12.0 GHz and ex tension of the frequency coverage to 12.2 5 GHz was not par t of the or iginal projec t. Consequently, a detailed assessment of
8 ATNF News Apr il 2013

The Compac t Array cent imetre upgrade projec t has already been recognised nat ionally. It received a highly commended award in the research and development categor y of Engineers Australia's Engineer ing Excellence Awards (Sydney Div ision) announced in September 2012 and was a finalist in the manufac tur ing and high tech design categor y of The Australian Innovat ion Challenge 2012 (see page 21 for more informat ion).


ASKAP and SKA news
F L O R N E S CO N WAY-D E R L E Y (C A SS), S A R A H P E A R C E (C A SS), C A R O L E JAC K S O N (C A S S) A N D S T E V E N T I N G AY (I C R A R /C U RT I N)

Follow ing the celebrations of the ASK AP and MRO Opening Ceremony in October 2012, the ASK AP team is now focused on continuing engineer ing and science commissioning activ ities at the Murchison Radio-astronomy Obser vatory (MRO), construction and occupation of the MRO Suppor t Facility in Geraldton, and establishing remote obser v ing in the new Science Operations Centre (SOC) at C ASS headquar ters in Sydney, where the ASK AP team recently achieved remote operation of the ASK AP antennas for the first time. The team has been involved in discussions and ac t iv it ies for SK A pre- construc t ion, both nat ionally and internat ionally. We have also received good news from our collaborators: the iVEC Pawsey Centre supercomputer in Per th is progressing well, and an opening ceremony for the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) projec t was held at the MRO in late 2012.

A S K A P M OV E S I N TO T H E M RO CO N TR O L B U I L D I NG
The MRO Control Building is a unique fac ility that houses power distr ibut ion, networking and communicat ions equipment, telescope control computers, and the complex digital processing, beamforming and correlator equipment to be used by A SK AP and other major instruments under development at the Murchison Radio -astronomy Obser vator y (MRO). Construc t ion ac t iv it ies on the MRO Control Building were completed in mid-2012, and the fac ility was offic ially handed over to the A SK AP team for occupat ion. The building is the control centre of the MRO, and the distr ibut ion hub for power and data cables which connec t the site to the outside world. It is cruc ial for the operat ion of C SIRO's A SK AP radio telescope and two other exper iments currently located at the site: the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) and Exper iment to Detec t the Global Epoch of Reionizat ion Signature (EDGES). Development of the building required unique construc t ion solut ions for challenges assoc iated w ith the remote locat ion and str ingent RFI spec ificat ions that make the MRO one of the best locat ions for radio astronomy.

Even though the A SK AP team h a d r e c e n t ly s u c c e s s w i t h r e m o t e obser v ing tests from Sydney, the te a m i s s t i l l h a r d a t wo r k o n t h e ground at the MRO. Here Bret t Armstrong keeps his cool under a b ea c h u m b r e l l a w h i l e wo r k i n g from an elevated work plat form.

A v i e w o f t h e M u r c h i s o n R a d i o - a s t r o n o my Obser vator y from the air, w ith the MRO Control Building v isible at the bot tom of the photo. 9


antennas already outfitted with Phased Array Feed (PAF) receiver systems. The successful decommissioning of the BETA Box, and the recommissioning of data transpor t links from the digital receivers to the beamformers in the Control Building, now paves the way for commissioning of the nex t A SK AP antennas that w ill make up the second half of the six-antenna Boolardy Engineer ing Test Array (BETA).

V I S I TO R S TO T H E M RO
John Morr is work ing in the p l a n t r o o m o f t h e M RO C o n t r o l Building follow ing handover and occupat ion in late 2012 .

The MRO Control Building arr ived by truck from South Australia Oc tober 2011 in the form of modules--par t ially pre-fabr icated sec t ions ready for assembly on the site. The design of the building reflec ts the ex tremely careful considerat ion given to ensure that the equipment the building houses produces minimal RFI impac t on the MRO's radio - quiet env ironment. During commissioning of the building, the main task was to relocate peripheral devices from the `BETA Box' and other temporary buildings into the Control Building. The BETA Box was a modified 20-foot shipping container housing devices necessary for observatory operation while the Control Building was being built. These devices included beamformers, computing and networking equipment and a correlator for the first ASKAP

C A SS was pleased to host a senior delegat ion from the Chinese Academy of Sc iences (C A S) in Februar y 2013. This group, which included the Vice President, Zhan Wenlong, spent some t ime here the Marsfield headquar ters, before travelling to the Murchison Radio -astronomy Obser vator y (MRO) for a day. C A S members are ver y interested in many aspec ts of sc ience collaborat ion w ith Australia and C SIRO, and on this v isit they were keen to discuss details of the SK A . The MRO has recently welcomed a number of other dist inguished guests, including Arnold van Ardenne and Er w in de Blok, from A STRON (The Netherlands), the Japanese Consul General Ishikawa and Dr Imai, Dav id Loop and Gordon L acy (DR AO), Isak Theron (SK A South Afr ica) and William Garnier (SK A Office).

T h e C A SS an d C A S d e le gat io n v isited the Murchison Radio astronomy Obser vator y in Februar y 2013.

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ATNF News Apr il 2013


N E W S F R O M G ER A L DT O N
C SIRO's office in Geraldton is known as the MRO Suppor t Fac ility (MSF). The staff based at the MSF prov ide cr it ical technical, administrat ive and projec t management suppor t to the development and operat ion of A SK AP and the MRO, 370km away. Construc t ion of the MRO Suppor t Fac ility (MSF) building began in 2012 at the Geraldton University Centre (GUC). Construc t ion works reached `prac t ical complet ion' in Februar y, and the building was offic ially occupied in March. The MSF prov ides remote operat ions ser v ices for A SK AP and other internat ional projec ts currently being construc ted at the MRO site, as well as office and workshop space for administrat ive, technical, maintenance and research staff, many of whom spend significant t ime at the MRO itself. The fac ility has the technical and workshop capability to suppor t some of the maintenance work required on par ts of A SK AP. It also features a dedicated room (the `por tal') for researchers based in Geraldton and its region who have been awarded comput ing t ime on iVEC's Pawsey Centre supercomputers. The installat ion of the high- speed opt ical fibre Internet connec t ion between the MSF and the MRO (370 km) was completed by C SIRO in 2012 as an integral par t of the MRO infrastruc ture development. A link between the MSF and the iVEC Pawsey Centre in Per th has also been installed, as par t of the Nat ional Broadband Network; A ARNet is play ing a key role in prov iding data communicat ions ser v ices from the MRO to the Pawsey Centre.

The address of the MSF is now 33 Onslow Street, Geraldton, WA , 6530; however, the phone numbers remain unchanged. Details are available on the ATNF website (ht tp:// w w w.atnf.csiro.au/fac ilit ies/msf.html).

ASK AP Commissioning
S CI E N CE CO MM I S SI O N I N G S E E S F I R S T M U LT I -PA F I M AG E S
Pr ior to the relocat ion of the BETA Box systems to the MRO Control Building, the sc ience commissioning team were able to demonstrate single- and mult ibeam obser vat ions at the MRO using three phased array feeds and a 16 MHz bandw idth sof tware correlator. The result ing images of 193 4 - 638, created using shor t integrat ions (less than four hours) and three baselines, look just as the team expec ted, and confirm that the preliminar y systems work as expec ted. Follow ing decommissioning of the BETA Box and recommissioning of the systems in the MRO Control Building, the team returned to the MRO in late Januar y 2013 to re-test the system in its new locat ion. Despite some hardware bugs, the team was quickly able to make a long-track image (w ith an integrat ion of 10 hours) using a single PAF beam of the radio source PK S 0 4 07- 658 in a single polar isat ion and a total bandw idth of 16 MHz. The results confirmed not only that the preliminar y systems work as expec ted, but also that the A SK AP PAFs are able to make mult iple beams. Then in Apr il C SIRO's A SK AP team successfully produced the first mult ibeam image ever made using PAFs on an

The new MRO Suppor t Fac ilit y in Geraldton. 11


T h e i n i t i a l i m a g e o f r a d i o s o u r ce PK S 0 4 07- 65 8 using three A SK AP PAFs. To produce this image, the BE TA sof tware correlator wa s u s e d w ith a s i n g l e b ea m , s i n g l e p o l a r iz a t i o n a n d a to t a l ban dw idth of 16 MHz .

R E M O T E O B S E R V I N G A S O CC E SS F O R A SK A P
A remote connec t ion is now in place between the new Marsfield Sc ience Operat ions Centre (SOC) in Sydney and the MRO Control Building in Western Australia (over 3,4 00 km away). As par t of cont inuing commissioning ac t iv it ies, remote obser v ing tests were set up to validate the stability of the A SK AP system using three of the A SK AP antennas at the MRO. Prev iously, the antennas had been controlled remotely from Boolardy Homestead, and par t ially from offices in Marsfield as par t of VLBI, but these tests mark the first t ime the A SK AP antennas have been operated fully from outside the MRO or Boolardy Homestead. Not only do the tests prov ide insight into the remote sc ience operat ions and obser vat ions that w ill take place w ith A SK AP, but the benefits of remote access at this, the commissioning stage, mean increased effic iency as workers need to spend less t ime travelling to the remote deser t env ironment of the MRO. CSIRO Chief Executive Megan Clark had a chance to see the system in action during her visit to the Marsfield site in February, when the team was running remote testing. inter ferometer. The image was created w ith BETA-1 array of three A SK AP antennas, each fit ted w ith a PAF. Three separate beams were created for each PAF and lined up to track an elongated patch of sky over a 12hour obser vat ion. This field was spec ifically chosen to contain strong and well- known ex tragalac t ic sources w ith suitable angular separat ions: (from top lef t) PK S 1610 7 7 1, PK S 1606-7 7 2, PK S 15 49 -790 and PK S 15 47-795. The red contour shows the 50% sensit iv ity region--the envelope of the three overlapping PAF beams. Impor tantly, the sources in this image are too far apar t to be obser ved simultaneously using a single pixel feed on a 12- m dish (the size of a single A SK AP antenna). This is a str iking demonstrat ion of the power of PAF imaging, par t icularly given the ver y limited u- v coverage that three antennas can achieve. The sof tware correlator used in prev ious obser vat ions was again used in these tests. It correlated the data captured for the three beams simultaneously, w ith image processing per formed in A SK APsof t, the sof tware custom- designed for the telescope by the A SK AP Comput ing team. Over the coming months the Systems Commissioning team w ill work w ith the Comput ing and Digital Systems groups at Marsfield, fur ther developing a hardware correlator to be deployed at MRO later this year. The ASKAP commissioning team will initially use one of the larger observing rooms in the SOC, with a `smart board' linked to a similar unit at the MRO site to ensure there is a single source of current information available to engineers and commissioning teams.

The first mult i - beam image ever made using PAFs on an inter ferometer, created w ith A SK AP 's BE TA-1 array. (See tex t for details.

Init ial fr inges were successfully obtained dur ing early remote test ing, and mark a significant step for ward in the commissioning process.

Max Voronkov, Lisa Har vey-Smith and John Reynolds, conduc t ing successful remote control of the A SK AP antennas from the Marsfield headquar ters. The SOC w ill be an invaluable plat form as remote BE TA commissioning begins to ramp up in earnest.

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ATNF News Apr il 2013


SK A activities
S K A P R E- CO N S T R U C T I O N U P DAT E AND P L ANNI N G W O R K
C AR O L E J A C K S O N AN D S AR AH P E AR C E Over the last six months, follow ing on from the complet ion of the EU framework 7 programme `Prepar ing for SK A' (PrepSK A), the format ion of the new SK A Organisat ion and the SK A site selec t ion dec ision, there has been much progress in realising the SK A projec t and mov ing towards the formal `ready to build' work. As a result, C A SS staff have been working w ith the Internat ional SK A Projec t Office (now called the Office of the SK A Organisat ion (SK AO)) and many of the SK A Member inst itutes. Mainly this effor t has been around the key issues of:

(reusing same components and designs) and only diverging where just ified. This w ill allow max imum flex ibility when d e s i g n i n g a n d b u i l d i n g SK A 2 . The SK A Pre- Construc t ion Phase w ill run from ~mid-2013 through to ~mid-2016 and be executed by a number (of order 12) work package Consor t ia that w ill deliver the Cr it ical Design Rev iews in 2016. The CDR w ill be followed by ~ 1 year 's fur ther work to take the outputs from pre- construc t ion and prepare tender spec ificat ions, etc., to be ready to let contrac ts for construc t ion of SK A1 in 2017. The CDR requires that the SK A elements for SK A1 be delivered to Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 8. The Consor t ia for each of the components are now planning to respond to the SK AO's Request for Proposals (for work plans, etc.) for the SK A preconstruc t ion phase.

SK A pre- construction management

planning, systems engineer ing, sc ience requirements analysis (set t ing the SK A spec ificat ion) and Concept of Operat ions. pre- construc t ion work package Consor t ia (as detailed below).

C S I R O PA R T I C I PAT I O N I N S K A W O R K PACK AGE CO N S O R T IA
With the SKA entering a formal `preconstruction' phase to progress the SKA design and validation processes, CASS has defined a strategy to participate in seven (7) of SKA pre- construction work package consortia. SKA pre- construction will be managed and directed by the Engineering and Management team based at the SKA Office (SKAO), Jodrell Bank, UK. The SKAO has design authority for the SKA and receives direct funds from the member countries to pay for its personnel and associated activity. C A SS's pr imar y goal is to lead the Dishes consor t ium, w ith significant effor ts to realise the PAF suite of feeds on SK A1_ sur vey w ith a number of internat ional SK A par tners. The Dishes work package includes the development of phased array feeds (PAFs)--a key C SIRO plat form technology, where A SK AP and ADE are cr it ical building blocks for this fur ther work. In addit ion, C A SS intends to par t ic ipate in these other major SK A pre- construc t ion work package Consor t ia:

Progressing planning for a number of SK A Ongoing suppor t by Phil Crosby for global
industr y engagement mat ters including IP policy preparat ion, procurement strategies for the disperse projec t, projec t cost ing approaches and industr ial liaison.

Douglas Bock is leading the new SK A Operat ions Working Group. The group is currently produc ing a draf t of the SK A Concept of Operat ions (ConOps). The ConOps complements the Design Reference Mission and the Baseline Design by descr ibing how, from an organisat ional perspec t ive, the SK A is to be operated. A set of pr inc iples for the Concept of Operat ions w ill be put to the SK A Board shor tly. As at March 2013, the SK A projec t is now at the stage to finalise and ver if y the design (technologies) for the SK A1 and do detailed planning ready for implementat ion (build) of SK A1. SK A1 w ill be built across two sites. It consists of: 1. An array of 60 SK A- design dishes, equipped w ith Phased Array Feeds (PAFs) (`SK A1_sur vey '), and a large low-frequency array (`SK A1_low '), both to be located on Boolardy. SK A1_sur vey w ill integrate w ith A SK AP. 2. An array of 190 SK A- design dishes, equipped w ith single pixel feeds (`SK A1_ mid'). The dishes w ill be capable of being retrofit ted w ith WBSPFs and/or PAFs in the future. SK A1_mid w ill be located at the Karoo SK A site in South Afr ica and integrated w ith MeerK AT. The two SK A dish arrays w ill have different but complementar y sc ience capabilit ies. Fur thermore, the star t ing concept is to make the two arrays as similar as possible

The Science Data Processor (computing)

work package: CSIRO w ill be a significant par tner in this, building on the substantial exper tise developed for ASK AP. aims to be a small but influential par tner in each to guide SK A implementation-- par ticularly as we are the manager/ operator of the MRO.

The Power and Site work packages: CSIRO

Three other consortia--the Central signal

processor (digital systems), Signals & Data transpor t, and the Synchronisation & Timing work packages--where CSIRO w ill be a minor par tner in each. where C SIRO w ill be an exper t rev iewer.

The Telescope Monitor ing work package,

13


`Documents' menu: http://www.skatelescope. org/publications/. This is an impor tant benchmark for assessing some of the challenges of adopting single pixel (horn) feeds (SPFs) for SK A.

Collaborator projects
SK A pre - construction Dishes br iefing was held in Januar y, w ith interest from those who had responded to the DIICCSRTE Expressions of Interest in late 2012.

AU S T R AL I AN PAR T IC I PAT IO N AND CO -F UN D IN G F R O M D II CC S R T E
During the SKAO RfP (request for proposal) process during March­June 2013, the Department of Industry, Innovation, Climate Change, Science, Research and Tertiary Education (DIICCSRTE) will run its own process to allocate the $18.8m SKA preconstruction funds to Australian entities participating in the consortia bids. This process builds on the open EOI run by DIICCSRTE in November 2012 to seek interest from all potential industry partners. CSIRO and other Australian institutes have since been in contact with many of the commercial respondents to identify key areas of expertise and best fit within the consortium. CSIRO convened a SKA pre- construction Dishes briefing on 18 January 2013. Invitations were sent to approximately 30 companies who had responded to the Australian and NZ EOI calls (including associated tasks, for example systems engineering, project management), along with a few larger multinationals and representatives of DIICCSRTE; the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment; ASKAIC; and the WA Department of Commerce. Almost all inv itees attended the br iefing w ith many par ticipants being on the line from New Zealand: a follow- up w ill be made of those who remain able to par ticipate, understanding that co-investment is necessary to gain DIICCSRTE funding. More informat ion on DIICC SRTE's processes can be found on the Depar tment 's website: http://www.ska.gov.au/industr y/Pages/ ExpressionsofInterest.aspx

M WA L A U N C H E D A N D O P E N F O R P RO P O S A L S
STE VE N TI NG AY The Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) was formally launched at ceremonies at the Murchison Radio -astronomy Obser vator y (MRO) and in Geraldton on November 30, 2012. The launch was per formed by Minister Gar y Gray, Australian Government Spec ial Minister of State; Minister John Day, Western Australian Government Minister for Sc ience and Innovat ion; and Prof. Jeanet te Hacket, Vice- Chancellor of Cur t in University. The MWA is now being readied for the star t of its operat ional phase in July 2013. In December 2012, an Announcement of Oppor tunity was released (http://www. mwatelescope.org) to the community that sets out the steps toward first operat ions. Step one was a call for Expressions of Interest (EoI) in MWA sc ience programs, conduc ted dur ing Januar y 2013. EoIs were received from 2 3 teams consist ing of several hundred invest igators in total, expressing strong interest in all four of the MWA sc ience themes (and revealing some new areas of sc ience interest). Af ter the EoI stage closed, a face-to -face br iefing and pre- operat ions workshop was held at Cur t in University on 2 5 - 26 Februar y, 2013, at tended by 55 representat ives of the EoI teams and other potent ial users. The MWA management team prov ided br iefings and adv ice regarding the final expec ted instrument capabilit ies. Follow ing the br iefing workshop, the first MWA Call for Proposals was released in early March (ht tp://w w w.mwatelescope. org). The proposal submission per iod w ill run unt il the end of Apr il, then MWA Time Allocat ion Commit tee w ill convene in May to rank the proposals and prov ide a recommendat ion to the MWA Direc tor on the allocat ion of obser v ing t ime for the per iod July 2013 - December 2013. Obser v ing schedules w ill be prepared for this per iod in June and full sc ience operat ions w ill commence in July. At the upcoming annual meet ing of the Astronomical Soc iety of Australia, the MWA w ill feature in a spec ial session, t itled "A New Era in Australian Radio Astronomy: MWA , A SK AP and SK A". This w ill be an excellent oppor tunity to update the Australian community on the status of the MWA at the star t of its operat ional phase, and showcase some early sc ience results.

D I S H E S W O R K PA C K A G E / CO N S O R T I U M B UIL D IN G
A major SKA pre-construction Dish Consortium (SKADC) discussion was held at Marsfield during 11 ­ 14 February. Participants included staff of CASS and the CSIRO ICT Centre with major roles in the Dishes work, and their counterparts from Canada, South Africa, China, Sweden, Germany, Italy and the UK. These discussions set the framework and planning for the RfP response. The BAE Systems single pixel feed (SPF) study, commissioned by C A SS, was released as SK A memo 14 6, `Oc tave Bandw idth Single P ixel Feed Study for the Square Kilometre Array '. The memo can be seen publicly (i.e., on the public access par t of the SK A web site, not the internal w iki) at the follow ing link by selec t ing `Memo Ser ies' from the
14 ATNF News Apr il 2013


New look for ATNF website
G A B BY R USS E L L (C A SS)
In Januar y the AT NF webs ite was g iven a f acelif t . T he `new lo ok ' s ite has a f resh new app ear ance and features to make i t e a s i e r to u s e: a m o r e c o m p r e h e n s i v e nav igat ional menu, qu ick link s to our mos t p opul ar pages , and our handy s earch f ac ilit y that now app ear s on mos t pages . T he appearance of some pages, however, hasn't yet changed. T hese pages include the `Outreach' sec t ion (ht tp://outreach.atnf. csiro.au), which w ill be updated in the near future. We'll al so be updat ing site content over coming months. We understand that the ATNF website is an impor tant resource for our telescope users, the astronomy community and teachers, so we've been working to ensure the transit ion has minimal impac t on site v isitors. The changes have been made in consultat ion w ith website users and staff. We're sure you'll enjoy the site's new appearance and improved navigation features. If you would like to provide feedback on the website changes, please use our online form at www.atnf.csiro.au/feedback. Visit the website at www.atnf.csiro.au.

Astronomy blog launched
T O N Y C R AW S H AW (C A SS)
CSIRO has launched a new blog, `Universe@CSIRO', dedicated to astronomy, space science, space tracking and the Universe in general. Written for general readers with an interest in astronomy and space, stories feature our research, facilities and people -- including research conducted with the ATNF-- as well as other national and international astronomy and space news. ` Wormhole Wednesday', which treats readers to astronomy and space tidbits, is a regular weekly feature. Take a look at Universe@CSIRO by visiting http://csirouniverseblog.com. We hope you'll find it interesting, enter taining and informative. To receive aler ts each time a new post is added, use the site's prompts to ` follow' Universe@CSIRO.

15


Memorial to Grote Reber unveiled at Parkes
DAV I D JAU N C E Y, C H R I S H O L L I N G D R A K E A N D B E V E R L E Y W I L S O N (C A SS)
G r o te Re b e r a t wo r k i n 1 9 7 5 . Credit: NR AO/AUI.

A memor ial dedicated to Grote Reber-- known by some as the `father of radio astronomy '--was unveiled at the Parkes Obser vator y Visitors Centre on 20 December 2012, the tenth anniversar y of his death. The memor ial houses a por t ion of Grote's ashes, which were presented to Parkes Obser vator y by the Reber Foundat ion in 2005. Grote Reber was born in Chicago on 2 2 December 1911 and died in Tasmania on 20 December 2002. He studied radio

The new Grote Reber monument at Parkes Obser vator y.

engineer ing, was a ham radio operator and possessed a keen and enquir ing mind. When Grote learnt of Karl Jansky 's 1932 discover y of radio waves coming from the Milky Way, he wanted to learn more. So he built himself a 31.4 -foot (9.6- m) diameter parabolic dish radio telescope in his mother 's backyard in Wheaton, Illinois. Working at night to avoid automobile inter ference, Grote painstakingly mapped the radio sky at 160 MHz. His map of the Milky Way revealed the Galac t ic Centre in the south as well as the strong sources in Cygnus and Cassiopeia, and a new branch of astronomy--radio astronomy--was born. The proceedings at Parkes began w ith a simple and respec t ful interr ing of the ashes. Dur ing the morning tea that followed, staff were enter tained w ith a presentat ion on the invent ion and innovat ion that were central to Grote's amazing life. We were delighted to discover that Grote had built the first Square Kilometre Array, operat ing at 2 MHz, in a paddock in Tasmania! Ahead of the cur ve, recognising fossil fuels are finite, he also built and drove his own elec tr ic car. Along w ith Parkes, Grote's ashes were distr ibuted to 14 other major radio obser vator ies around the world. Grote Reber now has a permanent place at Parkes Obser vator y near the iconic `Dish', itself a result of his quest for knowledge and hands- on abilit ies. Come and take a look at the memor ial on your nex t v isit to Parkes.

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ATNF News Apr il 2013


Vale R X McGee (1921­2012)
H E L E N S I M (C A SS)

"For thr ight, fr iendly, ver y clever and ex tremely loud." That was how Richard Xav ier (Dick) McGee struck his fr iend and colleague, John Brooks, when they first met in 1965. And, says Brooks, "nothing has happened [since] that has caused me to change my mind". Dick McGee died on 19 December, aged 90. He was born in Marr ickv ille, Sydney, on 31 December 1921, to Henr y Xav ier McGee and his w ife Johanna (nÈe O'Keeffe), the eldest of six children. Dick attended the Christian Brothers school in Lewisham (Sydney) and completed the Leaving Certificate in 1938. He then worked as a clerk in the Customs Department until mid-1941, when he was called up for military service. Posted to Darwin, he served in the 2nd Australian Imperial Force as a driver. During the first Japanese bombing of Darwin in February 1942, he narrowly missed being killed: while he was driving a truck back from unloading a ship at the docks, a plane came over and dropped bombs either side of the vehicle. Dick jumped out and took shelter in a ditch. He had wanted to join the Royal Australian Air Force, and finally received permission to do so in 1943. He was sent to Canada to train as a nav igator at the Air Nav igator School at Edmonton, Alber ta, and finally landed at Liverpool, UK, in July 194 4. He became a nav igator in L ancaster bombers (Bomber Command 5 Group), w ith the rank of P ilot Officer. His war record is full of praise from his commanding officers. At the war's end Dick returned to Australia, and he was demobilised in April 1946. He returned to his old job in Customs for the rest of the year. Then his life took a different turn. In 1947 he was awarded a Commonwealth Reconstruc t ion Training Scheme scholarship to at tend the University of Sydney. He graduated in 1950 w ith First Class Honours in Physics and joined the C SIRO Radiophysics L aborator y (which later became the Div ision of Radiophysics, the organisat ional `ancestor ' of C A SS). These were the pioneer ing days of radio astronomy. Dick's first research at CSIRO was w ith the famous `hole-in-the- ground'

telescope at Dover Heights, a 72-foot (24- metre) parabolic reflector that a few `young Turks' at Radiophysics had built, unofficially, in their lunchtime, by digging a hole out of the sandy cliff top and lining it w ith steel str ips from packing cases. In the finest tradition of radio astronomy, the instrument was soon upgraded--extended to 80 feet, lined w ith concrete, and the metal str ips replaced w ith higher-tech chicken w ire. With this instrument, John Bolton and Dick McGee made a sur vey of the sky between Declinations of -17 and - 49 degrees. The beam size was two degrees, but that was good enough to show that the radio source Sagittar ius A, prev iously seen only as an extended source, was in fact an intense point source. These obser vations led to a Nature paper (McGee and Bolton, Nature vol 17 3, 985 (195 4)) in which the authors suggested that Sagittar ius A was the Galactic Centre. (In 1958 the IAU in effect agreed, redefining the Galactic coordinate system on the basis of radio obser vations of neutral hydrogen. Sagittar ius A*, a subcomponent of Sagittar ius A, is the best physical marker of the Galactic Centre, being offset about 0.07 degrees from the defined centre.) Dick went on to map the HI in both the Galaxy and the Magellanic Clouds w ith his colleagues James Hindman and Frank Kerr, using a 21-foot (7- metre) radio telescope at the Murraybank field stat ion in West Pennant Hills, nor thwest of Sydney. From 1955 they began to carr y out a hydrogenline sur vey of the whole sky. This produced such a glut of data that ... it was clearly impossible to reduce it `by hand', and McGee asked Maston Beard, the design engineer of the CSIRAC MKI [computer], to devise a means of recording the data digitally. Beard's successful equipment was produced in time for a trial survey of the Magellanic Clouds in 1961, leading to the exciting discovery of a `bridge' of neutral hydrogen between the two clouds. This was the first use at Radiophysics of computing techniques to reduce astronomical data.1

D ick in 198 3.

1 R ay m o n d H ay n e s , Ro s l y n n H ay n e s , D a v i d M a l i n and Richard McGee, Explorers of the Southern Sky (CUP 1996), p. 2 32

Radiophysics' upgraded, 80 foot `hole -in-the - ground' radio telescope at Dover Heights, Sydney. In this photograph, taken in 1953, Gordon Stanley is adjusting the p o s it i o n o f th e a e r ia l m a s t . 17


From 1961, Dick and his colleagues used Radiophysics' new Parkes telescope to cont inue this work, at higher resolut ion. Dick and Janice Milton were able to show that regions of ionised hydrogen and supergiant stars--star-forming regions--sat at the centres of large clouds of neutral hydrogen. They also found that, while the L arge Magellanic Cloud appears irregular when v iewed at opt ical wavelengths, its neutral hydrogen exhibits a spiral struc ture. In the early 1970s Dick and others made another cont inuum sur vey of the Magellanic Clouds at several wavelengths. He was also involved in some of the earliest measurements of molecules in space, star t ing w ith invest igat ions of the OH molecule near the Galac t ic Centre in the 1960s. Dick was a member of the Internat ional Astronomical Union's Div ision H (Commission 3 4), which is concerned w ith the study of the interstellar medium. Over his career Dick published about 80 papers in refereed journals. He was awarded a DSc by the University of Sydney in 1967. Dick's contr ibution to the running of Radiophysics went far beyond just doing good science, however. Although a member of management, "Dick was a great suppor ter of the underdog," says John Brooks. Another long-term Radiophysics staff member, Phil Sharp, remembers Dick's role in the Radiophysics cr icket team. " You could always hear Dick encouraging the batsman to run," says Sharp. "He always encouraged people to do their very best. He always had confidence in people even if they didn't have confidence in themselves." Malcolm Sinclair, who later headed up the Radiophysics receiver group, remembers Dick as "a real mentor, a real father-figure". He was very kind, says Sinclair, "but also a prodder, always on my back about me keeping up w ith my studies [in electr ical engineer ing]". Dick "set the tone for an egalitar ian workplace," Brooks recalls. "Dur ing our

... successes, Dick would always push his fellow workers to the fore. Whenever we failed, ...[he would] take whatever `br ickbats' came our way. Mind you, he never took any flak w ithout responding." Mal Sinclair remembers how inclusive Dick was: when they worked together at Murraybank, Dick would have him come along to the lab's sc ient ific colloquia, even though at that t ime he was "a young kid just out of the workshops". Best of all, says Brooks, "Dick always took the rot ten shif ts when on an obser v ing team and ... made sure his shif t mates didn't take all the chocolate biscuits ... so there were some lef t for the nex t shif t." "A master of the English language" according to Brooks, Dick was in charge of the editor ial process at Radiophysics. "[A] ll of us who had to go through the process of hav ing Dick and his crew ... rev iew our horr ible attempts at wr iting papers were grateful for his input." He also oversaw the Radiophysics photographers. Dick was editor of the journal of the Astronomical Society of Australia (ASA) from 197 1 to 1988: he had also been a founding member of the Society and had ser ved as its Secretary in 1961. He was made an Honorary Fellow of the ASA in 1990. In the 1990s Dick coauthored books on the histor y of Australian astronomy: first Explorers of the Southern Sky: A Histor y of Australian Astronomy (1996) w ith Raymond Haynes, Roslynn Haynes and Dav id Malin, and then Under the Radar: The First Woman in Radio Astronomy, Ruby Payne-Scott (2009) w ith Miller Goss. Dick marr ied his first w ife, Mar ie Elizabeth Givney, in 1950; they had three children-- Elizabeth, John and Mark. When his sons star ted play ing Rugby Union, Dick became ver y involved in the spor t, taking up first coaching and then refereeing junior Rugby, which he cont inued to do well into his late 70s. He was Registrar of the Eastwood Rugby Union Referees Assoc iat ion for many years and was made a life member of Eastwood Junior Rugby Union and Eastwood Rugby Union Referees Assoc iat ion. Dick was also a great fan of (English) soccer, had been acknowledged as the best leg- spinner on the Radiophysics' cr icket team, and sur fed. Dick ret ired from C SIRO in 1986. In 1988 he marr ied his second w ife, Lynet te (Lyn) New ton, who had also worked at Radiophysics. They had three children-- Kather ine, Tr istan and Toby. Those who knew Dick w ill always remember him as a mentor and suppor ter. " Whenever a promot ion came my way it was always Dick first through the door w ith his sincere congratulat ions," says John Brooks. "He was a wonder ful, warm fr iend and colleague, and those of us who had the honour of working w ith him w ill never forget him."

D ick (at lef t) and John Murray analysing data at the Murraybank field stat ion.

(From lef t) John Murray, D ick M c G e e a n d M a l Si n c l a i r a t t h e launch of Under the Radar, Great Hall , Universit y of Sydney, 2 5 November 2009. Credit: Jim Rober ts.

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ALMA first results: punching through a brick wall
J I L L R AT H B O R N E (C A SS)
The Atacama L arge Millimetre/submillimeter Array (ALMA) is now offic ially open for business. Its inaugurat ion, held on 13 March, marked an impor tant transit ion for this groundbreaking projec t, from the construc t ion phase to a fully fledged obser vator y. Representat ives from the global sc ient ific community, current and former ALMA personnel, as well as the members of local communit ies, all joined together to toast to its success. In December the global scientific community met in southern Chile to showcase and discuss the first results from ALMA's `early science' phase. While only utilising a limited number of antennas and a fraction of its full capabilities, the images provided by ALMA are already changing our view of the cool, dusty Universe. Results presented at this meeting were eagerly anticipated and the excitement surrounding ALMA's full potential was high. The team I lead presented results at this meet ing, hav ing been one of the for tunate few teams to have accessed ALMA in its early sc ience phase. Our obser vat ions obtained a large mosaic of the 3- mm line and cont inuum emission across a ver y cold, dense molecular cloud that sits close to the centre of our Galaxy. This ex treme cloud, dubbed ` The Br ick' because it is so cold and dense that it blocks background light, was ident ified as unique dur ing the HOPS and MALT90 sur veys of the Galac t ic plane taken w ith C SIRO's Mopra telescope. The Brick has caught our attention as it may be a precursor to a very massive star cluster. While extreme star clusters exist in our Galaxy, very little is known about their formation. By looking into the cold interiors of clouds like The Brick with unprecedented detail, ALMA has the potential to reveal how the most massive stars and clusters in our Galaxy are formed. Where previous telescopes saw these stellar nurseries as big, amorphous blobs, ALMA has the ability to resolve and measure the individual stellar embryos. By counting how many stellar embryos there are within clouds like The Brick, measuring their masses, and determining how they are moving with respect to one another we can begin to test theories that describe how the most massive star clusters are formed.

The ALMA images of The Br ick are spec tacular and reveal a complicated web of gas and dust, in both emission and absorpt ion. We are seeing, for the first t ime, the details of how massive clouds of gas and dust collapse. ALMA has `snapped into focus' the small pockets of gas and dust that w ill eventually form the stars: we have found more than 50 of these stellar embr yos w ithin The Br ick, each w ith masses close to 1,000 solar masses. The ALMA images contain so much informat ion that it 's likely we'll be analysing these data for years to come. To kick things off, our 13- member team w ill be meet ing at C A SS headquar ters in Apr il for a `busy week' to work on these exc it ing new data. While it 's already produc ing gamechanging results, ALMA is just warming up. Stay tuned for some ver y exc it ing results that are guaranteed to revolut ionise our understanding of the cool Universe.

ALMA's v iew of the dust w ithin the cold inter ior of ` The Br ick ', an immense dense molecular c l o u d t h a t m ay b e f o r m i n g a m a s s i ve c l u s te r o f s t a r s . T h i s 3 - m m co n t i n u u m i m a g e cove r s 1 . 5 x 3 arcmins and improves remarkably o u r a b i l i t y t o r e s o lv e a n d m e a s u r e the indiv idual stellar embr yos w ithin this unique cloud. Obtained w ith only a frac t ion of ALMA's full c a p a b ilit i e s a n d t a k i n g a m e re s ix h o u r s o f t i m e, this b reatht a k i n g i ma g e is al rea d y cha n g i n g o u r understanding of how immense c l o u d s o f d u s t a n d g a s co l l a p s e to form star clusters.

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Astroinformatics Summer School 2013
M A LT E M A R Q UA R D I N G (C A SS)
C A SS has continued its ongoing suppor t of the Astronomical Soc iety of Australia's Astroinformatics Summer School, which was hosted by the University of Queensland in Februar y. The biennial workshop prov ides three days of training in information technology (IT) for graduate students and postdoc toral fellows, giv ing par tic ipants skills that are now essential to per forming cutting- edge astronomy research. A w ide range of IT topics relevant to astronomy research were covered star ting w ith Unix and programming skills in Py thon--including a presentation by C A SS Bolton Fellow Eli Bresser t--and then progressing to more advanced techniques such as database access and version control. Most of these tutor ials were `hands on' and came w ith notes and exerc ises that are publicly available v ia the workshop webpage at www.smp.uq.edu.au/ anitaworkshop2013/?page_id=30. C A SS astronomer Naomi McClure - Gr iffiths closed the school w ith a great presentation on apply ing programming skills to the whole sequence of research star ting w ith proposal planning and mov ing all the way to publishing data. Malte Marquarding, a member of the ATNF Operations Sof tware and Computing team, was chair of the Sc ientific Organising Committee. Feedback on the workshop was extremely positive, w ith all 55 par tic ipants say ing they would recommend it to others. "Fantastic. Course mater ial was pitched at the per fec t level, w ith something for ever ybody to take home," said one student of the workshop. We are looking for ward to contr ibuting to the next event in two years' time.

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Awards and appointments
G A B BY R USS E L L (C A SS)

Two DECRAs equal a `win' for maser research
Two of the five Australian Research Counc il's Discover y Early Career Researcher Award (DECR A) fellowships in astronomical and space sc iences announced in November went to C SIRO astronomers Shar i Breen and Jimi Green. Shar i's projec t w ill focus on trac ing the evolut ion of high- mass stars by combining maser evolut ionar y t imelines w ith chemical clocks, while Jimi's projec t w ill see him study ing the magnet ic and dynamic proper t ies of the Milky Way through masers and assoc iated obser vat ions. DECR As aim to suppor t and advance promising early career researchers. They are three-year awards, which include up to A$ 4 0,000 per year in projec t funds. For more informat ion on DECR As v isit www.arc. gov.au/ncgp/decra.htm.

Telescope upgrade recognised
The Compac t Array cent imetre receiver upgrade projec t managed by C SIRO's Mark Bowen received a highly commended award in the research and development categor y of Engineers Australia's Engineer ing Excellence Awards (Sydney Div ision), announced in September. Mark led a team of engineers that designed new receivers for the 2 5 -year- old telescope. The upgrade enabled the full capability of the Compac t Array Broadband Backend upgrade at cent imetre wavelengths to be used, doubling the telescope's sensit iv ity and keeping the fac ility at the forefront of internat ional radio astronomy research. The projec t was also a finalist in the manufac tur ing and high tech design categor y of The Australian Innovat ion Challenge 2012, announced in December. See page 7 for more informat ion on the Compac t Array cent imetre receiver upgrade projec t.

(From lef t) Mark Bowen, Alex Dunning and Henr y Kanoniuk collec ted the Compac t Array cent imetre receiver upgrade projec t 's highly commended award in the research and development categor y at the Engineers Australia's Engineer ing Excellence Awards (Sydney D iv ision).

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New postdoctoral staff
G A B BY R USS E L L A N D S I M O N J O H N S T O N (C A SS)
Since the Oc tober 2012 edit ion of ATNF News was published, C A SS has welcomed another two postdoc toral staff, Eli Bresser t and Kate Chow. We asked Eli and Kate to tell us, in their own words, about their research interests. Please join us in welcoming Eli and Kate.

EL I B R E S S ER T
Bolton Fellow PhD: University of Exeter, UK, 2012

K AT E C H O W
OCE Postdoctoral Fellow PhD: University of Sydney, 2012

"My PhD focused on the initial spatial distribution of stars in star-forming environments. The environments ranged from low- mass star-forming systems, like Taurus, to some of the most massive complexes in the nearby galaxies like 30 Doradus. While I'm at CASS, I will research how stellar clusters form. This will entail a detailed study on understanding how star-forming molecular clouds foster stellar cluster formation. To study the progenitors of stellar clusters, long wavelength observations from submillimetre to radio are needed. With the expertise of scientists at CASS on gas and submillimetre/ radio observations along with the suite of telescopes available at CSIRO, I will be able to achieve my research objectives. Additionally, I hope to learn more about atomic gas, the precursor stage to molecular clouds."

"My research interests include deep radio sur veys, such as the Australia Telescope Large Area Sur vey (ATL AS) and the Evolutionary Map of the Universe (EMU) projects, and the evolution of radio galaxies, par ticularly gigaher tz peaked spectrum (GPS) and compact steep spectrum (CSS) sources. My PhD was focused on explor ing the proper ties and evolution of CSS and GPS sources and the radio spectral index proper ties of sources in ATL AS. While at CASS, I w ill continue to work on projects w ithin ATL AS and EMU and, in par ticular, I hope to determine the best way to distinguish between active galactic nuclei and star- forming galaxies in ATL AS, and how to measure the active galactic nuclei contr ibution to these galaxies." Russell Jurek has recently completed his postdoc toral term; we w ish him success in his new role.

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Graduate student program
G EO R G E H O B B S (C A SS)
In Januar y George Hobbs took over coordinat ion of the C A SS student program; our thanks go to BÄrbel Kor ibalski for running the program for the past seven years. As par t of the change in coordinat ion, a new set of web pages descr ibing the student program have been developed. These pages prov ide instruc t ions on how to join the program, and the benefits and requirements for students and their super v isors. We would like to offic ially welcome the follow ing students into the program:

Dane Kleiner (Monash University) ­ The
large scale structure's effect on the HI content of galaxies

Nipanjana Patra (Raman Research Institute,
India) ­ Measurement of spectral features in the cosmic radio background, and Technology) ­ Study of the interstellar medium through radio phenomena of shor t duration.

Emily Petroff (Sw inburne University of

Congratulat ions on the award of their PhD and best w ishes for their future career goes to the follow ing students:

Xingjiang Zhu (University of Western

Australia) ­ Searching for continuous grav itational waves in the Parkes pulsar timing array data sets South Wales) ­ The relationship between starbursts and black holes in galaxies ­ Making the first multibeam images w ith an ASK AP PAF

Meng Yu (Peking University, China) ­

Claire- Elise Green (University of New

Pulsar X- ray thermal emission in solid quark star model and glitches in southern radio pulsars Technology) ­ The highest precision pulsar timing, and imaging of the radio sky in total intensity and linear polar isation.

Stefan Oslowksi (Sw inburne University of Chr is Hales (University of Sydney) ­ Deep
To all students, well done! If you are interested in joining the program, or w ish to learn more, v isit www.atnf.csiro.au/ research/student or contac t George Hobbs.

Meng Yu

Sarah Hegar ty (University of Queensland) Jane Kaczmarek (University of Sydney) ­

Investigating the role of magnetic fields in galaxy and structure evolution

Scientific visitors
N AO M I M CC L U R E- G R I F F I T H S (C A SS)
We've recently made some changes to the successful dist inguished v isitors program, to cont inue to meet the needs of v isitors to the C A SS Astrophysics Group. These changes have included renaming the program and reduc ing the minimum v isit length to two weeks. Researchers at all levels are welcome to apply to the program, which w ill cont inue to prov ide financ ial and logist ical suppor t to fac ilitate working v isits. Financ ial suppor t for v isits typically covers the cost of on- site accommodat ion at C A SS headquar ters in Marsfield or its equivalent (approx imately A$500 per week). Visits funded through the program should be for at least two weeks and could last for up to one year. Visitors may be located at any of the ATNF sites and are expec ted to deliver at least one colloquium or seminar dur ing their stay at the C A SS. We also encourage ex tended v isits of six or twelve months. For these longer v isits there is the possibility to seek addit ional funds through C SIRO. Please contac t the Chair of the Visitors Commit tee, Naomi McClureGr iffiths, for more informat ion. Potential visitors should make contact with a local member of staff or the Chair of the Visitors Committee to develop a proposal. Proposals to the program should include a brief description of a collaborative project to be conducted during the visit, an estimate of the dates of the visit and support required, a current CV and a list of publications. Proposals are reviewed quarterly (in February, May, August and November). For more informat ion on the sc ient ific v isitors program v isit www.atnf.csiro.au/ people/scientific_v isitors.html.
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MAGMO: Mapping the Galactic magnetic field through OH masers
J I M I G R E E N (C A SS), JA M E S C A S W E L L (C A SS), N AO M I M CC L U R E- G R I F F I T H S (C A S S), T I M R O B I S HAW (NR C-HI A ), L I S A HA R V E Y-S MI T H (C A S S), A ND S U I ANN M AO (U N IV E R S I T Y OF W IS CONS I N -M A DIS ON)
1.8 1.6

Flux Density (Jy)

1.4 1.2 1 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 0 -0.2

291.610-0.529 1667-MHz

RHCP LHCP

10

LSR Velocity (km/s)

15

20

25

F I G U R E 1: An e xample Zeeman split t ing sp ec tr um show ing the r ight- hand c ircul arly p ol ar ised (solid blue line) and lef t- hand c ircul arly p ol ar ised (red dashed line) maser features seen to w a r d s t h e h i g h - m a s s s t a r format ion source G 2 9 1.610 - 0.5 2 9 (Green et al. 20 12).

We have recently completed the obser vat ions of a projec t to examine largescale magnet ic fields through the polar ised proper t ies of hydroxyl (OH) masers. This projec t--t itled `MAGMO'--ut ilised the Australia Telescope Compac t Array, w ith its Compac t Array Broadband Backend (C ABB), to obtain full polar isat ion obser vat ions of four transit ions of OH masers towards sites of 6.7 GHz methanol maser emission (from the highly successful Parkes Methanol Mult ibeam Sur vey). Masers of the OH molecule are ideal magnet ic field tracers: they have a large Zeeman split t ing fac tor combined w ith typically ver y narrow spec tral line emission, produc ing fully resolved Zeeman pairs (see Figure 1). Zeeman split t ing is essent ially the produc t ion of two opposite c ircularly polar ised components of spec tral line emission due to the presence of a magnet ic field. For the case of OH maser Zeeman split t ing, and unlike many situat ions w ithin the interstellar medium, the total magnet ic field strength is measured and is typically in the order of 5 ­10 milliGauss. These masers can be found towards a var iety of astrophysical objec ts, but those assoc iated w ith 6.7 GHz methanol masers exclusively trace high- mass star forming regions, and are thus confined to the spiral arms of our Galaxy. The Zeeman split t ing of the OH maser emission determines the strength and or ientat ion of the in situ magnet ic field, allow ing us to test if the or ientat ions of weak large- scale magnet ic fields can be maintained in the contrac t ion (and field amplificat ion) to the high densit ies of high- mass star format ion. Dav ies (1974)

prov ided the first suggest ion that this may be the case, finding coherent or ientat ions across eight sites of OH maser emission, based on a simple pat tern of clockw ise Galac t ic rotat ion. Reid and Silverstein (1990) then found coherence over scales of a few kiloparsecs in a sample of 17 OH magnet ic field measurements spread across the Galac t ic plane (although w ith a pat tern more complex than Dav ies suggested, w ith or ientat ions consistent w ithin spiral arms, rather than w ith a global clockw ise direc t ion). Fish et al. (2003) found consistent or ientat ion amongst sources from the second and third Galac t ic quadrants and amongst sources w ithin approx imately 1 kpc of the Sun in the first and four th quadrants (but w ith the inner and outer Galaxy sources show ing opposite or ientat ions in agreement w ith rotat ion measure est imates, for example, Brown et al. 2007). Although encouraging, these prev ious studies were limited in scale, w ith the largest looking at 4 0 star forming regions, all v isible from the nor thern hemisphere, and w ith only a few masers per Galac t ic spiral arm. Now, w ith the complet ion of the Methanol Mult ibeam Sur vey, and the advent of new receiver and backend technology at the Compac t Array, the t ime is r ipe to conduc t a new sur vey across the Galac t ic plane. The MAGMO sur vey has obser ved all the 6.7 GHz methanol masers south of Declinat ion -10 degrees, which took approx imately 4 00 hours of obser v ing over 18 months. Preliminar y detec t ion stat ist ics indicate the presence of hydroxyl maser emission in half of the methanol maser sites and the likelihood of several hundred Zeeman pairs across the Galaxy. This sample w ill significantly improve on prev ious studies (by an order of magnitude) and allow for the potent ial of trac ing large- scale magnet ic fields w ith stat ist ical significance. The recently published pilot obser vat ions (Green et al. 2012) focused on a par t icular par t of the Galac t ic plane, 280 to 295 degrees Galac t ic longitude, where the Car ina-Sagit tar ius spiral arm is tangent ial to the line of sight. This region allows the magnet ic fields to be explored w ithout ambiguity. We detec ted maser emission from 17 sites across six high- mass star format ion regions. More than 70% of the maser features have significant c ircular

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ATNF News Apr il 2013


polar isat ion. We found 11 Zeeman pairs across the six sites of high- mass star format ion w ith implied magnet ic field strengths between -1.5 mG and +3.8 mG and median field strength of +1.6 mG. Our measurements of Zeeman split t ing imply that a coherent field or ientat ion is exper ienced by the maser sites across a distance of ~5 kpc w ithin the Car inaSagit tar ius spiral arm tangent (see Figure 2).

F I G U R E 2: T his figure (from Green et al . 20 12) compares the magnet ic field direc t ions from rotat ion measures and Zeeman split t ing measurement s , overl aid on the comp os ite H - alpha emiss ion of Finkb einer (20 03) us ing the S outhern H - Alpha Sk y Sur vey Atl as data of Gaus tad et al. (20 0 1). T he H - alpha emiss ion indicates regions of ionised hydro gen. Yellow pluses are p os it ive magnet ic field Zeeman measurement s (convent ionally fields away from us) and a bl ack c ircle is the sole s ite of negat ive magnet ic field Zeeman measurement s (a field towards us); red as ter isk s are p os it ive rotat ion measures (fields towards us) from pul s ars; green squares are negat ive rotat ion measures (fields away from us) from pul s ars ( Taylor et al. 1993; Han et al. 1999, 20 06) and red crosses are p os it ive rotat ion measures (fields towards us) from e x tr agal ac t ic sources (B rown et al. 20 07). T he rotat ion measures , from b oth pul s ars and e x tr agal ac t ic sources , are all along lines of s ight in the prox imit y of, or direc tly pass ing through, HII regions (Nota and Katger t 20 10, references therein).

References
Brown, J.C., Haverkorn, M., Gaensler, B.M., Taylor, A .R., Bizunok, N.S., McClure Gr iffiths, N.M., D ickey, J.M., Green, A .J. 2007, ApJ, 663, 2 5 8 Dav ies, R.D. 1974, IAU Symp. 275, Galac t ic Radio Astronomy, Astron. Soc. Pac., San Franc isco, p. 275 (eds F.J. Kerr, S.C. Simonson) Finkbeiner, D.P. 2003, ApJS, 14 6, 4 07 Fish, V.L ., Reid, M.J., Argon, A .L ., Menten, K.M. 2003, ApJ, 596, 328 Gaustad, J.E., McCullough, P.R., Rosing, W., Van Buren, D. 2001, PA SP, 113, 1326 Green, J. A ., McClure - Gr iffiths, N.M., Caswell, J.L ., Robishaw, T., Har vey-Smith, L . 2012, M N R A S , 4 2 5, 2 5 3 0 Han, J.L ., Manchester, R.N., Qiao, G.J. 1999, MNR A S, 306, 37 1 Han, J.L ., Manchester, R.N., Lyne, A .G., Qiao, G.J., van Straten, W. 2006, ApJ, 6 42, 868 Nota, T., Katger t, P. 2010, A& A , 513, 65 Reid, M.J., Silverstein, E.M. 1990, ApJ, 361, 4 83 Taylor, J.H., Cordes, J.M. 1993, ApJ, 411, 674
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Predictions for ASKAP neutral hydrogen surveys
AL AN R . D U F F Y (U NIV E R S I T Y O F M E L B O U R NE /IC R AR /U WA )

Abstract
When building a nex t- generat ion telescope as power ful as the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (A SK AP) it is a challenge just to predic t the expec ted per formance, much less create ent ire mock catalogues. Yet to der ive the max imum sc ience from A SK AP one must create a model universe for compar ison. This universe should contain ever y thing we know about galaxy format ion and the underly ing cosmology of the Universe, as well as the abilit ies of A SK AP itself. To that end we have used one of the largest dark mat ter simulat ions ever created to form the most accurate predic ted catalogues for the A SK AP neutral hydrogen (HI) emission sur veys. The all sky- sur vey (WALL ABY) is a shallow 3 sur vey from z = 0 ­ 0.26 that w ill probe the mass and dynamics of over 600,000 galax ies. The deeper, smaller area, sur vey (DINGO) w ill be able to trace the evolut ion of HI in nearly 100,000 galax ies over the redshif t range 0 ­ 0.43, a cosmic t ime of 4 billion years. The realism of the catalogues has enabled us to consider the effec ts of resolut ion and confusion in limit ing these sur veys, as well as the potent ial benefits in deploy ing the full 36-antenna A SK AP configurat ion w ith 6- km baselines. Fur thermore we can study the proper t ies of the HI selec ted catalogue, finding that the underly ing dark mat ter haloes w ill range over five orders of magnitude in total mass (1011 to 1015 M) and the stellar mass covers seven orders of magnitude. This analysis has been published in Duff y et al. (2012c) w ith catalogues and images/mov ies available on request.

well as the method by which galaxies accrete their mater ial. Due to the inherent signal weakness of the 21- cm hyper fine splitting transition, the detection of HI emission in distant galaxies requires high resolution and high sensitiv ity obser vations. It is a crucial w indow into galaxy formation over time; and while we wait for the next generation of large-scale HI sur veys, we w ill explore their potential v ia N- body simulations. There are three precursor instruments to the Square Kilometre Array: the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA; Lonsdale et al. 2009), the Meer- Karoo Array Telescope (MeerK AT; Booth et al. 2009) and the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASK AP; Johnston et al. 2008; DeBoer et al. 2009). Here we w ill focus on planned HI sur veys w ith A SK AP, which is currently under construc t ion at the Murchison Radio astronomy Obser vator y in Western Australia. A SK AP w ill consist of 36 antennas (each 12- m diameter); of these, 30 antennas are located w ithin a 2- km diameter c ircle. A SK AP 's large field- of- v iew--30 square degrees--is prov ided by novel phased array feeds (Chippendale et al. 2010), making A SK AP a 21- cm sur vey machine.

Surveys
The Widefield A SK AP L- band Legacy All- sky Blind sur veY (WALL ABY) is a large projec t led by BÄrbel Kor ibalski (C A SS) and Lister Staveley-Smith (ICR AR/UWA). WALL ABY proposes to obser ve approx imately 75% of the sky (-90° < < +30°) out to a redshif t of z = 0.26. The WALL ABY goals (outlined in Kor ibalski et al. 2009) are to examine the proper t ies, env ironment and large- scale distr ibut ion of gas- r ich galax ies. In summar y, WALL ABY w ill study galaxy format ion and the missing satellite problem in the local group, evolut ion and star format ion in galax ies, mergers and interac t ions in galax ies, the HI mass func t ion and its var iat ion w ith local env ironment, processes governing the evolut ion and distr ibut ion of cool gas at low redshif t, and the nature of the cosmic web. WALL ABY w ill also be able to invest igate cosmological parameters. For example, we w ill be able to measure the mat ter power spec trum in the local Universe. Fur thermore, we should be able to constrain the equat ion of state of dark energy to bet ter than 20% (Duff y et al. 2012b).

Introduction
Neutral hydrogen (HI) is a ubiquitous tracer of large-scale structure in the Universe. It allows us to study the physical and dynamical processes w ithin galaxies, including the kinematic proper ties of structures such as bars, disks and warps. Each galaxy HI spectrum prov ides a large set of galaxy proper ties, for example the systemic velocity, the integrated flux density and the velocity w idth. These are used to der ive the galaxy distance, its gas mass and its total dynamical mass, respectively. The gas mass is also a good indicator of ongoing star formation. The evolution of HI is of fundamental impor tance to understanding the build- up of both stellar and gas mass w ithin galaxies as
26 ATNF News Apr il 2013


The Deep Invest igat ion of Neutral Gas Or igins (DINGO) sur vey is led by Mar t in Meyer (ICR AR/UWA) and consists of `DEEP ' and `UltraDEEP ' phases that differ in area and depth. In the first phase, the sur vey proposes to target five non- cont iguous fields, 150 deg2 in total, out to z = 0.26. While the redshif t range is the same as for WALL ABY, the integrat ion per field is 500 hours (more than 60 t imes longer) prov iding eight t imes bet ter sensit iv ity. Where feasible, the target fields w ill be selec ted to overlap w ith the Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA; Dr iver et al. 2009) sur vey. The second phase is proposed to consist of two ultra- deep fields, 60 deg2 in total, over the redshif t range z = 0.1­ 0.43.

To create the most accurate HI mass for each objec t we calibrated the HI frac t ion of the cold gas masses from the simulat ion to obser vat ions (see Figure 1) ensur ing that the catalogue was as close to the final A SK AP results as possible.

The galaxies
We then took the HI masses from the simulat ion and est imated the struc tural proper t ies of the galax ies using a ser ies of empir ical relat ions, as first considered in Duff y et al. (2008) and references therein. Firstly, we made use of the well- known correlat ion between HI mass and obser ved HI diameter from Broeils and Rhee (1997) and Verheijen and Sanc isi (2001) where D HI [kpc] = (M HI / 106.8 [M])0.55 (for HI sur face densit ies greater than 1 M pc-2). The typical veloc ity w idth for an HI mass is given in Br iggs and Rao 1993; L ang et al. 2003 as 420 [km/s] x (M HI / 1010 [M])0.3 which can be transformed to line of sight veloc ity using a Tully- Fouque rotat ion scheme (Tully and Fouque 1985) and assumed random inclinat ion ax is to the obser ver. Finally, we can model how objec ts are resolved out by the inter ferometer, represented as incoherent addit ion of the separate beams that the galaxy spans (hence reduc ing signal-to - noise as the square root of the number of beams).

The simulation
The galaxy catalogue was created using the semi-analy t ic model of Croton et al. (2006) to produce galax ies based on the underly ing dark- mat ter- only Millennium Simulat ion (Spr ingel et al. 2005). This sample of galax ies accurately recreates the obser ved stellar mass func t ion w ith a combinat ion of supernovae feedback and, cruc ially to this model, feedback at the high mass end from ac t ive galac t ic nuclei. We then ut ilised the Theoret ical Astrophysical Obser vator y, which is a cloudbased web applicat ion that produces mock catalogues from different cosmological simulat ions and galaxy models in the form of a lightcone (detailed in Bernyk et al., in prep.) to create an all- sky galaxy catalogue ex tending to z = 0.26 for the WALL ABY sur vey and to z = 0.43 for the narrower but deeper DINGO sur vey.

Survey results
Figure 2 shows the expec ted number density of detec t ions, as a func t ion of redshif t, for the two sur veys. It is clear that WALL ABY and the deeper DINGO sur vey are

F I G U R E 1: To create the HI mass: Star t ing w ith the cold gas mass func t ion from the Croton et al. (20 06) semi - analy t ic mo del (grey squares) we reduced the HI fr ac t ion of the cold gas unt il we matched obser ved HI mass func t ion from AL FAL FA (blue solid line; Mar t in et al. 20 10) or HIPA SS (red hatched line; Zwaan et al. 20 05). Errors are Poissonian.

F I G U R E 2: Wedding - cake - like sur veys: the e x p e c te d n u m b e r o f g a l a x y d e te c t i o n s a s a f u n c t i o n of re dsh i f t fo r th e t wo H I su r vey s w i th A SK AP. T he all- sk y WAL L ABY and deep er D IN GO (split in t wo: the D EEP and Ultr aD EEP comp onent s; the l at ter has , conser vat ively, assumed no evolut ion in the HI fr ac t ion of the Universe).

27


well complemented, prov iding a weddingcake- like t iered struc ture where the deeper sur vey takes over from the shallower one, ensur ing significant galaxy counts in each redshif t slice. We can expec t that the WALL ABY sur vey w ill detec t 600,000 galax ies w ith signalto - noise greater than five, and the two components of the DINGO sur vey, in combinat ion, w ill catalogue 100,000 galax ies (out to z = 0.43). The deeper DINGO sur vey is able to test evolut ionar y models of HI. The cold gas mass of our galax ies naturally evolves in the simulat ion due to cooling and star format ion being incorporated in the Croton et al. (2006) model. We can either fix the HI frac t ion of this gas to probe the universal HI density evolut ion or var y the HI frac t ion to ensure a constant HI density (the lat ter is more likely; as shown in Duff y et al. 2012a, the universal density is constant w ithin a fac tor of two from 0 < z < 2). The UltraDEEP component to DINGO w ill find 6,000 more galax ies (over 10%) in the former case, potent ially constraining the evolut ion in the universal HI density over the last 4 billion years.

Limitations with HI surveys
FI GUR E 3: HI surveys are a new way to see the Universe. In these plots we show the resultant likely galaxy properties probed by the WALLABY survey. Red and black histograms represent the detected samples in WALLABY, while the grey histogram is the volume-limited galaxy distribution (that is, all galaxies above MHI = 108.5 M). The differences between the red and black histograms are subtle. If galaxies appear larger on the sky than our telescope resolution we must piece together the multiple images to form the whole galaxy. In doing so, we can lose signal-to-noise and hence some galaxies drop out of our sample: the red curve conservatively includes this resolution effect, while the black ignores it. As shown by the similarity of the histograms, WALLABY won't suffer unduly from resolution effects.

The nex t- generat ion HI sur veys w ith A SK AP w ill at tain low sensit iv it ies over significant frac t ions of the sky, however, w ith increasing source density we w ill face a limitat ion in the ability to uniquely ident if y close pairs of objec ts on the sky, an issue known as `confusion'. We expec t that w ith 2- km baselines WALL ABY w ill never be significantly limited by confusion, whereas DINGO can have as many as 10% of sources at the sur vey edge confused although even this becomes negligible (< 3%) if 6- km baselines are used.

A unique catalogue
We expec t that the A SK AP HI sur veys w ill detec t orders of magnitude more galax ies than current fac ilit ies and, for the first t ime, across cosmological distances. The HI - selec ted galax ies w ill also be unique tracers of large- scale struc tures (four orders of magnitude in total mass) and local features such as star format ion (probing seven orders of magnitude in stellar mass). In Figure 3 we show the expec ted range of these last two proper t ies, out of the dozens prov ided by the catalogues now available online, for the WALL ABY sur vey. The catalogues w ill also probe a var iety of structures, from the empty voids to superclusters of galaxies. This is shown in Figure 4 where the cosmic web is clearly v isible in the WALL ABY sample and the huge depth of the DINGO sur vey is easily seen.

28

ATNF News Apr il 2013


F I G U R E 4: T he lightcone pie plot for the shallow all- sk y sur vey WAL L ABY and the t wo deep er sur veys from D IN GO. We have taken the ent ire D e c l i n a t i o n r a n g e o f t h e s u r v e y a n d p r o j e c t e d i t o n t o a r e d s h i f t- R A 2 D p l o t . B r i g h t n e s s i s b a s e d o n t h e n u m b e r d e n s i t y o f t h e s o u r c e s i n e a c h map pixel . T he cosmic web is clearly v is ible in this image; a key s c ience dr iver of WAL L ABY is the measurement of the HI mass func t ion in different env ironment s . In this volume are over 6 0 0,0 0 0 gal ax y detec t ions; in contr as t, HIPA SS and AL FAL FA had approx imately t wo orders of magnitude fewer detec t ions . T he D IN GO sur vey w ill prob e evolut ion in the high mass end of the HI mass func t ion over 4 billion years of cosmic t ime. Addit ionally, D IN GO w ill overl ap w ith e x is t ing G A M A fields to enable a wealth of mult iwavelength data to b e used when analys ing the HI detec t ions , as well as enabling HI sp ec tr al s tack ing at given opt ical sp ec tros copic redshif t s to e x tend the HI detec t ions . T he D IN GO fields are not ac tually cont iguous , as pic tured here, but are spaced across the sk y. For the mo ck lightcone we made the s implif y ing assumpt ion that the fields were cont iguous , but this had no impac t on the final numb er of gal ax ies predic ted. High resolut ion vers ions of this image and fly - through mov ies are avail able at ht tp://ic t.icrar.org/store/Mov ies/MNR A S/MN -12-1210 - MJ.R1/.

References
Booth, R.S., de Blok, W.J.G., Jonas, J.L ., Fanaroff, B. 2009, ArXiv e - pr ints Br iggs, F.H., Rao, S. 1993, ApJ, 417, 49 4 Broeils, A .H., Rhee, M.- H. 1997, A& A , 324, 87 7 Chippendale, A .P., O'Sullivan, J., Reynolds, J., Gough, R., Hayman, D., Hay, S. 2010, in IEEE Int. Symp., Phased Array Systems and Technology (ARR AY), p. 6 4 8 Croton, D.J., Spr ingel, V., White, S.D.M., De Luc ia, G., Frenk, C.S., Gao, L ., Jenk ins, A ., Kauffmann, G., Navarro, J.F., Yoshida, N. 2006, MNR A S, 365, 11 DeBoer, D.R., Gough, R.G., Bunton, J.D., Cornwell, T.J., Beresford, R.J. et al. 2009, IEEE Proceedings, 97, 1507 Dr iver, S.P., Norberg, P., Baldr y, I.K., Bamford, S.P., Hopk ins, A .M. et al. 2009, Astronomy and Geophysics, 50, 050000 Duff y, A .R., Bat t ye, R. A ., Dav ies, R.D., Moss, A ., Wilk inson, P.N. 2008, MNR A S, 383, 150 Duff y, A .R., Kay, S.T., Bat t ye, R. A ., Booth, C.M., Dalla Vecchia, C., Schaye, J. 2012a, MNR A S, 420, 2799D Duff y, A .R., Moss, A ., Staveley-Smith, L . 2012b, PA SA 29, 202D Duff y, A .R., Meyer, M.J., Staveley-Smith, L ., Bernyk, M., Croton, D.J., Kor ibalsk i, B.S., Gerstmann, D., Westerlund, S. 2012c, MNR A S, 426, 3385 Johnston, S., Taylor, R., Bailes, M., Bar tel, N., Baugh, C. et al. 2008, Exper imental Astronomy, 2 2, 151 Kor ibalsk i, B., Stavely-Smith, L . 2009, A SK AP Sur vey Sc ience Proposal L ang, R.H., Boyce, P.J., Kilborn, V. A . et al. 2003, MNR A S, 3 42, 7 38 Lonsdale, C.J., Cappallo, R.J., Morales, M.F., Br iggs, F.H., Benkev itch, L . et al. 2009, IEEE Proceedings, 97, 1497 Mar t in, A .M., Papastergis, E., Giovanelli, R., Haynes, M.P., Spr ingob, C.M., St ier walt, S. 2010, ApJ, 7 2 3, 1359 Spr ingel, V., White, S.D.M., Jenk ins, A . et al. 2005, Nature, 435, 629 Tully, R.B., Fouque, P. 1985, ApJS, 5 8, 67 Verheijen, M. A .W., Sanc isi, R. 2001, A& A , 370, 765 Zwaan, M. A ., Meyer, M.J., Staveley-Smith, L ., Webster, R.L . 2005, MNR A S, 359, L 30

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Education and outreach
R O B H O L L O W (C A SS)

Education and outreach activities
Over recent months, CASS Education Officer Rob Hollow has been busy running teacher workshops around the country. At the invitation of the Science Teachers' Association of Tasmania he visited Tasmania in October, presenting six workshops in Hobart, Launceston, Ulverstone and Wynyard to about 100 teachers. Rob also presented sessions at several science teacher conferences in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. Far north Queensland was the focus of the astronomical world on 13 November when it witnessed a total solar eclipse. Several CASS staff travelled to the region, some in a professional capacity as expert astronomers to show the public or tour groups the spectacular event: Naomi McClure- Griffiths and David McConnell were offshore on a cruise ship whilst Ray Norris and Rob Hollow were inland at `Maitland Downs' cattle station where clear skies ensured a stunning view of the spectacle. Rob was assisting at the `Under a Darkened Star' student astronomy education conference attended by 100 schools students from across north Queensland and astronomers from around the world. `PUL SE@Parkes' sessions were held at Marsfield w ith some of the groups using the new interac t ion space adjacent to the Sc ience Operat ions Centre. In Februar y we were delighted to host students from Danebank Anglican School for Girls to Marsfield for their first PUL SE@Pakes obser v ing session. Danebank was the school at which Ruby Payne-Scot t, the pioneer ing former C SIRO astronomer, taught af ter leav ing C SIRO. In Januar y, C A SS hosted a one- day astronomy event for Double Helix Club members as par t of a school holiday program organised by C SIRO Educat ion. The keen students learnt about the work

C SIRO does in astronomy and space sc ience from Rob and C A SS astronomers George Hobbs and Eli Bresser t. The students asked a wealth of probing quest ions and the day was a great success. C A SS hosted an ar t ist-in- residence, Michaela Gleave, dur ing the summer. Michaela is a highly successful ar t ist, working in a range of media, w ith many exhibit ions and awards to her credit. She met w ith many of our staff, sat in on the lec ture program for our undergraduate vacat ion students and accompanied some of the students to Narrabr i as par t of their obser v ing tr ip. Michaela is par t icularly interested in interpretat ions of space and astronomical themes. She is currently working on mater ial gathered from her t ime w ith us to develop a major exhibit ion to be held in Fremantle later this year.

A n e c l i p s e d S u n r i s e s ove r a r i d g e at Maitland Downs, Queensland.

"Without doubt the most amazing thing about this program was that we actually had our own telescope time at either Parkes or ATCA...we got to do our own observations, and to reduce and analyse that data, just like any real-world scientist would do every day."
­ Ayna Musaeva (Universit y of Sydney), C A SS undergraduate vacat ion student 2012­2013.

Undergraduate vacation scholarship program
The CASS undergraduate vacation scholarship program attracted a very talented group of students this year. They worked on a diverse range of astrophysics, computing, engineering, operations and outreach projects. Most were based at Marsfield, with one at Parkes and one at Narrabri. This year half the group visited Parkes, while the other half visited Narrabri, for a week in January, which allowed each student to do their own observing project with 12 hours of telescope time. The students presented talks on their main projec ts at C SIRO Informat ion Sc iences Group's `Big Day In' at Macquar ie University in Februar y. They found the overall program to be highly wor thwhile and several w ill be cont inuing their collaborat ion w ith C A SS through co - super v ised Honours or PhD projec ts.

Bet ter than the beach? Half of our undergraduate vacat ion students spent a week at ` The D ish', where they completed their own obser v ing projec ts; the other half of the group v isited the Compac t Array.

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ATNF News Apr il 2013


Operations
DOUGL AS BOCK, K ATE BROOKS, PHIL EDWARDS, JC GUZMAN, BRET T HISCOCK AND DAVE MCCONNELL (C ASS)

Parkes radio telescope
In the prev ious edit ion of ATNF News we repor ted on the construc t ion of a telescope protec t ion system (TPS) to enable safe remote obser v ing w ith the Parkes radio telescope. The TPS is now complete, installed in the upper control room at Parkes and is undergoing final test ing and debugging. Dur ing the test per iod, which commenced in December, some remote obser v ing has been conduc ted by obser vers in the new Sc ience Operat ions Centre at Marsfield (and in several instances at Sw inburne University of Technology), but w ith backup members of Parkes Obser vator y staff or the obser v ing team stat ioned in the telescope base tower. This mode of test ing w ill cont inue unt il we have suffic ient confidence in the reliability of the TPS. The TPS watches over a selec t ion of equipment, power and env ironmental condit ions. When abnormal condit ions are detec ted some appropr iate ac t ion is taken (such as turning on the aux iliar y power source) and alarms are issued to Parkes staff. An impor tant component of the TPS is the dr ives/v ibrat ion monitor (known locally as `PkVibe'). It samples motor current and speed signals and the outputs of two accelerometers, all at 128 Hz. This allows the detec t ion of a range of abnormal behav iours in the system. PkVibe has already uncovered two faulty tachometers and presented symptoms that, at the t ime of wr it ing, we believe is an intermit tent fault in the motor controller elec tronics. These give us confidence that potent ially ser ious telescope control problems can be detec ted automat ically, before they would have become ev ident w ithout the monitor. Obser vers accessing Parkes remotely have two new fac ilit ies available to them: a remote obser v ing por tal and `FROG' (a close relat ive of the fac ility ` TOAD' that w ill be familiar to Mopra obser vers). The por tal is accessed in a web browser and presents a range of useful informat ion in several tabs; its chat w indow has proven to be popular w ith both staff and obser vers. FROG, also accessed in a browser, presents summar ies of the current state of the telescope, and delivers warnings and alarms to obser vers on a range of condit ions. FROG w ill cont inue to be developed to suppor t an increasing set of fault condit ions in the telescope's obser v ing systems. A milestone for Parkes has been the decommissioning and replacement of the or iginal high voltage (HV) infrastruc ture af ter 50 years of ser v ice. New Parkes staff member Bob Kaletsch led the technical

work as his first main projec t. The new HV equipment compr ises: a sw itch gear cabinet w ith c ircuit breaker, meter and monitor ing, a three- phase regulator, a new 750 kVA transformer, and enhanced monitor ing capabilit ies. All w ithin one day, the old equipment was decommissioned and the new equipment was connec ted, commissioned and supply ing power to the site. Er ik Lensson was the projec t leader, and other staff at Parkes and Narrabr i prov ided assistance. Future plans include relocat ion of the site generator and replacement of the incoming low voltage mains distr ibut ion boards.

Australia Telescope Compact Array
The last two new 4 - cm receivers were installed on the Compac t Array in midFebruar y, replac ing the old 3cm/6- cm receivers (see page 7 for more informat ion on the Compac t Array cent imetre receivers upgrade projec t). A new user-fr iendly version of the ATC A sensit iv ity calculator, including the per formance of the 4 - cm receivers, is available at www.narrabr i. atnf.csiro.au/myatca/sensitiv ity _calculator. html. In addit ion to the new receivers, two antennas have been out fit ted w ith prototype feeds to ex tend the frequency coverage from the current limit around 10.8 GHz, to above 12 GHz. This makes the full range of the C ABB 4 ­12 GHz band available and offers the potent ial in the future, w ith the addit ion of a down- conversion stage, of making obser vat ions of the 12.2 GHz methanol line. The prototype feeds have been installed on antennas C A03 and C A05, and tests indicate that they have had the

Parkes' new telescope protec t ion system status and control panel .

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desired effec t of improv ing the sensit iv ity at the top end of the 4 - cm band. A side effec t of the new feeds is that the focus posit ion has changed significantly for the standard 3- cm obser v ing frequency of 9.0 GHz from the prev ious cent imetre- band posit ion. The new posit ions are given on the Compac t Array current issues web page (at www.narrabr i.atnf.csiro.au/obser v ing/ CurrentIssues.html) and the `assistance' computer program w ill warn obser vers if they have not opt imised the focus on these antennas when they star t obser v ing.

recently improved soundproofing) if they make their reser vat ion more than two weeks in advance. A member of the C A SS Astrophysics Group is being rostered to prov ide suppor t to SOC users and v isitors dur ing business hours: they w ill normally be seated as Desk 1 in the v isitors' desk area. A user guide for the SOC, at www.atnf.csiro. au/obser vers/SOC, is in place and is being updated as required.

Time Assignment Committee
The ATNF Time Assignment Commit tee (TAC) met on 6 and 7 Februar y to rev iew the 176 proposals submit ted for use of the Compac t Array, Parkes, Mopra, Tidbinbilla and the Long Baseline Array in the Apr il 2013 semester (2013 APR). Proposals for Mopra were solic ited only for the range 2 2:00 to 11:00 L ST (the remainder w ill be allocated to MALT- 90). It was noted that a number ongoing proposals simply resubmit their cover sheets and obser vat ions tables from prev ious semesters. This is discouraged, as the forms for both are regularly updated to reflec t changes in the availability or func t ionality of equipment: we recommend that all proposers take the small amount of ex tra t ime required to reload the table into the cover sheets or obser vat ions table editor and double- check the opt ions they have selec ted. The checking of grades and comments was finally completed on 28 Februar y, w ith the outcomes being released through OPAL to the proposal teams. This of ten ser ves as mot ivat ion for well-intent ioned proposers to contac t the scheduler w ith updated informat ion about their (im)possible obser v ing dates. However, as the scheduler has been working frant ically since the end of the TAC meet ing to piece the schedules together, any informat ion received at this late stage cannot be ac ted upon. PIs are encouraged to prov ide any updates on availability of obser vers before the TAC meets. For Parkes, one highly ranked proposal that requested a rarely used receiver in 2013 APR could not be scheduled due to resource constraints. As was noted in the call for proposals, "Highly graded proposals request ing a receiver that is not installed in the focus cabin in 2013 APR w ill be reconsidered for scheduling in the 2013 OC T semester w ith the same grade, w ithout the need to resubmit the proposal". The team can, of course, resubmit the proposal if they believe they can strengthen their

Mopra radio telescope
As descr ibed in the last edit ion of ATNF News, agreement has been reached w ith the Nat ional Astronomical Obser vator y of Japan, University of NSW and University of Adelaide to fund the ongoing operat ion of the Mopra telescope, w ith the major ity of obser v ing t ime to be prov ided to the funding organisat ions. In the first year of operat ion under this new model, the por t ion of t ime made available to ATNF users w ill be used pr imar ily for the complet ion of current, large projec ts approved by the ATNF Time Assignment Commit tee. Obser v ing t ime in Oc tober 2012 was used to complete the CHaMP projec t (M161, led by Peter Barnes) and to br ing the MALT- 90 projec t (M516, led by Jim Jackson) 300 hours closer to its conclusion. The recent bushfire at Mopra (see page X for more details) has naturally delayed plans for obser v ing this w inter.

Marsfield Science Operations Centre
The new Sc ience Operat ions Centre (SOC) at Marsfield is now open for business. The SOC includes an interac t ion space as well as desks for casual and pre- booked v isitors. The ATC A and Mopra remote obser v ing stat ions were moved from their former locat ion in Room 2 3 to the SOC obser v ing area in t ime for successful tests in November. Remote obser v ing w ith Parkes became a reality in early December: George Hobbs (PI of the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array projec t, P456) had the honour of being the first remote obser ver while the C SIRO CEO, Megan Clark, was the most recent. The SOC is also being used for A SK AP commissioning. Suitably qualified remote obser vers who w ish to obser ve from the SOC should nominate this as their obser v ing site on the usual remote obser v ing request web form. SOC users have pr ior ity for Marsfield on- site accommodat ion (w ith
32 ATNF News Apr il 2013


case fur ther, but if they do not they w ill automat ically be assigned the same grade for considerat ion in the 2013 OC T semester. The Februar y meet ing was the last for Jessica Chapman, who has ser ved as TAC Secretar y for the best par t of the last 20 years. In her new role as Data Management Leader, Jessica w ill st ill be ac t ively involved in the management of OPAL (and ATOA), but she has handed the reins for keeping the TAC on track to Jill Rathborne for the nex t meet ing.

To accommodate these changes there has been some reorganisat ion of management responsibilit ies w ithin Operat ions: Douglas Bock remains the ATNF Assistant Direc tor ­ Operat ions (Head of ATNF Operat ions), and Kate Brooks has taken on the new role of Deputy Head of ATNF Operat ions to focus on the capability management of the four ATNF obser vator y sites. There are now three ATNF Operat ions groups: Sc ience Operat ions (lead by Phil Edwards), Engineer ing Operat ions (lead by Er ik Lensson) and Sof tware and Comput ing (lead by JC Guzman). At the obser vator ies the site managers remain unchanged (Geraldton and MRO ­ Barr y Turner, Narrabr i and Mopra ­ Bret t Hiscock, Parkes ­ Mal Smith). Barr y Turner is based in Geraldton along w ith the rest of the MRO Operat ions staff. The group has recently moved their offices into the new MRO Suppor t Fac ility on the campus of the Geraldton Universit ies Centre.

Software and computing
A new group w ithin ATNF Operat ions, `Sof tware and Comput ing', has been created. This group is the result of merging the `Sc ience Comput ing and Archives' and `A SK AP Comput ing' teams, and br ings together C SIRO's exper t ise in sof tware development for astronomical applicat ions, radio inter ferometr y calibrat ion and imaging, high per formance comput ing and sc ience data archiv ing for the ATNF fac ilit ies. Juan Carlos (JC) Guzman was appointed leader of the group in December. The Sof tware and Comput ing Group has been div ided into three major teams suppor t ing all ATNF telescopes, including A SK AP:

JC Guzman has been appointed l ea d e r o f t h e n ew S o f t wa r e a n d Comput ing Group w ithin ATNF Operat ions

Sc ience Data Archives, led by Jessica

Chapman, is responsible for developing and maintaining all the sof tware and comput ing that suppor t sc ience data archiv ing and user access to sc ience data Humphreys, is responsible for all sof tware and comput ing development to suppor t calibrat ion and imaging, and by JC Guzman, is responsible for all the sof tware development and maintenance involved in obser vat ion scheduling, obser vat ion execut ion (data acquisit ion) and maintenance.
Kate Brook s has taken on the new role of Deput y Head of ATNF Operat ions.

Sc ience Data Processing, led by Ben

Telescope Monitor ing and Control, led

The group w ill also suppor t C SIRO's work on Square Kilometre Array pre- construc t ion projec ts.

Staff changes
Over the past few months the Geraldton Engineer ing Group has also joined ATNF Operat ions. With the comput ing group changes ment ioned above, ATNF Operat ions has grown to approx imately 75 staff. Af ter five years as the Operat ions Research Program Leader, Jessica Chapman has stepped down from this role to focus on the new sc ience data archives projec t.

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Publications
The follow ing list of publicat ions includes published refereed papers that use ATNF data or are by C A SS authors; the list has been compiled follow ing publicat ion of the Oc tober 2012 issue of ATNF News. Papers that include C A SS authors are indicated by an aster isk. Please email any updates or correc t ions to this list to Julie.Tesor iero@csiro.au. Publicat ion lists for papers that include ATNF data or C A SS authors are also available on the ATNF website at www.atnf.csiro. au/research/publications.

*Agliozzo, C.; Umana, G.; Tr igilio, C.; Buemi, C.; Leto, P.; Ingallinera, A .; Franzen, T.; Nor iega- Crespo, A . "Radio detec t ion of nebulae around four luminous blue var iable stars in the L arge Magellanic Cloud". MNR A S, 426, 181-186 (2012). *Allison, J.R.; Sadler, E.M.; Whit ing, M.T. "Applicat ion of a Bayesian method to absorpt ion spec tral- line finding in simulated A SK AP data". PA SA , 29, 2 21-2 28 (2012). Bagchi, M.; Nieves, A .C.; McL aughlin, M. "A search for dispersed radio bursts in archival Parkes Mult ibeam Pulsar Sur vey data". MNR A S, 42 5, 2 501-2 506 (2012). *Bannister, K.W.; Murphy, T.; Gaensler, B.M.; Reynolds, J.E. "Limits on prompt, dispersed radio pulses from gamma- ray bursts". ApJ, 757, 38 (2012). *Barger, K. A .; Haffner, L .M.; Wakker, B.P.; Hill, A .S.; Madsen, G.J.; Duncan, A .K. "Present- day galac t ic evolut ion: Lowmetallic it y, warm, ionized gas inflow assoc iated w ith highveloc it y Cloud Complex A". ApJ, 761, 145 (2012). *Bates, S.D.; Bailes, M.; Barsdell, B.R.; Bhat, N.D.R.; Burgay, M.; Burke -Spolaor, S.; Champion, D.J.; Coster, P.; D'Amico, N.; Jameson, A . and 12 coauthors. " The High Time Resolut ion Universe Pulsar Sur vey - VI. An ar t ific ial neural network and t iming of 75 pulsars". MNR A S, 427, 1052-1065 (2012). *Bat t istelli, E.S.; Carret t i, E.; de Bernardis, P.; Masi, S. "L arge radio telescopes for anomalous microwave emission obser vat ions". AdAst., 2012, id 607 38 4 (2012). *Beardsley, A .P.; Hazelton, B.J.; Morales, M.F.; Arcus, W.; Barnes, D.; Bernardi, G.; Bowman, J.D.; Br iggs, F.H.; Bunton, J.D.; Cappallo, R.J.; Stevens, J. and 4 0 coauthors. " The EoR sensit iv it y of the Murchison Widefield Array ". MNR A S, 429, L5- L 9 (2013). *Beardsley, A .P.; Hazelton, B.J.; Morales, M.F.; Capallo, R.J.; Goeke, R.; Emr ich, D.; Lonsdale, C.J.; Arcus, W.; Barnes, D.; Bernardi, G.; Stevens, J. and 38 coauthors. "A new layout opt imizat ion technique for inter ferometr ic arrays, applied to the Murchison Widefield Array ". MNR A S, 42 5, 1781-1788 (2012). *Blake, C.; Brough, S.; Coll Croom, S.; Croton, D.; R.J. and 16 coauthors. joint measurements o at z < 1". MNR A S, 42 5, ess, M.; Contreras, C.; Couch, W.; Dav is, T.M.; Dr inkwater, M.J.; Jurek, " The WiggleZ Dark Energy Sur vey: f the expansion and grow th histor y 4 05 - 414 (2012).

*Breen, S.L .; Ellingsen, S.P.; Caswell, J.L .; Green, J. A .; Voronkov, M. A .; Fuller, G. A .; Quinn, L .J.; Av ison, A . "12.2- GHz methanol maser Methanol Mult ibeam follow- up catalogue . II. Longitude range 186 -330". MNR A S, 426, 2189 -2 207 (2012). *Brunet t i, G.; Blasi, P.; Reimer, O.; Rudnick, L .; Bonafede, A .; Brown, S. "Probing the or igin of giant radio haloes through radio and gamma- ray data: the case of the Coma cluster ". MNR A S, 426, 956 - 968 (2012). Burgasser, A .J.; Melis, C.; Zauderer, B. A .; Berger, E. "Detec t ion of radio emission from the hyperac t ive L dwar f 2MA SS J1315309 4 -26 49513AB". ApJ, 762, L 3 (2013). *Camera, S.; Santos, M.G.; K.; Norr is, R.P.; Raccan redshif t informat ion o nex t- generat ion radio (2012). Bacon, D.J.; Jar v is, M.J.; Mc Alpine, elli, A .; RÆt tger ing, H. "Impac t of n cosmological applicat ions w ith sur veys". MNR A S, 427, 2079 -2088

*Carret t i, E.; Crocker, R.M.; Staveley-Smith, L .; Haverkorn, M.; Purcell, C.; Gaensler, B.M.; Bernardi, G.; Kesteven, M.J.; Poppi, S. "Giant magnet ized out flows from the centre of the Milky Way ". Nature, 493, 66 - 69 (2013). *Casey, C.M.; Ber ta, S.; BÈthermin, M.; Bock, J.; Br idge, C.; Budynk iew icz, J.; Burgarella, D.; Chapin, E.; Chapman, S.C.; Clements, D.L .; Seymour, N. and 2 2 coauthors. "A redshif t sur vey of Herschel far- infrared selec ted starbursts and implicat ions for obscured star format ion". ApJ, 761, 14 0 (2012). *Casey, C.M.; Ber ta, S.; BÈthermin, M.; Bock, J.; Br idge, C.; Burgarella, D.; Chapin, E.; Chapman, S.C.; Clements, D.L .; Conley, A .; Seymour, N. and 21 coauthors. "A populat ion of z > 2 far- infrared Herschel-SPIRE- selec ted starbursts". ApJ, 761, 139 (2012). *Cassano, R.; Brunet t i, G.; Norr is, R.P.; RÆt tger ing, H.J. A .; Johnston- Hollit t, M.; Trasat t i, M. "Radio halos in future sur veys in the radio cont inuum". A& A , 5 4 8, A100 (2012). *Corbel, S.; Cor iat, M.; Brocksopp, C.; Tzioumis, A .K.; Fender, R.P.; Tomsick, J. A .; Bux ton, M.M.; Bailyn, C.D. " The `universal' radio/ X- ray flux correlat ion: the case study of the black hole GX 339 - 4". MNR A S, 428, 2 500 -2 515 (2013). *Corongiu, A .; Burgay, M.; Possent i, A .; Camilo, F.; D'Amico, N.; Lyne, A .G.; Manchester, R.N.; Sark issian, J.M.; Bailes, M.; Johnston, S. and 2 coauthors. "A Shapiro delay detec t ion in the binar y system host ing the millisecond pulsar PSR J1910 5959A". ApJ, 760, 100 (2012). Craw ford, F.; Altemose, D.; Li, H.; Lor imer, D.R. " Var iabilit y of the pulsed radio emission from the L arge Magellanic Cloud pulsar PSR J0529 - 6652". ApJ, 762, 8 (2013). *Curran, S.J.; Whit ing, M.T. "Complete ionizat ion of the neutral gas: why there are so few detec t ions of 21 cm hydrogen in high- redshif t radio galax ies and quasars". ApJ, 759, 117 (2012).

Bonaldi, A .; Bonavera, L .; Massardi, M.; De Zot t i, G. " The Planck- ATC A Co - eval Obser vat ions projec t: the spec trally selec ted sample". MNR A S, 428, 18 45 -185 4 (2013). Bozzet to, L .M.; Filipov ic, M.D.; Urosev ic, D.; Craw ford, E.J. "Radio - cont inuum obser vat ions of small, radially polar ised supernova remnant J0519 - 6902 in the L arge Magellanic Cloud". SerA J, 185, 2 5 -33 (2012).

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*D'Ammando, F.; Rau, A .; Schady, P.; Finke, J.; Or ient i, M.; Greiner, J.; Kann, D. A .; Ojha, R.; Foley, A .R.; Stevens, J. and 4 coauthors. "PK S 212 3- 4 63: a confirmed gamma- ray blazar at high redshif t ". MNR A S, 427, 893- 900 (2012). *Dawson, J.R.; Hughes, A molecular ApJ, 763, 5 McClure - Gr iffiths, N.M.; Wong, T.; D ickey, J.M.; .; Fukui, Y.; Kawamura, A . "Supergiant shells and cloud format ion in the L arge Magellanic Cloud". 6 (2013)

*Frater, R.H.; Ekers, R.D. "John Paul Wild 192 3 ­2008". Histor ical Records of Australian Sc ience, 2 3, 212-2 27 (2012). *Fr itz, J.; Gent ile, G.; Smith, M.W.L .; Gear, W.K.; Braun, R.; Roman Duval, J.; Bendo, G.J.; Baes, M.; Eales, S. A .; Verstappen, J. and 2 3 coauthors. " The Herschel Exploitat ion of Local Galax y Andromeda (HELGA). I. Global far- infrared and sub - mm morphology ". A& A , 5 4 6, A 3 4 (2012). *Godfrey, L .E.H.; Lovell, J.E.J.; Burke -Spolaor, S.; Ekers, R.; Bicknell, G.V.; Birk inshaw, M.; Worrall, D.M.; Jauncey, D.L .; Schwar tz, D. A .; Marshall, H.L . and 3 coauthors. "Per iodic struc ture in the megaparsec- scale jet of PK S 0637­752". ApJ, 75 8, L 27 (2012). *Green, J. A .; McClure - Gr iffiths, N.M.; Caswell, J.L .; Robishaw, T.; Har vey-Smith, L . "MAGMO: coherent magnet ic fields in the star- forming regions of the Car ina-Sagit tar ius spiral arm tangent ". MNR A S, 42 5, 2 530 -2 5 47 (2012). *Greve, T.R.; Vieira, J.D.; Weiú, A .; Aguirre, J.E.; Aird, K. A .; Ashby, M.L .N.; Benson, B. A .; Bleem, L .E.; Bradford, C.M.; Brodw in, M.; McInt yre, V. and 57 coauthors. "Submillimeter obser vat ions of millimeter br ight galax ies discovered by the South Pole Telescope". ApJ, 756, 13 (2012). *Gw inn, C.R.; Johnson, M.D.; Reynolds, J.E.; Jauncey, D.L .; Tzioumis, A .K.; Hirabayashi, H.; Kobayashi, H.; Murata, Y.; Edwards, P.G.; Dougher t y, S. and 5 coauthors. "Size of the Vela pulsar 's emission region at 18 cm wavelength". ApJ, 75 8, 7 (2012). *Gw inn, C.R.; Johnson, M.D.; Reynolds, J.E.; Jauncey, D.L .; Tzioumis, A .K.; Dougher t y, S.; Carlson, B.; Del Rizzo, D.; Hirabayashi, H.; Kobayashi, H. and 5 coauthors. "Noise in the cross- power spec trum of the Vela pulsar ". ApJ, 75 8, 13 (2012). *Hales, C. B.M.; filled p o l ar A .; Murphy, T.; Curran, J.R.; Middelberg, E.; Gaensler, Norr is, R.P. "BLOBC AT: sof tware to catalogue floodblobs in radio images of total intensit y and linear izat ion". MNR A S, 42 5, 979 - 996 (2012).

De Hor ta, A .Y.; Collier, J.D.; Filipov ic, M.D.; Craw ford, E.J.; Urosev ic, D.; Stootman, F.H.; Tothill, N.F.H. "Radio confirmat ion of galac t ic supernova remnant G308.3-1.4". MNR A S, 428, 1980 -1985 (2013). *Demorest, P.B.; Ferdman, R.D.; Gonzalez, M.E.; Nice, D.; Ransom, S.; Stairs, I.H.; Arzoumanian, Z.; Brazier, A .; Burke Spolaor, S.; Chamberlin, S.J. and 17 coauthors. "Limits on the stochast ic grav itat ional wave background from the Nor th Amer ican Nanoher tz Obser vator y for Grav itat ional Waves". ApJ, 762, 2 5 (2013). *Duff y, A .R.; Meyer, M.J.; Staveley-Smith, L .; Bernyk, M.; Croton, D.J.; Kor ibalsk i, B.S.; Gerstmann, D.; Westerlund, S. "Predic t ions for A SK AP neutral hydrogen sur veys". MNR A S, 426, 3385 -3 4 02 (2012). *Ellingsen, S.P.; Breen, S.L .; Voronkov, M. A .; Dawson, J.R. " Test ing maser- based evolut ionar y schemes: a new search for 37.7- GHz methanol masers". MNR A S, 429, 3501-3516 (2013). Ellingsen, S.P.; Sobolev, A .M.; Cragg, D.M.; Godfrey, P.D. "D iscover y of two new class II methanol maser transit ions in G 3 45.01+1.79". ApJ, 759, L 5 (2012). Elson, E.C.; de Blok, W.J.G.; Kraan- Kor teweg, R.C. "HI synthesis obser vat ions of the blue compac t dwar f NGC 1705". MNR A S, 429, 2 550 -2 561 (2013). *Esamdin, A .; Abdur ix it, D.; Manchester, R.N.; Niu, H.B. "PSR B0826 -3 4: Somet imes a Rotat ing Radio Transient ". ApJ, 759, L 3 (2012). Esposito, P.; Tiengo, A .; Rea, N.; Turolla, R.; Fenzi, A .; A .; Israel, G.L .; Zane, S.; Mereghet t i, S.; Possent i, coauthors. " X- ray and radio obser vat ions of the Sw if t J183 4.9 - 08 4 6 and its dust- scat ter ing halo". 429, 312 3-3132 (2013). Giuliani, A . an d 6 magnetar MNR A S ,

*Hamacher, D.W.; Fuller, R.B.; Norr is, R.P. "Or ientat ions of linear stone arrangements in New South Wales". AuArc., 75, 4 6 - 5 4 (2012). *Hobbs, G.; Coles, W.; Manchester, R.N.; Keith, M.J.; Shannon, R.M.; Chen, D.; Bailes, M.; Bhat, N.D.R.; Burke -Spolaor, S.; Champion, D. and 14 coauthors. "Development of a pulsarbased t ime - scale". MNR A S, 427, 2780 -2787 (2012). *Huynh, M.T.; Hopk ins, A .M.; Lenc, E.; Mao, M.Y.; Middelberg, E.; Norr is, R.P.; Randall, K.E. " The ATL A S 5.5 GHz sur vey of the ex tended Chandra Deep Field South: catalogue, source counts and spec tral indices". MNR A S, 426, 2 3 42-2 35 8 (2012).

*Faimali, A .; Thompson, M. A .; Hindson, L .; Urquhar t, J.S.; Pestalozzi, M.; Carey, S.; Shenoy, S.; Veneziani, M.; Molinar i, S.; Clark, J.S. " The G305 star- forming complex: embedded massive star format ion discovered by Herschel Hi- GAL". MNR A S, 426, 4 02- 415 (2012). Fok, T.K.T.; Nakashima, J.- I.; Yung, B.H.K.; Hsia, C.- H.; Deguchi, S. "Maser obser vat ions of Westerlund 1 and comprehensive considerat ions of maser proper t ies of red supergiants assoc iated w ith massive clusters". ApJ, 760, 21 (2012). *For, B.- Q.; Staveley-Smith, L .; McClure - Gr iffiths, N.M. "Galac t ic All-Sky Sur vey high- veloc it y clouds in the region of the Magellanic Leading Arm". ApJ, 76 4, 74 (2013).

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*Huynh, M.T.; Hopk ins, A .; Norr is, R.; Hancock, P.; Murphy, T.; Jurek, R.; Whit ing, M. " The completeness and reliabilit y of threshold and false - discover y rate source ex trac t ion algor ithms for compac t cont inuum sources". PA SA , 29, 2 29 -243 (2012). *Iv ison, R.J.; Smail, I.; Amblard, A .; Arumugam, V.; De Breuck, C.; Emonts, B.H.C.; Feain, I.; Greve, T.R.; Haas, M.; Ibar, E. and 7 coauthors. "Gas- r ich mergers and feedback are ubiquitous amongst starburst ing radio galax ies, as revealed by the VL A , IR AM PdBI and Herschel". MNR A S, 42 5, 1320 -1331 (2012). *Jarret t, T.H.; Masc i, F.; Tsai, C.W.; Pet t y, S.; Cluver, M.E.; Assef, R.J.; Benford, D.; Blain, A .; Br idge, C.; Donoso, E.; Kor ibalsk i, B. and 7 coauthors. "Ex tending the nearby galax y her itage w ith WISE: first results from the WISE enhanced resolut ion galax y atlas". A J, 145, 3 4 (2013). *Jordan, C.H.; Walsh, A .J.; Lowe, V.; Lo, N.; Purcell, C.R.; Voronkov, M. A .; Longmore, S.N. "P ilot obser vat ions for MALT- 45: a Galac t ic plane sur vey at 7 mm". MNR A S, 429, 469- 4 81 (2013). *Jurek, R. " The charac ter ised noise HI source finder: detec t ing HI galax ies using a novel implementat ion of matched filter ing". PA SA , 29, 2 51-261 (2012). *Jurek, R.; Brown, S. "Examining alternat ives to wavelet denoising for astronomical source finding". PA SA , 29, 35235 8 (2012). Kavanagh, P.J.; Sasak i, M.; Points, S.D. " XMM - New ton v iew of the N 206 superbubble in the L arge Magellanic Cloud". A& A , 5 47, 11 (2012). *Keith, M.J.; Coles, W.; Shannon, R.M.; Hobbs, G.B.; Manchester, R.N.; Bailes, M.; Bhat, N.D.R.; Burke -Spolaor, S.; Champion, D.J.; Chaudhar y, A . and 9 coauthors. "Measurement and correc t ion of var iat ions in interstellar dispersion in high- prec ision pulsar t iming". MNR A S, 429, 2161-2174 (2013). *Koay, J.Y.; Macquar t, J.- P.; Ricket t, B.J.; Bignall, H.E.; Jauncey, D.L .; Pursimo, T.; Reynolds, C.; Lovell, J.E.J.; KedzioraChudczer, L .; Ojha, R. " Why do compac t ac t ive galac t ic nuclei at high redshif t sc int illate less? ". ApJ, 756, 29 (2012). *Kor ibalsk i, B.S. "Over v iew on spec tral line source finding and v isualisat ion". PA SA , 29, 359 -370 (2012). *Kor ibalsk i, B.S. "Source finding and v isualisat ion". PA SA , 29, 213 (2012). *Li, J.; Esamdin, A .; Manchester, R.N.; Qian, M.F.; Niu, H.B. "Radiat ion proper t ies of ex treme nulling pulsar J15025653". MNR A S, 42 5, 129 4 -1298 (2012). *Li, K.L .; Kong, Alber t K.H.; Charles, P. A .; Lu, T.- N.; Bar tlet t, E.S.; Coe, M.J.; McBr ide, V.; Rajoelimanana, A .; Udalsk i, A .; Maset t i, N.; Franzen, T. "A luminous Be+White dwar f supersof t source in the w ing of the SMC: MA XI J015 8-74 4". ApJ, 761, 99 (2012). *Lico, R.; Girolet t i, M.; Or ient i, M.; Giovannini, G.; Cot ton, Edwards, P.G.; Fuhrmann, L .; Kr ichbaum, T.P.; Sokolov K.V.; Kovalev, Y.Y. and 6 coauthors. " VLBA monitor ing Mrk 421 at 15 GHz and 24 GHz dur ing 2011". A& A , 5 45, (2012). W.; sky, of 8

*Madsen, E.C.; Stairs, I.H.; Kramer, M.; Camilo, F.; Hobbs, G.B.; Janssen, G.H.; Lyne, A .G.; Manchester, R.N.; Possent i, A .; Stappers, B.W. " Timing the main- sequence - star binar y pulsar J174 0 -3052". MNR A S, 42 5, 2 378-2 385 (2012). Maggi, P.; Haberl, F.; Bozzet to, L .M.; Filipov ic, M.D.; Points, S.D.; Chu, Y.- H.; Sasak i, M.; P ietsch, W.; Gruendl, R. A .; D ickel, J. and 4 coauthors. "Mult i- frequenc y study of supernova remnants in the L arge Magellanic Cloud. Confirmat ion of the supernova remnant status of DEM L 205". A& A , 5 4 6, 11 (2012). *Mao, M.Y.; Sharp, R.; Norr is, R.P.; Hopk ins, A .M.; Seymour, N.; Lovell, J.E.J.; Middelberg, E.; Randall, K.E.; Sadler, E.M.; Saik ia, D.J. and 2 coauthors. " The Australia Telescope L arge Area Sur vey: spec troscopic catalogue and radio luminosit y func t ions". MNR A S, 426, 333 4 -33 4 8 (2012). *Mao, S. A .; McClure - Gr iffiths, N.M.; Gaensler, B.M.; Brown, J.C.; van Eck, C.L .; Haverkorn, M.; Kronberg, P.P. and 3 coauthors. "New constraints on the galac t ic halo magnet ic field using rotat ion measures of ex tragalac t ic sources toward the outer galax y ". ApJ, 755, 15 (2012). *Mao, S. A .; McClure - Gr iffiths, N.M.; Gaensler, B.M.; Haverkorn, M.; Beck, R.; McConnell, D.; Wolleben, M.; Stanimirov ic, S.; D ickey, J.M.; Staveley-Smith, L . "Magnet ic field struc ture of the L arge Magellanic Cloud from Faraday rotat ion measures of diffuse polar ized emission". ApJ, 759, 2 5 (2012). Marsh, K. A .; Jarret t, T.H. "Opt imal mult iwavelength source detec t ion: exper ience gained from the WISE mission". PA SA , 29, 269 -275 (2012). *Mazzarella, J.M.; Iwasawa, K.; Vav ilk in, T.; Armus, L .; Kim, D.- C.; Bothun, G.; Evans, A .S.; Spoon, H.W.W.; Haan, S.; Howell, J.H. and 17 coauthors. "Invest igat ion of dual ac t ive nuclei, out flows, shock- heated gas, and young star clusters in Markar ian 266". A J, 14 4, 43 (2012). *McKinley, B.; Br iggs, F.; Kaplan, D.L .; Greenhill, L .J.; Bernardi, G.; Bowman, J.D.; de Oliveira- Costa, A .; Tingay, S.J.; Gaensler, B.M.; Oberoi, D. and 42 coauthors. "Lowfrequenc y obser vat ions of the moon w ith the Murchison Widefield Array ". A J, 145, 2 3 (2013). Mickaliger, M.B.; Lor imer, D.R.; Boyles, J.; McL aughlin, M. A .; Collins, A .; Hough, L .; Tehrani, N.; Tenney, C.; Liska, A .; Sw iggum, J. "D iscover y of five new pulsars in archival data". ApJ, 759, 5 (2012). *Middelberg, E.; Deller, A .T.; Norr is, R.P.; Fotopoulou, S.; Salvato, M.; Morgan, J.S.; Br isken, W.; Lutz, D.; Rov ilos, E. "Mosaiced w ide - field VLBI obser vat ions of the Lockman Hole/ XMM". A& A , 551, A97 (2013). Mingo, B.; Hardcastle, M.J.; Croston, J.H.; Evans, D. A .; Kharb, P.; Kraf t, R.P.; Lenc, E. "Shocks, Sey fer ts, and the supernova remnant connec t ion: a Chandra obser vat ion of the Circ inus galax y ". ApJ, 75 8, 13 (2012). *Moore, T.J.T.; Urquhar t, J.S.; Morgan, L .K.; Thompson, M. A . " The effec t of spiral arms on star format ion in the Galax y ". MNR A S, 426, 701-707 (2012). *Ng, C.-Y.; Kaspi, V.M.; Ho, W.C.G.; Weltevrede, P.; Bogdanov, S.; Shannon, R.; Gonzalez, M.E. "Deep X- ray obser vat ions of the young high- magnet ic- field radio pulsar J1119 - 6127 and supernova remnant G292.2- 0.5". ApJ, 761, 65 (2012). *Oliver, S. J.; Bock, J.; Alt ier i, B.; Amblard, A .; Arumugam, V.; Aussel, H.; Babbedge, T.; Beelen, A .; BÈthermin, M.; Blain, A .; Seymour, N. and 93 coauthors. " The Herschel Mult it iered Ex tragalac t ic Sur vey: HerMES". MNR A S, 424, 1614 1635 (2012).

Lor imer, D.R.; Lyne, A .G.; McL aughlin, M. A .; Kramer, M.; Pavlov, G.G.; Chang, C. "Radio and X- ray obser vat ions of the intermit tent pulsar J1832+0029". ApJ, 75 8, 6 (2012).

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*Wardlow, J.L .; Cooray, A .; De Bernardis, F.; Amblard, A .; Arumugam, V.; Aussel, H.; Baker, A .J.; BÈthermin, M.; Blundell, R.; Bock, J.; Seymour, N and 75 coauthors. "HerMES: candidate grav itat ionally lensed galax ies and lensing stat ist ics at submillimeter wavelengths". ApJ, 762, 28 (2013). *Warren, S.R.; Sk illman, E.D.; St ilp, A .M.; Dalcanton, J.J.; Ot t, J.; Walter, F.; Petersen, E. A .; Kor ibalsk i, B.; West, A . A . " Trac ing cold HI gas in nearby, low- mass galax ies". ApJ, 757, 8 4 (2012). White, G.J.; Hatsukade, B.; Pearson, C.; Takagi, T.; Sedgw ick, C.; Matsuura, S.; Matsuhara, H.; Serjeant, S.; Nakagawa, T.; Lee, H.M. and 11 coauthors. "A deep ATC A 20 cm radio sur vey of the AK ARI Deep Field South near the South Eclipt ic Pole". MNR A S, 427, 1830 -18 4 6 (2012). *Whit ing, M.; Humphreys, B. "Source - finding for the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder ". PA SA , 29, 37 1-381 (2012). Wong, G.F.; Filipov ic, M.D.; Craw ford, E.J.; Tothill, N.F.H.; De Hor ta, A .Y.; Galv in, T.J. "New 20 - cm radio - cont inuum study of the Small Magellanic Cloud: Par t III - Compac t HII regions". SerA J, 185, 53- 6 4 (2012). *Yu, M.; Manchester, R.N.; Hobbs, G.; Johnston, S.; Kaspi, V. M.; Keith, M.; Lyne, A .G.; Qiao, G.J.; Rav i, V.; Sark issian, J.M. and 2 coauthors. "Detec t ion of 107 glitches in 36 southern pulsars". MNR A S, 429, 688-7 24 (2013). *Zinn, P.- C.; Blex, S.; Seymour, N.; Bomans, D.J. " X- ray stack ing of Lyman break galax ies in the 4 Ms CDF-S. X- ray luminosit ies and star format ion rates across cosmic t ime". A& A , 5 47, A 50 (2012).

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The Australia Telescope Compac t Array (along w ith Parkes Obser vator y) hosted students par t ic ipat ing in the C A SS undergraduate summer vacat ion scholarship program in Januar y 2013. T h i s p h o to g r a p h o f t h e C o m p a c t Array at night was taken by one of the students, Charles Li. See page 30 for a repor t on the student vacat ion program. Credit: Charles Li.

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