This loads a font easier to read for people with dyslexia.
This renders the document in high contrast mode.
This renders the document as white on black
This can help those with trouble processing rapid screen movements.

APT news no. 4

From: <pge_at_email.protected>
Date: Fri, 2 Dec 2005 17:49:37 +0900 (JST)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

 ASIA PACIFIC TELESCOPE Newsletter no. 4 2005-dec-02

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

MOLONGLO 40th ANNIVERSARY (1965-2005)

The 40th anniversary of the Molonglo Telescope was celebrated over
November 17-18. A symposium was held at the University of Sydney School
of Physics on the 17th, followed by a dinner at Women's College, and a
barbecue lunch at the Molonglo site on the 18th. Attendance was
excellent, with over 50 people at each event. It was very pleasing in
particular that Bernie Mills was able to attend, and everyone enjoyed
the opportunity to meet or catch up with him.

The symposium included entertaining and illuminating reviews of past
achievements, intriguing current results, and exciting plans for
future continued operation of the Molonglo telescope in an upgraded
mode as a technology prototype for the Square Kilometre Array. The
dinner was enlivened by an absorbing presentation by Bob Frater,
currently vice-president for innovation at ResMed, and formerly
closely involved with early developments at Molonglo. The barbecue
at Molonglo allowed interaction between astronomers and some of the
local residents whose close proximity to the site makes them keenly
interested in the operation and maintenance of the telescope. The
formal portion of the barbecue lunch concluded with the local federal
member of parliament, Gary Nairn, Parliamentary Secretary to the
Prime Minister, presenting the Molonglo Observatory Director,
Anne Green, with a plaque commemorating the event. Further details
and pictures from the event are available from the symposium website,
http://www.physics.usyd.edu.au/astrop/molonglo40/ .

The GOLDSTONE-APPLE VALLEY RADIO TELESCOPE (GAVRT)

An unusual school-student-based program is now making a contribution
to radio astronomy in the Asia-Pacific region. This goes by the name
GAVRT, for "Goldstone-Apple Valley Radio Telescope", and is a
partnership between the Lewis Center for Educational Research and JPL
(http://www.lewiscenter.org/gavrt/). The aim of the program is to give
school children of all ages and their teachers the opportunity to join
scientists as an interactive team conducting cutting-edge radio
astronomical research. This they do by operating one of the Deep Space
Network's historic 34m antennas, DSS 12, the "Echo" station, to
measure the flux densities at 2.3 and 8.4 GHz, the standard DSN
S- and X-Band frequencies. DSS 12 is now named the Michael J. Klein
Radio Observatory: Dr Mike Klein, who was one of the founders of GAVRT
a decade ago, tragically passed away last May.

One of the programs is the Quasar Variability Study, QVS, where the
students make measurement of the intra-day flux density variability,
IDV, of selected radio sources. Already the persistent nature of such
variability has been established in B0059+581, one of the largest
amplitude IDV sources found in the 5 GHz VLA MASIV Survey (Lovell et
al., 2003, AJ, 126, 1699). In addition to the QVS program, the GAVRT
schools -- numbering more than 60 across the US, Japan and Europe --
are carefully monitoring the variability of the thermal and
non-thermal emission from Jupiter, Uranus and, most recently, Mars.

IVS NICT TDC NEWS

The latest issue of the IVS NICT TDC News -- which, in full, is the
International VLBI Service for Geodesy and Astrometry National
Institute of Information and Communications Technology Technology
Development Center News -- is available by following the link to the
26th issue at http://www.nict.go.jp/ka/radioastro/tdc/news-index.html .

ATNF PROPOSALS

ATNF has moved to a new on-line proposal application system, OPAL,
which can be accessed at http://opal.atnf.csiro.au. Applications sent
using the previous latex forms will not be accepted! The deadline for
proposals for the 2006 April semester, for observations with the
Australia Telescope Compact Array, Parkes, Mopra, and Tidbinbilla 70m
telescopes, or VLBI observations, is 13:59 UT on 15 December 2005.

UPCOMING CONFERENCES

The Grote Reber Memorial Conference, "New Techniques and Results in
Low Frequency Radio Astronomy" will be held in Hobart, Australia,
from December 6-10, 2005 (http://www.phys.utas.edu.au/reber/).

The 4th General Meeting of IVS (International VLBI Service for Geodesy
and Astrometry) will held in Conception, Chile from January 9-13, 2006.
The keynote of the meeting is "Next Generation VLBI2010" and all
speakers will be asked to address the keynote in their presentations.
The meeting website is http://ivscc.gsfc.nasa.gov/meeting/gm2006/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
APT website : http://www.vsop.isas.jaxa.jp/apt/
APT News editor : Phil Edwards (pge_at_vsop.<!--nospam-->isas.jaxa.jp)
Contributions by : Andrew Hopkins, David Jauncey
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Received on 2005-12-02 19:50:00