The ATNF facilities enable a wide diversity of science ranging from radio surveys of the sky, to long-term monitoring of astronomical objects to rapid follow-up of transient sources.

Past and current ATNF staff have been involved in a number of astrophysics research projects using our facilities and we describe some of the major science projects and provide access to their data products below.

The group publishes an ATNF Daily Astronomy Picture (ADAP) each work-day, which all ATNF users are welcome to contribute to. Publications by ATNF and/or arising from use of ATNF telescopes are listed in ATNF Annual Reports and in listings on our Publications page. ATNF staff can co-supervise PhD and MSc students enrolled with Australian or overseas Universities. ATNF now offers a four-year Bolton Fellowship every second year.

Our science projects

The ATNF facilities and ATNF staff are involved in a diverse range of science projects. These include studies of cosmology, analysis from the largest-scale structures in our Universe to tiny-scale atomic structures in the interstellar medium. We discover pulsars, fast radio bursts, radio stars, galaxies and mysterious objects such as the Odd Radio Circles. Here we describe some of our primary research areas and detail the relevant capabilities of our facilities that enable those science research areas.

Pulsars

All of the ATNF Facilities are used to study pulsars. Murriyang, our Parkes radio telescope, has discovered a large fraction of the known pulsars, the ATCA is used to study […]

A glowing orb is cut in half: one side purple, the other blue. A radio telescope dish sits in front.

Radio transients

With its wide field of view, ASKAP is ideal for finding and then localising radio transients. Murriyang, our Parkes radio telescope was used to discover the first fast radio burst […]

Multiple dishes of a radio telescope pointing to the sky

Our Galaxy

All of the ATNF facilities are involved in studying our Galaxy. ASKAP provides wide field of view continuum and spectral line surveys of our Galaxy, which are used to study […]

Galaxies and AGN

All our facilities have carried out wide-area surveys for extra-Galactic radio sources with both spectral line and continuum data products. Continuing such surveys in the 700 MHz to 1.8 GHz […]

A woman is silhouetted against a bright screen covered in points of light and the image of a telescope dish. She is pointing at the screen.

Wide area surveys

ASKAP is designed as a wide-field-of-view survey instrument. Details of the nine ASKAP Survey Science Projects are provided on the ASKAP Science webpage. The cryogenically-cooled phased array feed receiver on […]

An illustration where the Earth sits on an undulating web, surrounded by points of light. Beyond the points of light are pairs of black holes about to merge into each other.

Long-term monitoring

The ATNF Facilities are used to monitor radio sources over weeks, months, years and even decades. The ATCA can rapidly respond to a source varying and can monitor the changes […]