Tag Archives: astrophotonics

2012

Galactic shutterbug

A new instrument at the Australian Astronomical Observatory (AAO) can sample the light coming from hundreds of galaxies per night—which can tell us new things about the universe.

Astronomer Sam Richards sitting in the prime focus cage at the Anglo-Australian Telescope, where the SAMI instrument usually sits. Credit: Jon Lawrence
Astronomer Sam Richards sitting in the prime focus cage at the Anglo-Australian Telescope, where the SAMI instrument usually sits. Credit: Jon Lawrence

Sydney-AAO Multi-object Integral field spectrograph (SAMI) can look at up to 100 galaxies in a night, because it can look at 60 different regions in each of 13 different galaxies, all at once.

But most observatories around the world can only do one galaxy at a time.
Continue reading Galactic shutterbug →

Stories of Astronomy 2012

Sifting sky data

THE GIANT MAGELLAN TELESCOPE. CREDIT: GIANT MAGELLAN TELESCOPE—GMTO CORPORATION.
The Giant Magellan Telescope may use Australian Starbugs technology when it begins operating in around 2018. Credit: Giant Magellan Telescope—GMTO Corporation

Imagine an extremely large optical telescope fitted with detectors that can selectively collect light from a particular section of the telescope’s focal plane. Using revolutionary robotic technology called Starbugs, the detector will reconfigure itself in real time to collect from any particular area of the image, and will feed the data into any analytical instrument.

That’s exactly what Matthew Colless and his team at the Australian Astronomical Observatory have in mind with the development of MANIFEST (the many-instrument fibre system)—which make use of the special photonic technologies developed by Joss Bland-Hawthorn and his team at the University of Sydney. Continue reading Sifting sky data →

Stories of Astronomy 2012

Bringing dark corners of the Universe to light

JOSS BLAND-HAWTHORN HOLDING A PHOTONIC LANTERN, A REVOLUTIONARY DEVICE TO ANALYSE THE LIGHT OF DISTANT STARS, INVENTED IN AUSTRALIA. CREDIT: CHRIS WALSH.
JOSS BLAND-HAWTHORN HOLDING A PHOTONIC LANTERN, A REVOLUTIONARY DEVICE TO ANALYSE THE LIGHT OF DISTANT STARS, INVENTED IN AUSTRALIA. CREDIT: CHRIS WALSH.

Using the Gemini South telescope in Chile, a team of astronomers led by Joss Bland-Hawthorn of the University of Sydney revealed the faint, outer regions of the galaxy called NGC 300, showing that the galaxy is at least twice the size as thought previously. The findings suggest that our own Milky Way galaxy could also be bigger than the textbooks say.

But Joss’s telescope observations are just a part of his contribution to astronomy. He is also helping to pioneer a new technology known as astrophotonics, which uses optical systems to improve our understanding of the Universe. Continue reading Bringing dark corners of the Universe to light →