SRAP visits Siding Spring Observatory


SRAP organized a very special visit to Siding Spring Observatory (Coonabarabran, NSW) during the weekend of Saturday 21st and Sunday 22nd April. This visit was coordinated by our member, astrophysicist Ángel López-Sánchez (Australian Astronomical Observatory / Macquarie University). The 32 participants didn’t only visit the telescopes (the largest optical telescopes in Australia) and other science facilities on site, they also stayed at night at the new ANU Lodge at the Observatory (the very first time something like that is done) and enjoyed the observation of the night sky using amateur telescopes and astrophotography. SRAP participants also had the opportunity of seeing how professional astrophysicists work at night. All together with a special BBQ for dinner and fantastic and relaxing atmosphere! We all enjoyed the visit a lot, that we hope to repeat in 2019.

Some photos of the visit:

Credit of all the photos: Ángel R. López-Sánchez (AAO/MQU).

This photo of the Moon was obtained by some of the participants, each one took several of the individual frames that have been used to get this high-quality image of the Moon.


Angel.Lopez-Sanchez

About Angel.Lopez-Sanchez

Dr Ángel R. López-Sánchez is an astrophysicist and science communicator working at the Australian Astronomical Optics (AAO) and the Department of Physics and Astronomy of the Macquarie University (MQ) in Sydney (NSW, Australia). His research is focused in the analysis of star formation phenomena in galaxies of the Local Universe, especially in dwarf starbursts and spiral galaxies, using multi-wavelength (UV, optical, IR, radio) data. He presented his PhD Thesis at University of La Laguna and the Instituto Astrofisica de Canarias (Spain) in 2006. In 2007 he joined CSIRO Astronomy & Space Science (Sydney) with a postdoctoral position. He then joined the AAO (formerly the Australian Astronomical Observatory) and MQ in 2011. In July 2018 he was appointed as Senior Lecturer at AAO-MQ. He has been providing instrument and observing support at the Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT, Siding Spring Observatory, NSW) since 2011, being the instrument scientist of several instruments: the multi-fiber spectrograph 2dF+AAOmega and the near-infrared imager and spectrograph IRIS2. He also has large experience with integral-field spectroscopy (IFS), being a very active member of the SAMI collaboration at the AAT and part of the HECTOR Science Team. He currently is the Instrument Scientist of KOALA+AAOmega at the AAT, and leads the international astronomy survey "HI KOALA IFS Dwarf and irregular galaxy Survey" (Hi-KIDS), that is getting unique, high-quality IFS data of a sample of 100 nearby dwarf and irregular galaxies for which 21cm H I interferometric data is available He has large experience teaching undergraduate and PhD students and giving lectures and classes about Astronomy. Dr. López-Sánchez is passionate science communicator who continuously gives talks and public lectures, writes popular science articles and organizes science communication events and stargazing activities. He is very active in social media, his Twitter feed is @El_Lobo_Rayado.