Arrival

Mount Stromlo @100+: A Historical Perspective

• Speaker: Gary DaCosta

Galactic Archaeology at Stromlo since the 1960s:

• Speaker: Ken Freeman

Mount Stromlo Observatory and radio astronomy

• Speaker: Ron Ekers

Lindsay Smith, Louise Webster and I were PhD students from 1963-1967.  I will discuss the culture at Mt Stromlo in the 1960 Bart Bok era and give a little background on the strong historical connections between Mt Stromlo Observatory, radio astronomy and CSIRO.  I will touch on some aspects of my international career in radio astronomy that were strongly influenced by my PhD period at Mt Stromlo.

Morning Tea

Stellar Spectroscopy in Globular Clusters

• Speaker: Madeleine McKenzie

Globular clusters provide an unparalleled window into the dynamical and chemical conditions of the early Universe. While they have significantly contributed to our foundational knowledge of modern-day astronomy, understanding the origin of star-to-star elemental abundance variations remains a major challenge confronting the fields of star formation, stellar nucleosynthesis and chemical evolution. This talk will highlight the unique contributions of both high and low-resolution spectroscopic investigations to our understanding of these ancient, dense structures. Specifically, I will discuss how boutique analyses of exquisite, high-resolution spectra of the stellar system M22 suggest that this star cluster may be an ancient building block of the Milky Way. Additionally, I will demonstrate how a dedicated reanalysis of lithium abundances by Wang et al. using data from the large-scale spectroscopic survey GALAH has provided new insights into stellar evolution in evolved stars.

Searching for the Most Metal-Poor Stars

• Speaker: Thomas Nordlander

The oldest stars alive today carry small traces of some of the very first stars and supernova explosions in the Universe. We can learn about the earliest times through detailed analysis of their spectra. But these metal-poor second-generation stars are rare and difficult to find. I will present some of the work put into the search for the most metal-poor stars, and the things we have learned from them.

Data Driven Models of Galaxy Formation

• Speaker: Melissa Ness

The number of stellar spectra observed has grown exponentially over the last 100 years. Astronomers are now tasked with extracting information from millions of stellar spectra at different resolutions and wavelengths. This era of “big data” has driven the development of new approaches that leverage the data itself to build models to infer stellar properties. I will show examples of how data-driven models of both spectra and element abundances have achieved new insight into stellar populations and the formation of The Galaxy over time. I will also highlight a new RSAA-led program that combines data-driven analysis approaches with an ensemble of Milky Way and dwarf galaxy data in the pursuit of extra-galactic archaeology.

Lunch

Making the elements - chemical enrichment at Mt Stromlo

• Speaker: Chiaki Kobayashi

Carbon and heavier elements were not produced during the Big Bang but instead created inside stars, and are ejected when they die. Iron-peak elements are mainly produced by Type Ia supernovae - the ones used for supernova cosmology! Elements heavier than iron (such as gold) can be produced by neutron star mergers, although they alone cannot explain the observed "r-process" elements in the Milky Way. Our understanding of this nuclear astrophysics has been built based on extremely accurate analysis of nearby stars at Mt Stromlo over a half century. 

As a theorist I was privileged to work at the centre of stellar spectroscopy at the moment when the international community was shifting toward multi-object spectroscopy such as HERMES (in 2008-2011). In these studies, elemental abundances and isotopic ratios of stars are used as a fossil record to understand the history of the host galaxy - our Milky Way. Actually, these chemical compositions are available not only for stars but also for the interstellar medium with a photoionisation model such as MAPPINGS, also developed at Mt Stromlo. This allows us to apply the Galactic archeology approach to distant galaxies particularly with the James Webb Space Telescope. Contrary to what I predicted, quite a few very distant galaxies show very high N/O ratio (although some of these galaxies might be AGN). Trying to include all of these astrophysical processes, I am simulating chemical enrichment of the universe, and will give some interpretations and future prospects in this talk.

The Secrets of Radio Galaxies

• Speaker: Elaine Sadler

As a PhD student at Mt Stromlo, I set out to answer what seemed like a simple question - why do some nearby elliptical galaxies host strong radio sources, while others of similar appearance do not? In this talk, I'll first mention some of the very early work done by Mt Stromlo researchers and CSIRO colleagues to identify the host galaxies of strong radio sources. I'll then discuss how large optical redshift surveys, combined with new large-area radio imaging surveys, revolutionised the study of radio-galaxy populations from the 1990s onwards, and how the question that motivated my PhD work was finally answered. 

Understanding the influence of environment on galaxy evolution: an Australian perspective

• Speaker: Warrick Couch

The role of the environment in shaping the properties of galaxies subsequent to their formation is a fundamental question that has motivated a rich wealth of both observational and theoretical research over many decades. Tackling this question observationally has been the main focus of my research career, a journey which started with my PhD studies at Mount Stromlo Observatory in the late 1970’s. This talk will highlight some of the key contributions that have been made here in Australia to progressing understanding in this area. This will not only showcase observations made with Australia’s world-class optical telescopes, but also their highly innovative instrumentation technology, much of which has been developed and built here in Australian, including ANU. 

Dark Energy and Cosmology

• Speaker: Tamara Davis

In the quarter century since dark energy was discovered cosmologists have been on a mission to observe its properties ever more precisely.  By measuring how it behaves we are narrowing down the candidates for what it could be.  In this talk I’ll overview some of the recent tests of dark energy, focusing on Australia’s key role in this international endeavour.  Our efforts include measurements of the large scale structure of the Universe and of course type Ia supernovae — both of which have recently shown surprising hints that dark energy might have properties that change with time.

Afternoon Tea

The discovery of Fast Radio Bursts

• Speaker: Matthew Bailes

In this talk I will describe the detective work behind the discovery of fast radio bursts with the Parkes (Murriyang) radio telescope and briefly review the latest breakthroughs in this field.

Science in 3DHD with Facilities Small and Large

• Speaker: Rob Sharp

Instrumentation at Mount Stromlo has always been driven by scientific opportunity building on technical innovation. Led until recently by the vision, rigour and enthusiasm of Peter McGregor, the instrumentation program has confronted scientific, financial, and environmental challenges to deliver an exciting and robust program of astronomy with instruments on telescope in Australia, Hawaii and Chile. Each program builds on previous technical achievements to enable new science and secure a world class base for astronomy and wider technology applications. Here we briefly review the pathway to some of these innovations and look to what is coming next.

Instrumentation for Space

• Speaker: Anna Moore

The ANU Institute for Space (or InSpace) aims to solve society’s greatest challenges through ANU space capability, in partnership with industry, government and communities. Formed in 2018 as an initiative based initially at Mount Stromlo and leveraging its state of the art facilities and capabilities, InSpace is now the largest multidisciplinary space institute in Australia. I will present a brief journey of the Australian space sector since the formation of the Australian Space Agency in 2018, and Mount Stromlo’s impactful role in spearheading this national sector growth story.

Closing

• Speaker: Stuart Wyithe

100th anniversary Gala Dinner - Hyatt Hotel

6.30 arrival for 7pm start.