Students will work on technologies that enable high-data-rate optical communication links between satellites and ground stations, including quantum and classical communication systems. Demonstrations will be conducted with satellites in orbit and other test systems.

We are searching for ways to improve supernovae as distance indicators using a new low-redshift sample of type Ia supernovae.

Or team is working with major national and international detector vendors to develop novel new sensor systems that solve tricky problems not only for astronomy but also for more down-to-Earth issues such as Bushfire Hazard management from Low Earth Orbit remote sensing.

Atmospheric turbulence is the cause of degradation of resolution of telescopes in astronomy. Instruments have therefore been developed and equipped around observatories to monitor this turbulence. In this project, we will develop an instrument capable of measuring this turbulence during daytime through observations of stars in the infrared. This will result in the first turbulence profiler applicable during the day and useful to daytime astronomical observations, optical communications and satellite tracking.

CSIRO has a cold spray research group which is developing cold sprayed Invar. This project will be developing an optical metrology setup to measure the creep of the cold sprayed Invar in collaboration with CSIRO Lab22 in Clayton, Victoria.

This project aims to address the potential of Spatial Light Modulators (SLMs) as highly nonlinear optical elements, including their potential use in pyramid wavefront sensing.

Using both the Wide-Field Spectrograph (WiFeS) on the ANU 2.3m telescope and the 1.4 GHz radio band on the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA), the student will address how the radio jets from the supermassive black hole interact with the Seyfert host galaxy to affect the evolution of the galaxy.

Accreted stellar populations are comprised of the remnants of destroyed galaxies, and often dominate the 'stellar haloes' of galaxies such as the Milky Way.

The successful applicant will join the ANU team and will assist with the development of instrumentation for the optical communication team

This project aims to demonstrate the advantages of LGS-AO for deep space optical communications.

The Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) is being designed and built by an international consortium of institutions and will be the largest optical telescope in the world when it is completed around 2020.

This project requires significant data analysis efforts and some observational and theoretical efforts.

In collaboration with Omexom and the ACT Government, we are working on reducing light pollution in Canberra. This work involves aspects of using machine learning for monitoring, modelling population flows for automation, and looking at impacts on the environment as well cultural impacts.

This project aims use machine learning to identify and characterise these magnetic red giants in both the Kepler and TESS samples, cross match them with spectroscopic surveys such as APOGEE, and map their distribution, chemistry and motion across the Galaxy.

With this project we will be using the newly automated ANU 2.3m telescope and the powerful WiFeS optical spectrograph to perform a time-series measurement of luminous active galaxies (AGN) using the technique of Quasar Reverberation Mapping.