Optical instrumentation prototyping could be made significantly faster and cheaper with the availability of on-demand, customisable opto-mechanical components.

In this project the student will investigate the feasibility of a 3D printed deformable mirror with an embedded water-cooling system, and its expected performance under extreme heat conditions based on the selected material and actuator configuration.

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

This project has two components: developing the science case for the instrument, defining the mission parameters that are necessary to ensure the science goals are achieved; and, for a student so inclined, physically building the telescope and camera system.

A new search for strong gravitational lenses in the MAGPI survey

A resolved star formation study of galaxies using TYPHOON

Obtaining a good understanding of the physics of star formation remains one of the main problems in astrophysics today. The formation of stars determines the structure, evolution and luminosity of galaxies, and quite possibly contributed to the reionisation of the early Universe.

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

A student undertaking this project will review the existing methods, and assess their suitability in MAVIS, including implementation and testing of a method to actively cancel telescope vibrations with the adaptive optics control loop.

The AITC requires a generalised adaptive optics (AO) test bench in order to test experimental and research AO designs and technologies, as well as to verify AO instrumentation. The test bench will be built using in house optical components and be driven by software written in Python.

In this project you will use existing and new data to understand the nature of filamentary structure in galaxies and how they relate to magnetic fields.

Measuring asteroid properties with the Kepler Space Telescope to find Future Asteroid Mining Targets

This project aims to measure both distances and velocities for 100,000 galaxies and so map the visible and dark matter within a billion light-years.

In the spectra of distant stars, we can often find a series of absorption features, such as Diffuse Interstellar Bands (DIBs) or those of neutral atomic potassium, K I. Although the exact carriers of DIBs are still a matter of debate, various candidates have been proposed over the years.

The successful applicant will join the ANU team and will participate in the design and testing of the Adaptive Optics Tracking and Pushing (AOTP) system.