Marcus Lower

Sadly a DECRA can only purchase up to 1/3rd of a house in Sydney, let alone a giant radio telescope…

Or just refurbished the one already there!

Does the telescope actually come with the land? And the buyer could (in theory) do whatever they want with the telescope?

Could tell the antennas were all pointed at the same spot and that data was streaming easily enough!

There was indeed a large cat. But only a single antenna…

Image of a computer screen filled with windows that show various telescope diagnostics and pictures of where they are pointed.

What babysitting a telescope the size of Australia looks like #RadioAstronomy

An institute or grant not budgeting for APCs is apparently a legitimate reason to ask RAS for a fee waiver!
I asked for one during a brief period between MNRAS going gold open access and my institution making a deal with them, and it was granted

And finally, some pulsars live in unusual locations.

Like this millisecond pulsar that I helped find in the central region of our Galaxy! And is embedded in a giant glowing filament of radio light!!

doi.org/10.3847/2041...

The dynamic magnetosphere of Swift J1818.0–1607 ABSTRACT. Radio-loud magnetars display a wide variety of radio-pulse phenomenology seldom seen among the population of rotation-powered pulsars. Spectropol

Some neutron stars have extremely powerful magnetic field and do all sorts of whacky things. Like emitting beams fast radio bursts 💥

Or behave in totally unexpected ways: doi.org/10.1093/mnra...

And imprint their magnetic fields on the emitted radio waves: doi.org/10.1038/s415...

There’s also a unique “double pulsar” that has provided an extremely powerful tool for testing relativity: www.aanda.org/articles/aa/...

And teaching us about what goes on in the magnetic fields of neutron stars: doi.org/10.1093/mnra...

The impact of glitches on young pulsar rotational evolution ABSTRACT. We report on a timing programme of 74 young pulsars that have been observed by the Parkes 64-m radio telescope over the past decade. Using modern

By carefully tracking the rotation rates of 100’s of pulsars, we’ve been able to peer into their insides: doi.org/10.1093/mnra...

And realise that both the rate at which their spins slow down and emit radio waves are A LOT more variable than once thought: doi.org/10.1093/mnra...

Apparently it’s #NeutronStarWeek, i.e the things I study for my day (and sometimes night) job!

More accurately I look at pulsars, which are neutron stars that are doing interesting things. Like emitting beams of radio waves from above their magnetic poles.

#Astronomy #RadioAstronomy

New repeating FRB found by ASKAP and confirmed with MeerKAT!
#RadioAstronomy #Astronomy

www.astronomerstelegram.org?read=17257

An infographic titled "Why are there two LIGO observatories?" features a map of the United States showing two LIGO locations separated by 3000 km. Three key reasons are illustrated on the right: Noise Discrimination: Each detector is sensitive to local ground vibrations. If both were close together, they’d pick up the same environmental noise, making it difficult to distinguish true gravitational waves. By comparing data from distant locations, LIGO can filter out local noise and isolate real gravitational wave signals. Signal Timing: Gravitational waves travel at the speed of light, so any signal detected at both sites with a time difference of over 10 milliseconds can be ruled out as a real wave. This time-based filtering helps validate detections. Source Localization: With two detectors, LIGO can begin to narrow down the area in the sky where a wave originated. Adding more detectors (like Virgo in Italy) greatly improves localization. This was crucial during the 2017 detection of a neutron star collision, where combined data allowed astronomers to quickly identify the galaxy that emitted both gravitational and electromagnetic signals, leading to the most observed astronomical event in history.

Why are there two LIGO observatories?

LIGO has two detectors ~3000 km apart for three main reasons:
🎧 Noise discrimination
⏰ Signal timing
🗺️ Source localization

Find out more www.ligo.caltech.edu/page/ligo-de...

Graphic by Mayara Pacheco 🔭🧪

Picture of a large group of Australian radio astronomers on the stage at the SKAO 2025 meeting.

Incredible showing from Australians past, present and future, at #SKAO2025 in Görlitz.

All very excited about getting the first data from the SKAO telescopes!

Aussie, Aussie, Aussie!

#RadioAstronomy

One of the more interesting conference venues!
#SKAO2025 #RadioAstronomy

Even managed to find some (VERY) good coffee! ☕️

Been a good couple of days in Germany so far

Title slide for a presentation. Background shows two pulsars surrounded by donut-shaped magnetic fields with beams of light emanating from above their magnetic poles. A distorted grid with ripples radiating away from the pulsars is shown behind them. Title text says “Shining a light through a neutron star magnetosphere”.

Sneak preview of what I’ll be talking about at the upcoming SKA Science Meeting in sunny Görlitz next week!!
#RadioAstronomy #DoublePulsarIsTheBestPulsar

Burn it with (pulsar) fire!!

A plain croissant sitting on a white ceramic plate, next to a cup of filter coffee

A cup of filter coffee with a card explaining the kind of beans used to make it. Card says “Uganda Wine Process — Single origin, Ethiopia / Anaerobic natural guji, uraga, oromia — Winey, berry candied fruits, chocolate

Coffee days ☕️

Wasn’t Sputnik 2 the first all-canine spaceflight…?

We’ve looked with Murriyang (the 64-m Parkes radio telescope) at 8-9 GHz, and still didn’t see any pulses from the object in the Snake. SKA-Mid should detect or rule out pulsed emission when it comes online in ~3-5 years.

Not-so fun fact: we looked *really* hard for pulses from the alleged pulsar in the Snake, and didn’t find any…

BUT we did find a millisecond pulsar embedded in different filament right next door! ☄️🔭

iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3...

Infographic about the exoplanet K2-18b and its discovery with Kepler

So I know folks have heard the news about an exoplanet that might be “teeming with life”? 🌱

I created a series of infographics that aims to cover the key points of the research findings + some of the area where scientists are sceptical! 🧐

Meet K2-18b! 👋

#astronomy #exoplanet #scicomm

Twinkling star reveals the shocking secrets of turbulent plasma in our cosmic neighbourhood

For the first time, astronomers have measured the plasma layers of a shock wave surrounding a pulsar.

Go work at the most beautiful telescope in the world!

I’d seriously consider applying myself if I hadn’t just started a fellowship…

Hmm, that’s disappointing. And kinda strange that a standard interface to big template banks doesn’t exist…

Question to any stellar spectroscopy people on here: when you report that a star is of a particular spectral class based on a template bank, what did you actually do to figure that out??

Is it all just vibes and eyeballing things? Or is there a standard tool that nobody references? 🔭☄️

Some of them are perhaps “young at heart” as opposed to genuinely young pulsars 😄