RSAA School Director

Welcome to the final Lunations of 2024.

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Siding Spring Observatory

After an eventful October that included Starfest, the AAT 50th Anniversary Symposium and the recoating of the 2.3m mirror, I would have thought that things would quiet down a bit in November...

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GMT Laser Tomography Adaptive Optics (LTAO) Delta Preliminary Design Review

If you were not listening to Arctic Monkeys or Justin Bieber, you may remember some important events that took place in 2013: The death of Nelson Mandela and Margaret Thatcher, the Edward Snowden leaks and obviously, the successful Preliminary Design Review of the Great Magellan Telescope (GMT) Laser Tomography Adaptive Optics (LTAO) system at the AITC. After that, the instrument design took a 10-year hiatus which leaves me plenty of time to explain what LTAO is:

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Little writing, little retreat-ing makes for a good writing retreat

The postdoc application season is fraught with uncertainties. The treacherous path to success is riddled with tears, sweat, myths, and anecdotes passed down from generation to generation of students and postdocs. Though little can be done for the tears and sweat, the PostDoc Pirates took up the challenge of dealing with some of the mystique surrounding successful applications. 

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