Finally my paper studying the Ophiuchus star-forming region is done and dusted and has been accepted for publication. Thanks to one of my intrepid co-authors, that paper appeared today on astro-ph, the preprint paper listing for astronomy and astrophysical theses.

We re-analyse all of the archive observations of the Ophiuchus dark cloud L1688 that were carried out with the submillimetre common-user bolometer array (SCUBA) at the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT). For the first time we put together all of the data that were taken of this cloud at different times to make a deeper map at 850 microns than has ever previously been published. Using this new, deeper map we extract the pre-stellar cores from the data. We use updated values for the distance to the cloud complex, and also for the internal temperatures of the pre-stellar cores to generate an updated core mass function (CMF). This updated CMF is consistent with previous results in so far as they went, but our deeper map gives an improved completeness limit of 0.1 Mo (0.16 Jy), which enables us to show that a turnover exists in the low-mass regime of the CMF. The L1688 CMF shows the same form as the stellar IMF and can be mapped onto the stellar IMF, showing that the IMF is determined at the prestellar core stage. We compare L1688 with the Orion star-forming region and find that the turnover in the L1688 CMF occurs at a mass roughly a factor of two lower than the CMF turnover in Orion. This suggests that the position of the CMF turnover may be a function of environment.

It is a study of star formation and prestellar cores, the objects that precede protostars. You can access the online abstract and get more information at arXiv.org or simply download the PDF from Orbiting Frog.

You may have noticed that I have ‘fallen off the internet’ this week, as a friend of mine recently said in a text message. Well the reason is that I have been attending a meeting about star formation and the Spitzer Space Telescope.

I am part of the Gould Belt Survey team working with Spitzer legacy data. Currently I am sat in a meeting but I thought I would post an entry explaining my absence from the web, which will actually continue for the next couple of weeks.

I may still posts the odd cool Digg story and the Abram’s Skynotes will continue. In the meantime, keep the emails coming in and watch out for the space station in the next few days. there are some more good sighting awaiting all of us.

I’ve not much to say about this other than that it is a very cool image. I took it on Wednesday during Cardiff University’s Dragonfly Day. As well as making our own spectrometers there was also an experiment to deduce the contents of several mystery cups. All were white or see-through liquids. Using just their sense of smell and a UV blacklight, participants had to figure out what was inside each cup.

Just so you know, the contents were:

• A Suncream
• B Washing Power (for clothes)
• C Shampoo
• D Toothpaste
• E PVA Glue
• F Lemon Juice
• G Double Cream
• H Tonic Water
• I UV Sensitive Body Paint

The powers that be have decreed that some ereas of physic are more equal than others. The BBC has a good summary.

The skinny is that they are giving the chop to:

• Support for the Integral space telescope and the Veritas observatory.
• Bison, an observatory network pursuing solar-terrestrial physics.
• Astrogrid, which ties together astronomy datasets for research, will also lose its financial support.
• The eMerlin radio astronomy network, based on the famous Jodrell Bank Observatory near Manchester, will get an STFC contribution but will need extra resources to continue.

The STFC said discussions with stakeholders were taking place to ensure its viability. And it added that other investments, notably in the international Square Kilometre Array project led by the University of Manchester, meant Jodrell would continue to be an important hub for radio astronomy research.

Areas considered to be a high priority for the UK include work on detecting gravitational waves, and space telescopes that image the Universe in the infrared.

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Physics names winners and losers

The problem is that the detector arrays for the device are currently at the NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) lab in Boulder, Colorado where a ‘radiation incident’ has taken place. Contamination from plutonium means that no one can enter the lab and the detectors are currently inside.

The incident is described on the NIST website, which says that “a small plutonium spill occurred on June 9″. The sample that is thought to have caused the leak would have contained just one-quarter of a gram of plutonium. This seemingly tiny portion of radioactive material was accidentally spread around by a lab worker who also used a sink to wash his hands while contaminated.

The lab has since been inspected and many surfaces are contaminated including “the floor [and] various tabletops and surfaces, consistent with a spread of material by hands and shoes”. NIST are working with experts and hope to have the situation resolved soon.

Meanwhile, SCUBA-2 has to wait. It has now been two weeks and as soon as the science team can get their hands on the arrays they hope to begin the next phase of work and try to bring to life a device which many have been waiting for with anticipation.

SCUBA-2, and its orbital cousin Herschel, will begin a new era for the science of star formation and submillimetre observing. You’ll hopefully be hearing a lot more about both these instruments right here in the weeks and months to come.

“Almost one in four secondary schools in England no longer has any specialist physics teachers, a survey suggests.”

BBC NEWS | Education | Physics teacher shortage warning

Imperial College, London is piloting entrance exams because A-Levels do not do their job and I can testify that even in the almost-10-years since I started university, standards for starting the physics course in Cardiff have dropped. Why can’t we convince people that maths and science are interesting, exciting and fun? Worse still, why has it become a badge of honour to be bad at mathematics?

I sound like my mother! Which is a good thing because we need more people like her if we’re going to fix the mess we’ve slowly slid into. She currently lectures in maths education, teaching the teachers of the future.

This PDF is taken from a recent report on maths education in the UK, which claims that GCSEs have become ’shallow’ in that they cover more topics but to less depth. BBC NEWS | Education | Maths exams ‘have become easier’

We were just chatting in coffee and the topic of ‘light bulb’ jokes came up (along with some serious dubious jokes involving snowmen). Here are some astronomy examples of the staple ‘light bulb’ joke. Please add any more in the comments.

Q. How many physicists does it take to change a light bulb?
A. Eleven. One to do it and ten to co-author the paper.

Q. How many astronomers does it take to change a light bulb?
A. None, astronomers prefer the dark.

Q. How many radio astronomers does it take to change a light bulb?
A. None. They are not interested in that short wave stuff.

Q. How many general relativists does it take to change a light bulb?
A. Two. One holds the bulb, while the other rotates the universe.

Q. How many science fiction writers does it take to change a light bulb?
A. Two, but it’s actually the same person doing it. He went back in time and met himself in the doorway and then the first one sat on the other one’s shoulder so that they were able to reach it. Then a major time paradox occurred and the entire room, light bulb, changer and all was blown out of existence.

Q. How many infra-red astronomers does it take to change a lightbulb?
A. Two, one to change it, and one to bang on about the one they once changed while they were at the VLT.

SCUBA-2 can scan the sky much faster than SCUBA and will allow researchers to measure the properties of protoplanetary disks around young stars, amongst other things. Exciting stuff. It is however very big.

Whereas SCUBA was comparable to a hefty water-heater, SCUBA-2 is more like a minivan. Mostly this is because of the cryostat that is required to keep the technology inside SCUBA-2 at a very low temperature. This technology has been developed principally in Edinburgh but also in Cardiff as well a few other places.

I saw SCUBA-2 in Edinburgh in 2006 and noted its large size at the time. When I observed at the JCMT last November (2007) I asked how on Earth they intended to get the the very expensive SCUBA-2 inside the very expensive JCMT without damaging either. The answer gave was that it would be tricky, and now thanks to a series of photos from April 2nd and 3rd I know what they meant.

The full gallery of 600 photos can be found on the Joint Astronomy Centre’s JCMT pages. There is also a fairly large animated GIF file (22MB) if you would like to see the installation in action.