In March I will begin working at Oxford University, as a postdoctoral researcher in citizen science. The ‘post’-doctoral part of that title means that I must submit my PhD thesis by the end of this month. Eek! It has been on the boil for some time now, and I’m pleased to say that next week [...]
The Gould Belt is a vast ring of active stellar nurseries and molecuar clouds encircling our Solar System. I am part of the JCMT Gould Belt Survey and the Spitzer Gould Belt Survey who study the star-forming regions within it, but what is the belt – and how did it come to be?
Just a short post to draw your attention to this really cool collection of portraits by photographer Max Alexander. A wide range of people – all astronomers – are shown in quirky these photo portraits that refer to their fields of research.
I am running a conference in September and I’m inviting astronomers and astronomy bloggers from anywhere! If you’re interested in how astronomy and the internet can combine to produce new and interesting tools for research and communication then this conference is for you.
China’s Fengyun 1C satellite, which was destroyed intentionally by China last year, still presents a risk to satellites and other orbiting bodies. I have created a Google Earth file which will let you track the debris in real-time.
Two Oxford archaeologists have won the first ever ‘Dance Your PhD’ contest, which was held in Vienna last month. Dr Brian Stewart, (with help from one Giulia Saltini-Semerari) won the first annual contest by translating his thesis: “Refitting repasts: a spatial exploration of food processing, sharing, cooking and disposal at the Dunefield Midden campsite, South [...]
Over the summer I created a Google Sky layer that enabled anyone to access the entire SCUBA submm catalogue of maps and objects in a dynamic fashion. Google Sky was released in August and the open file format means anyone can create data for display. This layer is now publicly available thanks to help from [...]
The recent pass of Comet Holmes and today’s close approach of Asteroid 2007 TU24 (shown below, image from space.com) have gotten me thinking again about open source astronomy. I have always been fascinated by the internet and how modern networking technologies bring things into one big mesh, and astronomy fits right into this. All we [...]
Soon I will be off on an observing run in Hawaii. I will be using the 15m JCMT telescope on Mauna Kea to take spectral line data using an instrument called HARP.
Since this will be my first professional expedition I will be taking lots of pictures and notes as I try to get to grips [...]
Copyright © 2010 Robert J. Simpson. Twitter @orbitingfrog
