Astronomy Vacation Jobs

A number of universities and observatories offer summer vacation scholarships in astrophysics. Apart from the money, these are a great way to get a taste for research in astrophysics. We would be pleased to write references for any of you wishing to apply.

The Anglo-Australian Telescope, courtesy Barnaby Norris

Here at UQ, closing date in September

UQ main link for applications

Project 1: Galaxies with a frosting of star formation

• Description: Galaxy frosting refers to the (unexpected) presence of small populations of young stars in old galaxies that light up their outer regions with intense blue light. In this project you will measure the ultraviolet-to-optical colours of galaxies near large clusters of galaxies to determine how much frosting they are experiencing so we can test models of this process. Our ultraviolet data come from the GALEX satellite http://www.galex.caltech.edu/newsroom/glx2008-02f.html
• Supervisor: Dr Kevin Pimbblet, St Lucia room 69-809, pimbblet (at) physics.uq.edu.au

Project 2: Forensic astronomy: using chemical analysis to determine the origin of the smallest galaxies

• Description: We have discovered the smallest type of galaxy every seen, but we still can't explain how they were formed. In this project you will use data from the Gemini telescopes in Hawaii and Chile to measure the chemical composition of these strange little galaxies and test the two main theories for their origin.
• Supervisor: Prof Michael Drinkwater, St Lucia room 69-815, m.drinkwater (at) uq.edu.au

Project 3: Probing the distant universe for galaxy clusters

• Description: Here at UQ we are co-leading the WiggleZ Dark Energy project which will locate 200,000 massive galaxies in the largest volume survey of our Universe ever made. In this project you will design and apply an algorithm to find large galaxy clusters in the survey data and measure their properties.
• Supervisor: Dr Kevin Pimbblet, St Lucia room 69-809, pimbblet (at) physics.uq.edu.au

International Facilities (the best deal!)

radio: Australia Telescope National Facility (Aug 30)

Universities

Australian National University - Mount Stromlo (Aug 31)

University of Sydney (Sep 18)