ATNF News 6 | June 2025
Welcome to the ATNF News. This edition aligns with a reminder that proposals for the coming semester (OCT25) are due Tuesday, 17 June (next week). As we have a dual-anonymisation process, please ensure you’ve taken all steps to keep your proposal anonymous. Tips are below.
It’s an exciting time for our facility. We have the CryoPAF available for shared-risk time on Murriyang, our Parkes radio telescope, as well as a second semester of CRACO. Meanwhile, the ongoing works for BIGCAT on the Australia Telescope Compact Array add to the promise of great science to come.
Much of this was covered in April’s Australia Telescope User Committee (ATUC) meeting, which includes an open session for the community. We also had an ATCA science day prior to the ATUC meeting, which was a chance for the astronomy community to consider opportunities for the telescope into the coming future, as infrastructure priorities change with the incoming SKA telescopes. You can find more information on this and the ATUC meeting on the website.
More recently, we held the first Bolton Symposium in five years. The Symposium provides a platform for the ATNF’s early-career research staff to showcase their research, develop collaborations, and engage in career development activities. The intention is for this to become a regular occurrence.
Upcoming is the ASA Annual Scientific Meeting. As part of this, on Wednesday, 9 July, ATNF will host a Town Hall to provide updates and an open forum for discussion.
Lastly, I’d like to welcome the new members of our Australia Telescope Steering Committee, including new Chair, Professor Lister Staveley-Smith. I’d like to thank the outgoing members and outgoing Chair, Professor Tara Murphy, for their exceptional work and support of the ATNF. Read more on our website.
Many thanks for being a part of our community.
Douglas Bock, ATNF Director
Murriyang gears up for another decade
Every twenty years or so, Murriyang, our Parkes radio telescope undergoes maintenance on its ball bearings and six-tonne gear boxes. This month, the gears were removed to be cleaned and machined ready for the next two decades.
The 1000-tonne dish structure sits on the tower’s azimuth track, from where it can be driven around. Then separate gears and motors drive the dish in zenith from its natural resting point (stowed). Because the dish’s counterweight is heavier than the dish itself, the stowed position is when the dish is pointing straight up.
Inbuilt hydraulics systems lift the dish millimetres off the track, enabling our site management team to remove the gears.
This is being done within our five-week scheduled shutdown, of which we are currently into the second week. The gearbox work will take up about four weeks, including testing and commissioning, to make sure Murriyang continues to move smoothly.
BIGCAT commissioning underway
Commissioning of the BIGCAT upgrade for ATCA is progressing well, with system testing currently underway. While early results are promising, further validation of different observing modes is still ongoing, and BIGCAT is not yet ready for general use. Once we have verified different observing modes, BIGCAT will be made available in shared-risk mode, and the observing schedule for the current semester will be released.
Users who submitted proposals at the last proposal deadline and are awaiting the current schedule may request pre-graded status for the next semester (2025OCTS). This means that the grade awarded last semester will be carried over for 2025OCTS, for up to the same time request. To request this, email the ATNF Time Assignment Committee Executive Officer, Elizabeth Mahony. A cover sheet and observation table (with the same proposal code) must still be submitted in OPAL, but no science justification is required. Please see the call for proposals for further details.
The BIGCAT RF upgrade, expanding the bandwidth to 8 GHz, is scheduled for later this year.
Meet Lawrence Toomey
So much of the work we do at the ATNF involves managing data and making it accessible for researchers around the world. From fast radio bursts to odd radio circles, a lot of great discoveries would not be possible without these pipelines, catalogues and archives. One of the people working behind the scenes on these is Lawrence Toomey, our senior research technician.
A furniture maker and joiner for 20 years, Lawrence undertook a dramatic career change into astronomy where he now focuses on the pipelines that archive data from Murriyang, our Parkes radio telescope and manages the ATNF pulsar catalogue, PSRCAT.
"I love supporting astronomers to do cutting edge science with our instruments, something I've done across my 12 years at CSIRO."
Last year had a particular highlight, with the publication of Lawrence’s first paper. The paper outlines SDHDF, a file format he led the development on, which solves the problem of storing massive datasets from telescope receivers with multiple beams, such as our CryoPAF receiver.
Tips on ensuring your proposal is anonymous
A dual-anonymous peer review (DAPR) process has become standard for many observatories and research facilities around the world, including the ATNF. The process aims to reduce instances of unconscious bias affecting the acceptance outcomes. This means that proposals should not identify any team member. The names and affiliations are also removed from the cover sheets when reviewed by the Time Assignment Committee (TAC).
Since this has been in place for several semesters, the TAC now has the ability to penalise proposals that identify authors in two ways:
Here are some examples of what would be penalised:
To ensure you don’t get caught out, here are some ways to provide this information in line with ATNF’s anonymity guidelines:
More examples and guidance can be found on other observatory websites, such as for the Hubble Space Telescope, and European Space Observatory.
If you have any further questions about the DAPR process, contact George Hobbs or TAC Executive Officer, Elizabeth Mahony.
National and international engagement
We are involved or participate in regular meetings around the world as part of the international astronomy community to share our great science and gather information on how we can be a valuable radio astronomy facility.
Recent meetings we were involved in:
Upcoming key meetings: