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Episode 67, 29 MIN 32 SEC , MP3 FORMAT

400 Years of Astronomical Telescopes

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"Instead of orbiting the Earth, James Webb will be in a location called L2. Now L2, if you were to draw a straight line from the sun to the Earth and then continue out, it’s about 1.5 million kilometres out past the Earth in a straight line." - Prof Rachel Webster

Prof Rachel Webster

Prof Rachel Webster has a PhD from Cambridge University. She subsequently held research positions at Toronto in the Astronomy Department and at the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics. She has active research interests in gravitational lensing, quasars, clusters of galaxies and large-scale structure. Professor Webster is very much involved in the development of two 21st century radio telescopes, the Wide Field Array and the Australian Square Kllometre Array Pathfinder. Rachel is also Chair of the Space Telescope Science Institute Visiting Committee.

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USEFUL LINKS

Prof Rachel Webster

Publications

  • N.F. Bate, D.J.E. Floyd, R Webster, J Wyithe., A microlensing study of the accretion disc in the quasar MG 0414+0534., Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol 391, pp 1955 - 1960, 2009.
  • T. Anguita, R.W. Schmidt, E.L. Turner, J Wambsganss, R Webster, K.A. Loomis, D Long, R McMillan., The multiple quasar Q2237+0305 under a microlensing caustic., Astronomy & Astrophysics, Vol 480, pp 327 - 334, 2008.
  • N.D.R Bhat, R Wayth, H.S. Knight, J.D. Bowman, D Oberoi, D Barnes, F.H. Briggs, R. J. Cappallo, D Herne, J Kocz, C.J. Lonsdale, M.J. Lynch, B Stansby, J Stevens, G Torr, R Webster, J Wyithe., Detection of crab giant pulses using the mileura widefield array low frequency demonstrator field prototype system., Astrophysical Journal, Vol 665, pp 618 - 627, 2007. 

Astrophysics Group

School of Physics

Hubble Site

James Webb Space Telescope

Space Telescope Science Institute

International Year of Astronomy 2009

International Year of Astronomy 2009, Australia

 

CREDITS

Host: Dr Shane Huntington
Producers: Kelvin Param, Miles Brown and Dr Shane Huntington
Series Creators: Eric van Bemmel and Kelvin Param
Audio Engineer: Miles Brown
Theme Music performed by Sergio Ercole. Mr Ercole is represented by the Musicians' Agency, Faculty of Music
© The University of Melbourne, 2009. All Rights Reserved.
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Excellent episode

Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 07/07/2009 - 16:01.

What an excellent episode in this international year of astronomy. James Webb is an excellent example of a pure science project using international co-operation to further our collective knowledge. It deserves our full support in spite of the economic downturn as it reminds us that economic success isn't everything.

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Sky-disc of Nebra

Submitted by Anonymous on Mon, 06/08/2009 - 01:50.

I missed comments about the sky-disc of Nebra. Maybe that would have been an interesting starting point. Otherwise very interesting.

Best regards,

Helmer Tieben

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