Astronomy Astrophiz Podcast

Astrophiz 63: Prof Lisa Harvey-Smith ~ When Galaxies Collide This episode features one of the icons of modern astronomy, Professor Lisa Harvey-Smith, Astronomy researcher, author and presenter of ABC television's Stargazing Live. She uses the world's largest radio telescopes to study the life cycle of stars and develops new world-leading precursor telescopes building the Square Kilometre Array. We...

Astrophiz 62: Prof Peter Coles 'Why the Universe is Extremely Overrated'~ on Soundcloud & iTunes Our feature story for this episode ‘Why the universe is extremely overrated’ from the blog at telescoper.wordpress.com by Dr Peter Coles, who is a Professor of Theoretical Astrophysics at Cardiff University in Wales and Professor of Theoretical Physics at Maynooth University in Ireland. His research is...

Astrophiz 61: Dr. Natasha Hurley-Walker ~ Seeing the Universe in Radio Colour ~ on Soundcloud & iTunes Dr Natasha Hurley-Walker is a GaLactic and Extragalactic MWA Survey Scientist who earned her PhD in Radio Astronomy at the University of Cambridge and is currently a Curtin Early Career Research Fellow who helped to commission the low-frequency SKA precursor radio telescope, the Murchison Widefie...

Astrophiz 60: Dr Jane Kaczmarek ~ 'The Dish’ Intensified ~ on Soundcloud & iTunes A full-length feature episode on the installation of revolutionary receivers on the famous CSIRO Parkes Radio Observatory ‘The Dish’, featuring Dr Jane Kaczmarek who led the commissioning of the Ultra Wideband with Low receiver, the UWL. Dr Jane is a CSIRO research scientist and post-doctoral fellow who has her BSc i...

Astrophiz 59 Dr Ian Musgrave ~ Astrophotography 101 A full-length feature episode on astrophotography and astroimaging with Dr Ian Musgrave of Astroblogger fame. Ian is a University toxicology lecturer, amateur astronomer and astrophotographer, and he explains how to plan for a shoot, using telescopes, point&shoot cameras, and smartphone astrophotography, some worthwhile targets, some imaging soft...

Astrophiz 58 Dr Jessie Christiansen ~ Flying with @NASA_TESS to a billion planets Today our feature interview is with Dr Jessie Christiansen who started out in rural Queensland in Australia and is now a NASA Staff Scientist and working on exoplanet discovery with the just-launched TESS Mission. Follow @aussiastronomer on Twitter And that’s followed by university toxicology lecturer, amateur astron...

Astrophiz 57: Dr Elaina Hyde ~ Data Science & Astrophysics Our feature interview is with Dr Elaina Hyde. Dr. Hyde speaks four languages, has four undergraduate degrees in astronomy, physics, optical engineering and planetary sciences; two masters degrees in engineering and astronomy and astrophysics; and a Ph. D. in astronomy and physics. She is an artist, a cool coder, and shares her code on Gith...

In this episode we hear about weird Magnetars, Supercomputers and Gravitational Wave discoveries from Professor  Matthew Bailes. Dr Bailes  is the founder and Director of the Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing at Swinburne University, Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery (OzGrav). He is an advisor to the Breakthrough Listen project as well as leading th...

Our feature interview is with Kathryn Neugent, who is PhD Astronomy student researching massive stars at the University of Washington in Seattle, research associate at Lowell Observatory in Arizona, discoverer of an amazing runaway Yellow Supergiant in the Small Magellanic Cloud, Photographer, Backpacker, and animal lover pretty much anywhere and everywhere! Follow @KathrynNeugent on Twitter and h...

In this episode our feature interview is with Laura Driessen who is an astrophysicist and PhD candidate based at Manchester University who is working with the MeerTRAP team using radio and optical data from the SKA precursor MeerKAT array to pinpoint the sources of mysterious Fast Radio Bursts. For observers and astrophotographers Dr Ian Musgrave gives us ‘What’s Up Doc’ and he tells us what to lo...

In this episode we are speaking with astrophysicist and Indigenous Astronomer Kirsten Banks who is the Indigenous Astronomy Educator at the Sydney Observatory. She is a multiple award winner and CSIRO STEM Award finalist. For observers and astrophotographers Dr Ian Musgrave gives us ‘What’s Up Doc’ and tells us what to look for in our morning and evening skies. What planets, galaxies and nebula to...

Today we are at FRB2018 speaking with Dr Emily Petroff who is a Post-doc Researcher at the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy in Dwingeloo. Hosted at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne and sponsored by CAASTRO, this conference was dedicated to the still mysterious Fast Radio Bursts and attracted FRB researchers from all over the world. Among the first to conduct diagnostic rese...

Astrophiz 51: Dr David Gozzard - Telescope pilot taking the pulse of the Universe. In this episode we are speaking with Dr David Gozzard who is a Post-doc Researcher at the The International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research and lecturer at the University of West Australia. He is also a surf lifesaver, a 3D printer and model aircraft pilot, Astrophysics blogger and recipient of the 2017 West Aus...

We're baaack, after a fabulous EuroTour, with our second Asteroid Hunter show where we talk with Daniel Bamberger in Marburg Germany, then Guy Wells in London UK, who are the founders of the Northolt Branch Observatories, who are our most prolific confirmers of Asteroids, comets and NEOs. Then we cross to Adelaide in Australia to speak with regular presenter Dr Ian Musgrave, who features the upcom...

Have a fabulous Festive Season and Happy New Year Everyone! Some of the Astrophiz team is off on a jaunt through Europe/UK over December/January, so we will not be posting as usual. We are doing some interviews on our trip so we'll have some more fabulous Astrophiz episodes for you early in 2018. Today we leave you a beautiful festive tune, arranged by my daughter Lara for Piano, Cello & violin. L...

Astrophiz 48: Dr Jacinta Delhaize 'Star-forming frenzy' In this fabulous extended 60min episode we feature Dr Jacinta Delhaize who is a Postdoctoral Researcher at University of Zagreb, Faculty of Science in Croatia. Jacinta has devolved a ‘stacking technique’ to combine data to overcome the problem of detecting weak hydrogen signals from distant galaxies. She has been using data from the Parkes Di...

Astrophiz 47: Dr Phil Edwards - The SKA Today we are speaking with Dr Phil Edwards, Australia’s SKA leader from the CSIRO. He is now Head of ATNF (Australia Telescope National Facility) Science at the CSIRO and SKA Project Scientist. Phil is originally from South Australia and did his BSc, BScHons and PhD at the University of Adelaide, and he gives some great insights on the often meandering caree...

Astrophiz 46: Dr Tamara Davis “The Dark Universe" Today we are speaking with Professor Tamara Davis from the University of Queensland. Tamara is a renowned and extensively cited cosmologist who has won numerous prizes for her research. Dr Davis talks us through our understanding of dark energy and it’s role in the accelerating expansion of our universe and what it means for the ultimate fate of ou...

This week will be remembered as the ‘first light’ of the emerging science of Gravitational Wave Astronomy. To explain this breakthrough we speak with research astronomer, science communication and outreach officer Dr. Ángel López-Sánchez from the AAO, the Australian Astronomical Observatory, which played a key role in detecting and verifying radio wavelength observations of the neutron star kilono...

To understand how galaxies evolve, Dr Rebecca Allen uses Hubble and Keck images to study star-forming galaxies and galaxies that are not forming stars. Rebecca’s passion for both outreach and research makes for a exceptional episode as she paints a clear picture of galactic evolution. to help us understand some of the fundamental elements of our cosmos. For observers and astrophotographers, Dr Ian...

Astrophiz 43 – Cassini’s Legacy. As one of 30 very lucky Astrogeeks, Andrew P Street was a guest of the Canberra Deep Space Communications Complex on Friday 15 September 2017 to witness first hand the #GrandFinale of the astonishing 20 year Cassini Mission to Saturn. In this episode: With permission, we read Andrew P Street’s great article published in the Guardian the next day. Then Dr Ian Musgra...

Today we are speaking with Glen Nagle from the CSIRO/NASA Deep Space Communication Complex (CDSCC) at Tidbinbilla near Canberra in Australia. Glen takes us through the genesis of NASA missions and the astonishing achievements of the Cassini mission since the launch in 1997. He explains how the CDSCC establishes two-way communication with about 40 spacecraft, how command sets from JPL are transmitt...

Today we are speaking with Dr Hayley Bignall. Hayley is an astrophysicist for Australia’s CSIRO in their Astronomy & Space Science Division. After her studies, she spent 5 yrs working at the Joint Institute for VLBI in Europe and is now based in Perth, Australia. After spending about 7 years at The International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) at Curtin University, she joined CSIRO in...

Today we celebrate our 40th episode and 10,000+ downloads into 50+ countries. In this episode we feature Dr Alice Gorman ('Dr Spacejunk') who is a Space Archaeologist and Senior Lecturer at the Department of Archaeology, Flinders University in South Australia. She is a member of the Advisory Council of the Space Industry Association of Australia. Alice casts a new focus on WRESAT-1, Australia's fi...

In this episode Dr Ian 'Astroblog' Musgrave gives us an insightful approach to amateur astronomy, introduces us to basic equipment and cameras and iTelecope.net remote telescopes, tells us what to look for in the evening and morning skies and in his Tangent, give us more detail on occultations and how some asteroids can become comets. Ian is someone very familiar to Astrophiz listeners. For the la...