ASKAP-EMU: Overcoming the challenges of wide deep continuum surveys

Next-generation continuum surveys will be strongly constrained by dynamic range and confusion. For example, the ASKAP-EMU (Evolutionary Map of the Universe) project will map 75% of the sky at 20cm to a sensitivity of 10 μJy – some 45 times deeper than NVSS, and is likely to be challenged by issues of confusion, cross-identification, and dynamic range. Here we describe the survey, the issues, and the steps that can be taken to overcome them. We also explore ways of using multiwavelength data to penetrate well beyond the classical confusion limit, using multiwavelength data, and an innovative outreach approach to cross-identification

How to Make the Dream Come True: The Astronomers' Data Manifesto

Astronomy is one of the most data-intensive of the sciences. Data technology is accelerating the quality and effectiveness of its research, and the rate of astronomical discovery is higher than ever. As a result, many view astronomy as being in a 'Golden Age', and projects such as the Virtual Observatory are amongst the most ambitious data projects in any field of science. But these powerful tools will be impotent unless the data on which they operate are of matching quality. Astronomy, like other fields of science, therefore needs to establish and agree on a set of guiding principles for the management of astronomical data. To focus this process, we are constructing a 'data manifesto', which proposes guidelines to maximise the rate and cost-effectiveness of scientific discovery.Comment: Submitted to Data Science Journal Presented at CODATA, Beijing, October 200

Evolutionary Map of the Universe

EMU is a wide-field radio continuum survey planned for the new Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) telescope, due to be completed in 2012. The primary goal of EMU is to make a deep ($\sim 10\mu$Jy/bm rms) radio continuum survey of the entire Southern Sky at 1.4 GHz, extending as far North as +30$\deg$ declination, with a 10 arcsec resolution. EMU is expected to detect and catalog about 70 million galaxies, including typical star-forming galaxies up to z=1, powerful starbursts to even greater redshifts, and AGNs to the edge of the Universe. EMU will undoubtedly discover new classes of object. Here I present the science goals and survey parameters.Comment: The Spectral Energy Distribution of Galaxies Proceedings IAU Symposium No. 284, 2011, R.J. Tuffs & C.C.Popescu, ed

"Bridging the Gap" through Australian Cultural Astronomy

For more than 50,000 years, Indigenous Australians have incorporated celestial events into their oral traditions and used the motions of celestial bodies for navigation, time-keeping, food economics, and social structure. In this paper, we explore the ways in which Aboriginal people made careful observations of the sky, measurements of celestial bodies, and incorporated astronomical events into complex oral traditions by searching for written records of time-keeping using celestial bodies, the use of rising and setting stars as indicators of special events, recorded observations of variable stars, the solar cycle, and lunar phases (including ocean tides and eclipses) in oral tradition, as well as astronomical measurements of the equinox, solstice, and cardinal points.Comment: Proceedings of IAU Symposium 278, Oxford IX International Symposium on Archaeoastronomy, International Society for Archaeoastronomy & Astronomy in Culture (ISAAC), held in Lima, Peru, 5-9 January 2011. 9 pages, 4 images, 1 table (Accepted

Songlines and Navigation in Wardaman and other Australian Aboriginal Cultures

We discuss the songlines and navigation of the Wardaman people, and place them in context by comparing them with corresponding practices in other Australian Aboriginal language groups, using previously unpublished information and also information drawn from the literature. Songlines are effectively oral maps of the landscape, enabling the transmission of oral navigational skills in cultures that do not have a written language. In many cases, songlines on the earth are mirrored by songlines in the sky, enabling the sky to be used as a navigational tool, both by using it as a compass, and by using it as a mnemonicComment: accepted by JAH

The Life and Times of the Parkes-Tidbinbilla Interferometer

The Parkes-Tidbinbilla took advantage of a real-time radio-link connecting the Parkes and Tidbinbilla antennas to form the world's longest real-time interferometer. Built on a minuscule budget, it was an extraordinarily successful instrument, generating some 24 journal papers including 3 Nature papers, as well as facilitating the early development of the Australia Telescope Compact Array. Here we describe its origins, construction, successes, and life cycle, and discuss the future use of single-baseline interferometers in the era of SKA and its pathfinders.Comment: Accepted by Journal of Astronomical History & Heritage. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1210.098