Prof. Martin Asplund
Australian National University
As part of establishing closer research collaborations and possible student
exchanges between USP and ANU, I will give an overview of recent and ongoing
research activities at the Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics at ANU,
commonly known as Mt Stromlo Observatory. The research at RSAA spans most
of astronomy with special focus on 1) Stellar and (Exo-)planetary physics,
2) Galactic archaeology, 3) Structure and evolution of the cosmos, 4) Black hole phenomena
and 5) Instrumentation. RSAA astronomers have led/are leading several
internationally renowned, high-impact projects, including: High-z SNe search,
2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey, MACHO, GALAH, solar chemical composition,
SkyMapper First Stars search and high-redshift chemical evolution.
The RSAA instrumentation group has built world-leading integral field spectrographs
and adaptive optics for large telescopes and is currently designing GMTIFS,
an approved first-generation instrument for GMT, which ANU is a partner in.
RSAA is also buying 15n/yr on Keck and is operating its own observatory,
the Siding Spring Observatory, with its SkyMapper and 2.3m telescopes,
as well as hosting a large number of other telescopes, including the 4m Anglo-Australian Telescope.
The second half of my talk will be devoted to a describing in more detail
our work on discovering the oldest and most metal-poor stars in our Galaxy
using the special capabilities of our SkyMapper imaging telescope. We have
recently found the first halo star without detectable iron ([Fe/H]<-7). I will
also describe our new exciting search for the first stars in the Galactic bulge,
where most of oldest stars are predicted to reside today.