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167 Vimiera Rd,
Eastwood, NSW 2122, Australia
or PO Box 296
Epping, NSW 1710, Australia
Phone: (+61) 2 9372 4848 Fax:(+61) 2 9372 4880
Email: Use your brain and not an automated address harvester!
Build my email address from a username of ajm and a domain of aao.gov.au
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I work as an instrument scientist for the
Anglo-Australian Observatory.
That means I help design instruments (like cameras and spectrometers) that
go on big telescopes.
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As well as being involved with various other AAO projects, I'm currently:
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systems engineer on a conceptual design study for WFMOS,
a multi-thousand fibre spectrograph system for the Subaru 8-metre telescope, with primary responsibility for the fibre positioner and some other system components.
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systems engineer on a design study for WFMOS-A,
a 1600 fibre spectrograph system for the 4-metre Anglo-Australian Telescope.
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systems engineer on a feasibility study for PILOT,
a 2-m class optical/near-infrared telescope to be sited at Dome C, high on the Antarctic plateau.
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a project scientist on 'Starbug',
a positioning technology employing micro-robotic actuators to position sensor payloads (fibre, mirrors or other) within the focal plane of large telescopes
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supervising students for space science projects as part of their 'Astronomy Online' course with Swinburne University
Over the past few years at the AAO, I have also been
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project engineer for DAZLE,
a narrowband imaging system for the VLT 8-metre telescope in Chile
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project engineer for Ukidna,
a ~2200 fibre spectrograph intended to complete the RAVE survey on the UK Schmidt 1.2-metre telescope at Coonabarabran
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involved with a proposal for a miniature spectrograph to be carried on ESA's ExoMars Mars rover planned for 2009.
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involved with the IRIS-2
infra-red imager and multi-slit spectrograph, obtaining new sapphire grisms
for the instrument's spectrographic mode, and designing a
spectrographic display
as part of an IRIS-2 exhibit at Sydney's
Powerhouse Museum.
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helping with a design study for
'MOMFOS', an
Echidna-style
fibre positioner for the proposed
GSMT 30-metre telescope
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helping write an integration and test plan for the new 'AAO-2' system
to control the optical detectors used in instruments on the AAT 3.9-metre
telescope at Coonabarabran
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commencing a design study for a large-aperture, cryogenic tunable filter
for infrared imaging (IRTF)
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working on a proposal for a collaboration with Adelaide
and Macquarie Universities to develop an
interplanetary laser communications link
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helping to define CIRPoz, a project to combine the AAO-built
OzPoz
fibre positioner with the Cambridge-built
CIRPASS spectrograph. This project did not go ahead, because ESO
have advised they want to spend no money on it, but would rather wait till their
second-generation instruments are designed and built (specifically, KMOS).
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Vis and thermal IR
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My background
My undergrad training (University
of Adelaide)
is in Electronic Engineering, Applied Mathematics and Software Engineering. I
used that for around five years to work on various instrumentation
projects for a string of successively engulfed defence contractor companies,
working in Adelaide and California.
I spent another five years at Flinders
University, in the School of Earth Sciences, doing my PhD developing a
pulsed Doppler lidar system for wind velocity measurement. There I was part of
the Airborne Atmospheric Research Group, which subsequently grew into
Airborne Research Australia.
Through this group I became heavily involved with airborne instrumentation,
and flew research
aircraft both as mission scientist and pilot-in-command. I am probably
the only pilot ever to fly the aerosonde
unpiloted aircraft, when an aerosonde fuselage was mounted as a pod on one of
the G-109's hardpoints, for comparative measurements.
My PhD project grew beyond initial plans and came to heavily involve
the optics group
at Adelaide University, for the now-dominant laser development aspects.
Completing my PhD in 1998 (read my thesis!),
I followed my wife to the UK where she had a post-doctoral fellowship
with the University of Reading. I worked for some months writing
documentation tools for the IT company Oracle before starting work
with the Met Office.
My work in the Airborne Remote Sensing group of the Met Office was
largely concerned with passive remote sensing using microwave radiometers
aboard their Hercules research aircraft.
This work took me to an
amazing variety of places, including
Ascension Island and the Arctic
hundreds of miles north of Svalbard. (Photos
property of me!).
My professional interests are dominated by remote sensing, particularly
in the microwave and NIR, and particularly from airborne and spaceborne
platforms.
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Site Map
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Originally created on ... May 06, 2002
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Andrew McGrath's AAO homepage
