Rob Sharp

AAOmega Fellow

Anglo-Australian Observatory

This really needs rather more work, perhaps next week.....

I'm currently working as instrument scientist for the AAOmega spectrograph at the Anglo-Australia Observatory based in Sydney.

As support astronomer for the AAOmega system I spend a portion of my time helping visiting astronomer to define, setup and observe their research programs using the powerful, if somewhat complex, AAOmega observing system on the Anglo-Australian Telescope.

I studied for my PhD in observational astronomy at the Institute of Astronomy of the University of Cambridge, where I also worked for a number of years as instrument support for the the CIRPASS infra-red spectrograph.


The 3.9m Anglo-Australian Telescope.	The 2dF robotic fibre positioner at the top end (prime focus) of the AAT.	The AAOmega spectrograph, which is fed light via the AAT and the optical fibres from 2dF.

Current Research projects

Quasar Host Galaxies, and their black hole masses
WiggleZ - Dark Energy project
Molecular emission and absorption in the Red Rectangle, and other Interstellar environments

This work is in collaboration with Sydney Universities Laser Spectroscopy Group
Astrophysical molecular spectroscopy workshop 25th September 2007

Astronomical Images

Since most of my research work involves astronomical spectroscopy, I don't tend to get the chance to take pretty pictures. So here are some I've borrowed from other people, although I do claim to have worked on observations of all of them. Most of the pictures were found on the Astronomical Picture of the day web site, a fantastic collection of amateur and professional astronomical pictures.

This image is created (in false colour) using three optical filters. Green, is a broad band image which roughly corresponds to green light (V band), hence all of the stars have a greenish colour in the image as it is scaled here. Blue light is from an image taken in the light emitted by ionized Oxygen atoms ([OIII]), the the Red light comes from emission from Hydrogen atoms (H-alpha). The image is of a region on the "Large Magellanic Cloud". The image is centered on a strong X-ray source (the brightest in the LMC) which was studied in a recent paper based on observations taken with the ESO-VLT in Chile for a an AAO summer student project (Cooke et al. arXiv:0708.2314v1). The picture was made using a Wide Field Imager, on a smaller telescope also at ESO in Chile.
	The Red Rectangle is a peculiar object. A Proto-Planetary Nebula, the death throws of a star of around the mass of the sun, but with (almost) unique structure and showing strong molecular emission features in it's spectrum which no one has as yet identified, but which we have demonstrated are well matched to "sequence structure emission from PAH molecules". The Hubble Space Telescope image to the left shows some of the incredible structure in the nebula, while the older photographic image, taken at the AAT by David Malin, shows where the objects gets its name.
Centaurus A is a nearby giant elliptical galaxy which harbors a super-massive black hole at its center. A dark dust lane, material in a warped disc around the galaxy, is seen silhouetted against the bright centre of the galaxy, in this images from the European Very Large Telescope in Chile.
	Eta Carinae is one of the most massive stars known. It's also about to explode. This spectacular image from the Hubble Space Telescope shows some of it's detailed structure.