#02 2018
News
SARAO celebrates the successful completion of the SKA Telescope Manager Critical Design Review
The General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union to be hosted on African soil for the first time in 2024
US Embassy members visit Losberg and Carnarvon
European Union delegation visits SARAO Cape Town office
First cohort of SARAO-sponsored Northern Cape matrics progressing well at university
2017 SARAO bursary beneficiaries progress to second year of tertiary studies
Students from African countries complete third HartRAO AVN training school
Outreach
MeerLICHT telescope inaugurated
SARAO hosts Minister Kubayi-Ngubane and members of Parliamentary Portfolio Committee at Losberg
SARAO hosts Community Information sessions in the Northern Cape
South Africa’s initialling of the SKA Convention and Protocol texts takes place in Rome, Italy
Astronomy in South Africa is profiled at the IAU GA 2018 in Vienna
SARAO staff member leads 2018 NRAO NINE Program
Chinese Vice Minister for Science and Technology visits SARAO offices
Ghana and South Africa celebrate first success of African network of telescopes
Servitude establishment program
Latest developments on the land acquisitions programme
SARAO Human Capital Development Programme – Creating excellence in radio astronomy
SARAO Tech News
Ghana marks first spot on the AVN
Standing on the shoulders of giants: a South African’s contribution to global radio astronomy
HERA: Building to view the past
Across the Globe
SKA prototype dish assembled for the first time
First SKA-Low Prototype Station completed on site
SKA precursor upgrade makes telescope 10 times more powerful
Paving the way towards the SKA: astronomers detect signal from the first stars
Spain joins the SKA Organisation
New platform to showcase SKA’s major engineering progress
SKA treaty open for initialling
SARAO Science Engagement
RD9 Solutions: Introduction to Robotics
DST Mini Science Forum ignites conversations about big science
SARAO participates in Science Centre World Summit 2017
SARAO participates in third Science Forum South Africa
SARAO/SKA SA hosts DST Mini Science Forum in Northern Cape
Scifest Africa 2018
SARAO and Oculus announce partnership
SARAO wins Best Workshop prize at Scifest Africa 2018
NASA Electrical Engineer visits schools in Sutherland
SARAO participates in Public Communication of Science and Technology Conference in Dunedin, New Zealand
Participants graduate from Phase 1 of MAPPP NINE
SKA AVN MAPPP NINE Development Lab
MAPPP NINE expands to SKA AVN
IAU CAP 2018
SARAO participates in EuroScience Open Forum 2018 in Toulouse, France
National Science Week 2018
SARAO hosts 2018 SAASTA National Schools Debates Competition in the Northern Cape and North West
SARAO Big Data Africa School 2018 kicks off
Carnarvon High School teams through to National Competition of World Robot Olympiad 2018
SARAO Big Data Africa School 2018 ends on high note for African students
SARAO People
SARAO staffers shine at INCOSE SA 2018 conference
Five SARAO electrician trade artisan students attend media training in Carnarvon
SARAO Junior engineer wins Best Poster Presentation at UCT Engineering Research Expo
Dr Bonita de Swardt presents at plenary session at Grand Challenges Partners meeting in Kenya
SARAO bursary holder wins first prize in AT-RASC student paper competition
Dr Aletha de Witt elected to the IAU commission on astrometry
Dr Rob Adam inducted as a Fellow of the South African Academy of Engineering
SARAO bursary funded students selected for 2018/19 CSIRO scholarship
Junior Science Process Developer wins Thomson Reuters Award
Brendan Swarts – Electrician Artisan student
Morgan Daba – Electrician Artisan student
Marthinus Steyn – Telescope Operator
Griet Tobias – Housekeeper
Jan Mouers – General Worker
Mathakane Molewa – HERA Construction Supervisor
Malissa Pietersen – Procurement Officer (Site)
Lourencia Lyon – HERA General Worker
Peter van Wyngaarden – HERA General Worker
Bradwin Vermeulen – HERA General Worker
Tyrone Adams – HERA General Worker
Levurd Vaarland – HERA General Worker
R. Sean Oliphant – Mathematics teacher at Carnarvon High School
Students from African countries complete third HartRAO AVN training school
SARAO News #02 2018
Nineteen students graduated from the third African Very Long Baseline Interferometry Network training held at the Hartebeesthoek Radio Astronomy Observatory during March 2018.
The students, all hailing from Botswana, Zambia and Namibia, participated in the training which took place from 26 February to 23 March 2018.
The training is part of the Development in Africa with Radio Astronomy (DARA) project, which seeks to provide people in the targeted countries with training to use radio telescopes. The first four-week training at the Hartebeesthoek Radio Astronomy Observatory (HartRAO) took place in 2016, focusing on Observational and Technical Training.
It also has an outreach programme to encourage young people to study the technological aspects of radio astronomy and pursue science, technology, engineering and mathematics subjects. The project is funded by the DARA Newton Fund.
Since 2016 a training school was held every year, and this year two schools are taking place – one in March and another in April.
Dr Alet de Witt, Operations Astronomer at HartRAO and coordinator of the training programme, says that since the programme started, more hands-on practicals have been added and more demonstrations take place during lectures.
“We focus on keeping each lecture as interactive as possible. This hands-on experience and interactive teaching style is a great tool to stimulate discussion and to promote an atmosphere of attention and participation where students can test their skills in applying knowledge,” says De Witt.
“Since the inception of the DARA project we have made various upgrades to existing training instruments at HartRAO as well as investments in new training instruments, for example, our two-element interferometer. We also upgraded our lecture room to a state-of-the art training facility, with 40 computers dedicated to student training. To date we have trained more than 60 students from various African SKA Partner Countries,” continues De Witt.
By the end of April, another 20 students from Madagascar and Mozambique will be able to add this excellent training opportunity to their resumés.
The main focus of the training this year is the observational and technical side of radio astronomy. The Centre for High Performance Computing (CHPC) also participated this year and presented a week’s training in Linux and Python during the first week of the school at HartRAO.
Several international scholars have been invited to and have been involved in the AVN training since 2016. This includes Chris Jacobs (NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory, USA in 2016, 2017 and 2018); Dr Michael Bietenholz (York University, Canada in 2016, 2017 and 2018); Dr Christina Garcia Miro (SKA International in 2017); Daniel Hayden (SKA International in 2018); David Mayer (Vienna University of Technology in 2016, 2017 and 2018); Matthias Schartner (Vienna University of Technology in 2017 and 2018); and Andreas Hellerschmied (Vienna University of Technology in 2016), among others.
The graduation ceremony, which took place on Friday, 23 March 2018 at Hartebeestpoort Dam, was preceded by a talk by Chris Jacobs on Stellar GPS: Navigating the solar system, at HartRAO. Thereafter the students travelled to a venue at the Dam, where they graduated.
Professor Justin Jonas, Chief Technologist and Acting Managing Director of HartRAO, said that it is important to note that the course is ‘an old fashioned course in radio astronomy’.
“In this new age of millennials, everybody wants to get onto the new next biggest best thing as soon as possible. Unfortunately, there is a new generation of radio astronomers who have never seen a radio telescope and everything they do is from their laptop. They have never actually done a very fundamental observation with a radio telescope. The only way to understand any science, and radio astronomy in particular, is to go right back to the fundamentals,” said Prof. Jonas.
“I am very grateful to Alet and the others who are involved in putting this course together, for taking you right back to those fundamentals, to the first principles of physics and mathematics so that you have that grounded understanding of where you get your data from,” Prof. Jonas continued.
Chileshe Mutale, a 23-year old Physics and Geology student from Zambia, said that the course has expanded new horizons for her.
“This course has has really been really great – not only the course, but the people as well. In school they put you in a box, but when I saw this course, I decided to try it. It has opened my horizons.”
De Witt herself is a former recipient of an SKA bursary through its Human Capital Development Programme. She commenced her PhD studies in Astronomy and Astrophysics from 2006 and attended the very first SKA Postgraduate Bursary Conference as a postdoctoral student that same year.
“I joined HartRAO in 2012 as a postdoctoral student and in 2013 I was appointed as Operations Astronomer. I have been involved in training activities at HartRAO since 2013 and was involved in the DARA project since its inception,” says De Witt.
She completed her PhD in Radio Astronomy with a focus on celestial reference frames and calibrator sources for Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI). Her research is focused on fundamental astronomy, in particular celestial reference frames.
De Witt is also part of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) working group on the realisation of the next generation International Celestial Reference Frame (ICRF-3) to be adopted at the XXXth General Assembly of the IAU in 2018. One of the goals of the ICRF-3 was the extension of the ICRF to higher radio frequencies, such as the K-band (22 GHz) reference frame.
De Witt is the principal investigator of the K-band celestial reference frame project and this project has received to date more than 600 hours of observing time on the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) and equal amounts of time on Southern VLBI instruments.
She is also the principal investigator and scheduler for the majority of the Southern Hemisphere astrometric and geodetic VLBI sessions operated through the International VLBI Service for Geodesy and Astrometry (IVS). The IVS is an international collaboration of organisations which operate VLBI components in support of geodetic and astrometric research and operational activities and to integrate VLBI into a global Earth observing system.
Big Data Attendees at the one-day work session which was held on 11 July 2017 at the Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation in Ghana to kick off the High Performance Computing training programme in Ghana.
Members of the nine SKA African partner countries concluded the Fourth Ministerial Meeting on the SKA in Accra, Ghana by signing a memorandum of understanding to collaborate on radio astronomy.
Minister of Science and Technology Naledi Pandor watches on as the President of the Republic of Ghana, His Excellency Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo cuts the ribbon at the launch of the Ghana Radio Astronomy Observatory.
Media coverage
The launch of the Ghana Radio Astronomy Observatory was covered 119 times in the media between 23 and 25 August 2017:
In Ghana: 24 times
In South Africa: 36 times
In other African countries: 8 times
Internationally: 51 times
The value of these placements is R6 983 234.17.
Last Updated on November 19, 2018
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