Course Outline

Discover Southern Hemisphere Cutting Edge
Astronomy Research, Observatories and Telescopes

Archaeology Department, University of Cape Town

Instruction

Professor Patrick Woudt

Course Summary

Research at the University of Cape Town Astronomy Department is centred on stellar and galactic astrophysics and extragalactic astronomy. Besides leading many research projects on the South African Large Telescope (SALT) as principal investigators, members of the Astronomy Department lead four of the eight MeerKAT large survey projects. As the MeerKAT array will be incorporated in the midfrequency dish component of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), this places UCT astronomy research at the very forefront of the scientific exploitation of the SKA international radio telescope project. MeerKAT consists of 64 dishes of 13.5 metres in diameter each and supports a wide range of observing modes, including deep continuum, polarisation and spectral line imaging, pulsar timing and transient searches.

The South African Astronomical Observatory(SAAO), closely allied to the Astronomy Department at UCT, operates four major telescopes in Sutherland – the SALT, the 1.0 m and 1.9 m telescopes and Lesedi which are all optical telescopes which gather ultraviolet, infrared and visible light from distant stars and galaxies to better understand our Universe. Besides the SAAO’s flagship telescopes, the Sutherland facility houses a number of other telescopes and instruments.

This fourteen-day study tour will cover various aspects of the cuttingedge astronomy research being done at UCT and at Sutherland. It will comprise of lectures on UCT campus, sessions at the Astronomy Department’s telescope, observations with two optical teaching telescopes on UCT campus, an exposure to modern 3D visualisation techniques in astronomy, a visit to the South African Astronomical Observatory – the first observatory at the Cape, a session at the stateof-the art digital planetarium at the Iziko South Museum and a field trip to the world-famous observatory at Sutherland.