An Institute of Physics Blue Plaque was unveiled on Tuesday 28th March 2017 for Professor Alexander Wilson MD FRSE, the first Regius Chair of Astronomy at Glasgow (1760 -1784).

The ceremony was attended by the Astronomer for Scotland, Professor John C Brown OBE FRSE, University Principal and Vice-Chancellor, Professor Anton Muscatelli, former Reader and Director of University’s observatory, Dr. David Clarke FInstP as well as a descendant of Wilson, James Babington Smith. The event also saw presentations and display of material for the University’s Hunterian museum and National Museums of Scotland. The blue plaque will be permanently mounted at the entrance of the University’s observatory at Acre Rd.

BBC News coverage of the unveiling.

Congratulations to A&A group’s Professor Lyndsay Fletcher who has been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

RSE Press Release.

Funded PhD studentship in Solar Physics at the University of Glasgow

A fully funded PhD studentship for a UK/EU student is available at the University of Glasgow in solar flare physics. The project title is “Connections between solar flare characteristics and their underlying magnetic drivers” and will be using some of the latest solar data to investigate EUV/X-ray flare signatures relative to their magnetic properties derived from magnetograms. The primary supervisor will be Dr. Iain Hannah, the secondary Prof. Lyndsay Fletcher, within the Astronomy & Astrophysics group in the SUPA School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Glasgow, UK.

The PhD studentship will start between 1st August to 1st October 2015 for 3 years and has funding, from the University of Glasgow, for the fees (of a UK or EU student) and annual stipend (currently about £14,000).

Applicants should have (by the start date) at least a second class degree (or equivalent) in a relevant subject and ideally some experience of solar data analysis – coding in IDL, SolarSoft and/or Python.

Applications need to be made by Monday 15th June 2015 through the University of Glasgow’s postgraduate research opportunities page: http://www.gla.ac.uk/research/opportunities/howtoapplyforaresearchdegree/

Additional information on the application procedure is available on the School’s website: http://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/physics/research/postgraduate/

For more information please feel free to contact Dr Hannah at iain.hannah@glasgow.ac.uk

The University’s observatory at Acre Rd is being refurbished over the summer – below are some photos showing the current progress. The internal walls have been demolished since the last set of pictures of the obs refurb.

The University’s observatory at Acre Rd is being refurbished over the summer – below are some photos showing the current progress.

The maximum eclipse (94%) in Glasgow.

Although the sky this morning had a Glasgow filter (i.e. the clouds) we were able to catch the progress of the moon throughout its journey across the face of the sun. At the very moment of maximum, the clouds thinned slightly, showing the eclipsed sun smiling down on us at the University of Glasgow. Thanks to all the staff and students that helped out and all the folk that came along and saw the eclipse.

The moon starts to eclipse the sun, with a sunspot also visible on the solar surface.

The maximum eclipse (94%) in Glasgow.

The maximum eclipse caught on camera, with the University of Glasgow tower overlooking.

The moon moving away, showing more of the solar surface and sunspot again.

A large crowd gathered at the flagpole watching the clouded eclipse (thanks to @pjasimoes).

And the large crowd extends further along, watching the clouded eclipse at the University of Glasgow (thanks to @pjasimoes)

Eclipse viewers gathered at the Library and Fraser building waiting for the eclipse to peak (photo thanks to Laurence Datrier).

The moon eclipsing the sun captured on our live feed from our Acre Rd Observatory

The students (Duncan Horne, Ruaridh Newman
Andrew Barr, William Newman) at the Acre Rd Observatory running the live feed

Some of the Glasgow solar PhD students (Paul Wright, Stephen Brown, Galina Motorina) broadcasting live with STV’s Sean Batty during the eclipse (photo thanks to Stephen Brown). You can rewatch the broadcast here.

The Sun from from the University of Glasgow Observatory – click for the live feed.

A rare partial solar eclipse will be viewable in Glasgow on Friday March 20th, with the maximum eclipse (the moon covering 94% of the Sun) occurring at 09:34am.

We have a live* feed at http://www.astro.gla.ac.uk/eclipse/live.html from University of Glasgow Observatory, updated every minute. There are also two viewing locations on the Main Campus University of Glasgow, where there will be telescopes and viewers to let you safely see the eclipse directly (weather permitting)

Thanks to the undergraduate solar project group, Peter Wakeford and Graham Kerr for setting this up and making the observations.

*The feed will be live and update during 8am to 11am Friday 20th March. Before then it will show a static test image taken with the same telescope & filter setup.

Congratulations to Professor Martin Hendry for being awarded an MBE in the New Year Honours List for services to Public Engagement in Science.

As we are heading through solar maximum there are several sunspots and filaments visible on the solar disk. The image below was obtained on the ground in Glasgow, taken by two undergraduate students (Peter Wakeford and Ruari MacKenzie) using an H-alpha telescope at our Acre Road Observatory.

In July the Science and Data Analysis Team working on NASA’s RHESSI satellite was honoured with a NASA Group Achievement Award. Of the 40 members of the team, 9 have strong links with Glasgow University, being current staff members and/or past PhD graduates in Solar Physics. The strong Glasgow representation in this international team builds on the early seminal work of Professor John C. Brown, ex Regius Chair in Astronomy in the School of Physics and Astronomy. The award was made in recognition of the team’s sustained, outstanding scientific achievement over a full solar cycle.

Dr David Clarke (Honorary Research Fellow and ex-Observatory Director) has written a book on the history of astronomy in Glasgow titled “Reflections on the Astronomy of Glasgow: A story of some 500 years” (Edinburgh University Press). In it David describes how astronomy contributed to the educational enlightenment of Glasgow and to its society and commerce.

The book is available at a special price from Edinburgh University Press till 30-Sep-2013 via this form and is also available on amazon.

How Astronomy contributed to the educational enlightenment of Glasgow, to its society and to its commerce

The book provides a comprehensive narrative concerning Glasgow’s connections with Astronomy since the University’s establishment in 1451. It covers the educational and scientific contributions of notable and sometimes notorious individuals, providing biographies of outstanding people, including George Sinclair, the Professors Dick , the Professors Wilson, James Watt, John Pringle Nichol, Robert Grant, Ludwig Becker and William Smart. Through such people, discoveries related to sunspots, the monochromaticity within light, the behaviour of dew-point and the discovery of infra-red radiation remarkably have Glasgow connections.

The early part nineteenth century saw a thirst for astronomical knowledge by the local population with the establishment of two public observatories in the City. The second was rescued financially by the University in 1845 with a remit for establishing a time service for shipping on the Clyde. Following ‘Glasgow’s Big Bang of 1863’, with an unwarranted Edinburgh intrusion for establishing a time-gun, the resulting spat was covered in heated exchanges in the Herald with the editor demeaning of the title of Astronomer Royal for Scotland; in the end the local Horselethill Observatory won out to provide telegraphic time signals for the control of City public clocks. The establishment of eight different observatories is described with details of their architecture.

Overall, the story is a collection of local material and its relationship to the general development of the subject of astronomy, with insights on commercial and social aspects, so supporting a unique picture of astronomical connections with the City of Glasgow.

A figure from a recent published paper by group members was chosen as cover image for this month’s volume of the Astronomy & Astrophysics journal. The image shows a map of heated plasma ejected from the corona and the paper (Hannah & Kontar, A&A v553 A10 2013) is focused on a method to obtain maps of the emission as a function of temperature from observations of a coronal mass ejection (CME) observed by NASA’s SDO/AIA.

We are deeply saddened to report that Professor Archie Roy passed away on December 27 aged 88. Most of the current A&A group knew Archie well, and we have lost a good friend. Archie was an active member of the group, well into his 80s. We will miss his humour, zestful enthusiasm and seemingly boundless energy in everything he did over a remarkable career.

A Memorial Service and Tribute to the late Professor Archie Roy will be held in Glasgow University Chapel on Thursday March 14 at 14.30 and will be followed by a reception in Hunter Hall West approx 15.30-17.00. All are welcome.

Update: Professor Archie Roy’s Memorial Service two weeks ago included a short film, made by his son Ian, showing photos from Archie’s life. The family has made the film available at
http://vimeo.com/iandroy/archieroymemorialslideshow.

NASA’s Reuven Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (RHESSI) was launched 10 years ago on 5 Feb 2002. Its unprecedented view of the high energy X-ray and γ-ray emission from solar flares has provided many insights into these explosive phenomena. The Glasgow A&A group are heavily involved with analysing and interpreting the data from RHESSI, with these results recently reviewed by group members in the RHESSI monograph.

Congratulations to Professor John Brown who has been awarded the 2012 Royal Astronomy Society Gold Medal for Geophysics.

Professor John Brown, 10th Astronomer Royal for Scotland and former Regius Chair of Astronomy at the University of Glasgow is awarded the 2012 RAS Gold Medal for Geophysics.

Early in his career Professor Brown’s ‘collisional thick-target model’ led to a new paradigm for the production of X-rays by electrons in solar flares. Identifying the mechanism of electron acceleration remains a central and unsolved problem in solar activity and his seminal work on deriving the accelerated electron distributions from their observable X-ray emission is still the landmark paper in the field, cited over 600 times.

His leading role in NASA’s award-winning Reuven Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (RHESSI) mission is testament to his impact in high-energy solar physics, where his work encompasses the interpretation of the properties of X-ray signatures, the modelling of particle acceleration and transport in the solar atmosphere and the analysis of the response of the flaring solar atmosphere.

Throughout his distinguished and productive research career John has collaborated widely, and – especially in his role as Astronomer Royal for Scotland – has inspired the astronomical passions of thousands of people across the UK and overseas through presentations, in person and on television and radio.

For his outstanding work in research, leadership and outreach Professor Brown is awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Full RAS press release.

The European Space Agency has selected the Solar Orbiter Mission as one of its next two missions to fly. Several members of the A&A group are Co-Investigators on Solar Orbiter instruments, in particular on the STIX X-ray imager. The group’s involvement with Solar Orbiter and STIX continues a long history of pioneering research in solar physics (dating back to the first Regius Chair in 1760) and solar X-rays in particular – a heritage which includes Co-I-ship on NASA’s award-winning RHESSI mission. With an expected launch date of 2017, the Solar Orbiter carries several instruments deep into the inner solar system to co-rotate with the Sun, imaging activity on its surface and sampling its magnetic field and solar wind.

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