We congratulate Dr‌ Iain Hannah from our group who has taken up his post as one of 41 new Royal Society University Research Fellows (URFs) for 2013, to conduct a research programme into the physics of high energy solar flares. The University Research Fellowship scheme aims to provide outstanding scientists, who have the potential to become leaders in their chosen fields, with the opportunity to build an independent research career. Iain’s research into solar flares involves X-ray imaging and spectroscopy, multi-wavelength studies, statistical surveys and numerical simulations.

The recent flurry of solar activity has seen several large flares emitted by the Sun. The rapid release of energy in the Sun’s atmosphere heats material and accelerates particles resulting in bright emission seen by a myriad of satellite’s including NASA’s RHESSI. These were also caught by the solar radio telescope at our Acre Rd Observatory, which observes the electrons accelerated to high energies in flares. Our telescope uses a CALLISTO spectrometer and it provides live observations of the Sun at radio frequencies between 45 and 80 MHz with 0.125 second cadence. This strong radio emission can interrupt communications on the ground across many frequencies.

SDO/AIA images of a filament on the sun from August 31, 2012. From upper left and going clockwise: 335, 171, 304 and 131 Å channels

Registration is now open for the Royal Astronomy Society Specialist Discussion Meeting devoted to solar prominences on Friday 21st February in the RAS premises in London, UK. Abstracts can be submitted at the meeting web page.

This specialist discussion meeting aims to review our current understanding of the life-cycle of solar prominences. How do they form? How do they interact with their environment, from the photosphere to the corona? How do they disappear? What is their contribution to Space Weather? Addressing these questions relies on interactions between experts in plasma physics, MHD, magnetic field modelling and observation, spectroscopy, radiation transfer, … This will be an excellent opportunity to discuss open issues in this area of interest to solar and stellar physicists, keeping in mind recent and future developments in observations and in modelling.

Solar flares are huge cosmic blasts of UV light, X-rays and high-energy particles from the Sun that can damage power grids and satellites. Inspired by the Northern Lights, Dr Alexander Russell and Dr Lyndsay Fletcher have shown how magnetic waves could help move energy tens of thousands of kilometres in less than a second to power flares.

See the story at: http://www.gla.ac.uk/news/headline_270276_en.html
Read the paper at: http://iopscience.iop.org/0004-637X/765/2/81/

Natasha Jeffrey was awarded Thomson prize in recognition of excellent work on her PhD studies.

The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), an international partnership of Europe, North America and East Asia in cooperation with the Republic of Chile, is the largest astronomical project in existence.

The workshop (see details here….) aims to bring together the ALMA-minded solar community to discuss solar observational issues with ALMA, solar science and planned observations with ALMA, and the planning of solar ALMA observations.

Th workshop is hosted by Astronomy & Astrophysics Group,  and will take place in School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Glasgow.

The Scottish Universities Physics Alliance and the Royal Royal Society of Edinburgh (Cormack Bequest) will hold a one-day Scottish astronomy meeting, SCAM2012, on Tuesday 13th November 2012 at the Royal Society of Edinburgh. More information is available here.

The programme is particularly relevant to research students and staff working in Scottish universities and gives the opportunity for them to meet, discuss research and hear about new developments in the field. Coffee and lunch are included.

There is no registration fee for this meeting, but if you plan on attending please complete the online registration form. There is the opportunity to present your work at a general interest level in a 20 minute talk, or, for more focussed research, through an extensive poster session which will be judged in a competition.

This workshop is a continuation of the Alliance workshops held under the Franco-British partnership research programme in 2009-2011.

On June 5th and 6th 2012 the world will witness a very special astronomical event: a Transit of Venus across the disk of the Sun. Such transits are extremely rare: only six have been observed throughout recorded history and the next transit will not occur until 2117.

To mark the transit we are hosting a celebration at Glasgow University that will link up with transit observers around the world and (hopefully) culminate with observing the transit here in Glasgow early on June 6th. Also in recognition of the huge historical significance of this event and to mark the launch of Glasgow Science Festival 2012, you are warmly invited to join us for an all-night celebration of the Transit in Glasgow.

If you’re interested in finding out more about this event (or indeed in participating) the website is now up and running.

An exciting opportunity for an outstanding intern to work on a project entitled “Computer Vision for Space Applications” has arisen in the College of Science and Engineering at the University of Glasgow.

Images in science carry a lot of information. As image resolution increases, extracting information in a timely manner and providing it to end-users is more and more challenging. It requires analysing and interpreting automatically a large amount of data from different instruments, as well as rapid and robust image processing algorithms such as feature extraction, image mosaic and time series analysis.

Depending on the preferences of the successful candidate, the intern will focus on one or more of the following areas:
− Feature extraction: the intern will develop computer vision tools to automatically extract and classify features of interest from satellite images.
− Time-tracking: the intern will implement time-tracking algorithms to perform crucial time series analyses to reveal trends and processes from the data.
− Benchmarking: the intern will design test cases allowing reliable comparisons between different algorithms developed by the project leaders to assess and enhance their performance and robustness.

The project will last for ten weeks with a start date preferably between 15th and 30th June 2012. IDL programming skill is highly desirable. To apply, please email the following documents to both Dr Labrosse and Dr Li: (1) a one-page CV including academic grades, (2) a brief statement of why you are interested in this project and how you fit the proposed projects, and (3) one letter of reference. Deadline is 31 May 2012.

Contact Dr Nicolas Labrosse (School of Physics and Astronomy) and Dr Zhenhong Li (School of Geographical and Earth Sciences) for further information.

ALMA/CASA workshop with solar emphasis will be held at Glasgow University on Monday, May 14. The agenda and timetable can be found at the UK ALMA homepage  http://www.alma.ac.uk/events/glasgow-workshop (courtesy of George Bendo). Organiser and further info email Eduard Kontar.

Astronomy and Astrophysics Group offers a number of undergraduate Summer Vacation Research Projects in the field of Astronomy. Second, third, and forth year students are invited to contact the potential supervisor and discuss the project.

More details can be found here.