The birth and death of stars

Speaker: Raymond Haynes

Affiliation: University of Tasmania

Time: Wednesday 17/09/2014 from 11:00 to 12:00

Venue: Access Grid UWS. Presented from Penrith (Y239), accessible from Parramatta (EB.1.32) and Campbelltown (26.1.50).

Abstract:

In 2003, after nearly 37 years as a professional astronomer I laid aside the role of professional observational astrophysicist, the losing of lots of sleep, and much stressful international travel away from the family using international telescopes to take the time to focus on perspectives … and on communicating science to broader audiences. I also entered into more multi-disciplinary projects, management of diverse groups of people, and challenges not possible in the work place. Throughout, I continue my interest and enthusiasm for science, continue to keep in contact with current research and continue to mark PhDs and referee grant applications. But I have come to realise, … now profoundly, that modern astrophysics often distances itself from the big-picture and from the perspectives that a big-picture provides, to focus on detail, … often infinitesimal detail.

Today, I come to talk with you, an audience that focuses on supernova remnants, on nearby galaxies and on our Milky Way; often on the details that modern scientific instruments allow – to provide that detail. But those same instruments, always striving for better resolution and detail, also often fail to look at the big picture.

Today I want you to focus on the broader scenario, and on ‘Star-Birth and Death’. Put yourselves back into the perspective of why you do astronomy and what it means. Place this into context with what my wife, Professor Roslynn D. Haynes, said at her lecture on “Dreaming the Stars” on Aboriginal Astronomy last night at the UWS Open Forum.

You have a unique opportunity right now, right here at this University to bring modern astronomical research into contact with … and into context with … Aboriginal Astronomy. Develop the relationship, and develop Aboriginal Astronomy as a discipline of research and teaching; then you will be in contact with one aspect of a big picture I am talking about.

Biography:

Raymond Haynes is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Physics, a Fellow of the Astronomical Society of Australia, was a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society in the UK, and is a Member of the International Astronomical Union. After leaving CSIRO for 2 years he held an Honorary Research Associate appointment in the School of Mathematics and Physics in Tasmania training 2 more students in the process. Initially trained at the University of Tasmania (1960’s: BSc, PhD). Raymond Haynes was the only student that Grote Reber, the Father of Radioastronomy, ever supervised during 1965. He then had a CSIRO Post-Doctoral Scholarship to the University of Cambridge (1970-72: UK) and a Bamford Scholarship to Emanuel College in Cambridge. He joined CSIRO as a scientist in 1972 but then had many overseas senior appointments in the following 30 years of research work. In 1978 he held a British Council Senior Fellowship to the UK, then in the 1980’s and 90’s Senior Visiting Research Appointments to the Max Planck Institut fur Radioastronomie (Bonn, Germany), to the University of Leicester (UK) and to the Onsala University (Sweden). He has held honorary staff appointments at the University of Bonn (Germany), the University of Queensland, the University of Western Sydney and was nominated for the Max Plank Prize in Astrophysics in Germany in 1998. Raymond Haynes retired left CSIRO in September 2003 as a Senior Principal Research Scientist, an astrophysicist, and a part of the Senior Management Team of the Australia Telescope National Facility. He was a practicing astrophysicist for 37 years, a Public Relations leader in CSIRO, and for period’s leader of Computing Groups, Community Outreach, and staff counselling at ATNF.

He has published extremely widely with ~ 330 papers to his name in fields as diverse as low-frequency radio astronomy, studies of molecules in the Milky Way, supernova remnants, the role of magnetic fields in the evolution of galaxies and the role of scientists in today’s society. He remains a regular commentator on science issues and was chief author on “Explorers of the Southern Sky – The History of Australian Astronomy”, a keynote book on the development of the science of astronomy in Australia over 200 years (1997: Cambridge University Press, UK).