Astro Blog

LUCID in the Sky: A stunning example of research in schools
Working with Oxford Physics Researcher Peter Hatfield, three sixth form students have published results from the space-borne Langton Ultimate Cosmic ray Intensity Detector radiation monitor (LUCID) using Machine Learning techniques. This is a wonderful example for research in schools from a conceptual design through to key scientific results building on a decade of work by school student researchers. Here Peter tells us more about LUCID and the Institute for Research in Schools (IRIS).

HARMONI+Adaptive Optics: a trailblazing combination!
HARMONI, the first-light spectrograph for the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) has passed a major milestone today in successfully completing the Preliminary Design Review process (PDR). We chatted to HARMONI's Principal Investigator Professor Niranjan Thatte who is leading the international consortium building this sophisticated instrument and what this critical step means for future observations with the ELT.

Space Warps is back: Help Us Weigh Galaxies!
The Space Warps team and Zooniverse are excited to have joined forces with Science Friday to launch our most recent hunt for rare and elusive gravitational lenses.

Magnetic field traces gas and dust swirling around supermassive black hole
This blog post is based on a press release issued today by the Royal Astronomical Society.

A major milestone in the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) project - inauguration of the first prototype dish
This blog post was contributed by Prof Angela Taylor reporting from China.

A new era of astronomy: Construction of the 39m Extremely Large Telescope dome & main structure officially starts
On Friday 26th May 2017, a major milestone in construction of the world’s largest visible and infrared telescope, the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), was reached.

Stargazing Oxford Photo Compeition 2016: Entries Open!
Hello everyone! I'm sure you're all looking forward to the Holidays, and so are we in Oxford Astrophysics. But we're also thinking ahead to the New Year and there's plenty to be excited about! Stargazing Oxford returns on the 16th of January, and with it our annual Astrophotography competition. You can see last year's winners here.

Hubble at 25
Researcher in astronomy instrumentation, Dr Sarah Kendrew, tells the story of the Hubble Space Telescope's magnificent 25 years:

Stargazing Oxford 2015 Photo Competition - The Winners
It is my great pleasure to announce the winners of this year's Stargazing Oxford astrophotography competition. As always, the standard of entries was very high, so congratulations to everyone who took part. The photo display will remain up in our building during the next Stargazing Oxford event on 21st March, so if you missed it last time you'll have another chance to take a look.Thanks are due to previous winners Mel Gigg and Maciej Winiarczyk, who kindly agreed to judge the competition for us this year.

Stargazing Oxford 2015 Photo Competition
Hello everyone! I'm sure you're all looking forward to the Christmas holiday, and so are we in Oxford Astrophysics. But we're also thinking ahead to the New Year and there's plenty to be excited about. Stargazing Oxford returns on the 17th of January, and with it our annual Astrophotography competition.