StarStuff

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About Me

Hi, I'm Stuart Gary, I'm a journalist and broadcaster with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. I love science, especially the majesty and wonder of space, so I put together a weekly astronomy show for the ABC called StarStuff.

In my spare time I like to fly planes, practice karate and pistol target shooting and play around with my cars, a twin Turbocharged Falcon GT Interceptor and a DeTomaso Pantera GTS.

I’m vegan, a life member of the RSPCA and a supporter of several animal welfare organisations.

My other great passion is music which is understandable when you realise that I was a radio music jock long before I became a journalist. My record library contains tens of thousands of singles, albums, videos, CD’s and DVDs. These days that’s all stored in an 8 terabyte raid enclosure linked to a desk top PC at home. My tastes range from rock and grunge through to trance and new romantics. At the moment I’m listening to heaps of MGMT, William Control, Hawthorne Heights and Short Shack, but I have lots of time for the classics like Placebo and the early stuff from Silverchair, In fact Neon Ballroom is still my favourite album, and Emotion Sickness is still one of my two favourite songs (the other being William Control’s Death Club).

StarStuff is a great name for the show, but it works on more levels than just astronomy, it’s really cool for any science program because everything in the universe after the quark gluon plasma of the big bang is star stuff even the iron which makes your blood red was manufactured in the supernova explosions of stars. Carl Sagan said it best, we are all star stuff.


This blog is designed to allow me to publish all the things which can’t fit into StarStuff. There’s heaps of really interesting stuff out there and only a half hour window for the show, so each week becomes a battle to try and squeeze it all in. This blog lets me do that.

You can check out the show at the offical ABC StarStuff website:
http://www.abc.net.au/science/starstuff/

There's also an official ABC StarStuff Twitter feed: @abcstarstuff

And an official ABC Science website: http://www.abc.net.au/science/


The legal stuff: This is my personal blog. The views expressed in this blog are those of me only and not the Australian Broadcasting Corporation or its management. I do not claim ownership of any of the media in this blog. where possible credit and or source will always be given. If one of your photos or other media is submitted in this blog and you would like it removed please let me know.

Blogs I follow:

Theme by: Miguel
  1. NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION WILL ADVANCE THE LARGE SYNOPTIC SURVEY TELESCOPE With approval from the National Science Board, the National Science Foundation (NSF) Director will advance the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) to the final design stage. This action permits the NSF Director to include funds for LSST construction in a future budget request. To be located in Chile, the LSST is a proposed 8-meter wide-field survey telescope that will survey the entire sky approximately twice per week, delivering a large and comprehensive data set that will transform astronomical research. The LSST was the first-ranked ground-based large initiative in the 2010 National Academy of Sciences decadal survey in astronomy and astrophysics. The project is a partnership among the NSF, the Department of Energy (DOE) and a number of private contributors. “LSST will provide an unprecedented view of the sky while leading the emerging discipline of data-enabled science,” said NSF Director Subra Suresh. “The project will foster international collaboration and offer unique methods for discovery in this new age of Big Data.” Equipped with a 3-billion pixel digital camera, the LSST will propel astronomy ever further into the era of data-enabled science. By charting objects that change or move, and tracing billions of remote galaxies, LSST will provide multiple probes of the mysterious dark matter and dark energy, provide insight into short-lived transient events such as astronomical explosions or collisions, and create a more detailed map of the Milky Way and our own solar system. “LSST will transform how scientists detect and analyze astronomical events,” said Edward Seidel, assistant director for the NSF’s Mathematical and Physical Sciences Directorate. “The potential to deepen our understanding of the universe and its constituents, from distant exploding stars to nearby asteroids, is enormous.” NSF and DOE have recently signed a formal Memorandum of Understanding delineating the scope of the agencies’ responsibilities throughout the lifetime of the project. NSF will be responsible for development of the site and telescope, as well as the extensive data management system. DOE, through a collaboration led by its SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, will be responsible for development and delivery of the large-format camera. The Republic of Chile, through an agreement with Universidad de Chile, will make available the observing site for the LSST telescope. The total construction cost of LSST is estimated to be about $665M, approximately 70 percent from NSF, 24 percent from DOE, and 6 percent from private donors to the project. The construction is anticipated to last five years, followed by a two-year commissioning period before the start of the survey. IMAGE….An artist’s rendering of the proposed Large Synoptic Survey Telescope. The 8.4-meter LSST will use a special three-mirror design, creating an exceptionally wide field of view and will have the ability to survey the entire sky in only three nights. Credit: LSST Corporation

    NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION WILL ADVANCE THE LARGE SYNOPTIC SURVEY TELESCOPE

    With approval from the National Science Board, the National Science Foundation (NSF) Director will advance the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) to the final design stage. This action permits the NSF Director to include funds for LSST construction in a future budget request. To be located in Chile, the LSST is a proposed 8-meter wide-field survey telescope that will survey the entire sky approximately twice per week, delivering a large and comprehensive data set that will transform astronomical research.

    The LSST was the first-ranked ground-based large initiative in the 2010 National Academy of Sciences decadal survey in astronomy and astrophysics. The project is a partnership among the NSF, the Department of Energy (DOE) and a number of private contributors.

    “LSST will provide an unprecedented view of the sky while leading the emerging discipline of data-enabled science,” said NSF Director Subra Suresh. “The project will foster international collaboration and offer unique methods for discovery in this new age of Big Data.”

    Equipped with a 3-billion pixel digital camera, the LSST will propel astronomy ever further into the era of data-enabled science. By charting objects that change or move, and tracing billions of remote galaxies, LSST will provide multiple probes of the mysterious dark matter and dark energy, provide insight into short-lived transient events such as astronomical explosions or collisions, and create a more detailed map of the Milky Way and our own solar system.

    “LSST will transform how scientists detect and analyze astronomical events,” said Edward Seidel, assistant director for the NSF’s Mathematical and Physical Sciences Directorate. “The potential to deepen our understanding of the universe and its constituents, from distant exploding stars to nearby asteroids, is enormous.”

    NSF and DOE have recently signed a formal Memorandum of Understanding delineating the scope of the agencies’ responsibilities throughout the lifetime of the project. NSF will be responsible for development of the site and telescope, as well as the extensive data management system. DOE, through a collaboration led by its SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, will be responsible for development and delivery of the large-format camera. The Republic of Chile, through an agreement with Universidad de Chile, will make available the observing site for the LSST telescope.

    The total construction cost of LSST is estimated to be about $665M, approximately 70 percent from NSF, 24 percent from DOE, and 6 percent from private donors to the project. The construction is anticipated to last five years, followed by a two-year commissioning period before the start of the survey.

    IMAGE….An artist’s rendering of the proposed Large Synoptic Survey Telescope. The 8.4-meter LSST will use a special three-mirror design, creating an exceptionally wide field of view and will have the ability to survey the entire sky in only three nights.

    Credit: LSST Corporation