Professor Michael Ashley

Antarctic astronomy: this is the last great frontier for ground-based astronomy. My group at UNSW has taken a leading role in working towards large optical/infrared telescopes on the Antarctic plateau. We have successfully run instruments at the US South Pole station since 1994, and more recently at Dome C and Dome Fuji. Our current focus is a collaboration with China at the Kunlun Station at Dome A, the highest point on the Antarctic plateau.

Wide-field robotic telescopes: I am collaborating with Mansi Kasliwal's group at Caltech on the Gattini-IR project at Mt Palomar Observatory. This has led to a project called DREAMS led by Anna Moore at ANU to establish a wide-field infrared telescope at Siding Spring Observatory, and longer term plans for a cryogenic infrared telescope for Antarctica.

Instrumentation & computing: my long term interest has been in electronics and computing (both hardware and software) with the goal of building new and interesting astronomical instruments.