Type | Research institute |
---|---|
Established | 2008 |
Affiliation | University of Toronto |
Director | Bryan Gaensler |
Location | , , 43°39′38″N79°23′50″W / 43.6606°N 79.3973°W |
Website | www |
The Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Toronto is an astronomical research centre. [1] [2] [3]
The institute was founded in 2008 with the help of endowed gifts to the University of Toronto from David M. Dunlap and J. Moffat Dunlap, [4] using the proceeds from the sale of the David Dunlap Observatory. [5] [6] [7] The Dunlap Institute is allied with and co-located with the University of Toronto's Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics and with the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics, [1] [8] and no longer has any association or connection to the David Dunlap Observatory.
Astronomers at the Dunlap Institute investigate a variety of topics including:
Telescope, instrumentation and software projects with leadership from Dunlap scientists include:
At the Dunlap's annual Introduction to Astronomical Instrumentation Summer School, undergraduate and graduate students from around the world attend lectures and labs. [19] Undergraduate students also pursue summer research projects at the Dunlap Institute's Summer Undergraduate Research Program. [20] [21]
The Dunlap Institute runs many public outreach events including:
Helen Battles Sawyer Hogg was an American-Canadian astronomer who pioneered research into globular clusters and variable stars. She was the first female president of several astronomical organizations and a scientist when many universities would not award scientific degrees to women. Her scientific advocacy and journalism included astronomy columns in the Toronto Star and the Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. She was considered a "great scientist and a gracious person" over a career of sixty years.
The Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) is an astronomical observatory located on the summit of Mt.Cerro Tololo in the Coquimbo Region of northern Chile, with additional facilities located on Mt. Cerro Pachón about 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) to the southeast. It is approximately 80 kilometres (50 mi) east of La Serena, where support facilities are located. The site was identified by a team of scientists from Chile and the United States in 1959, and it was selected in 1962. Construction began in 1963 and regular astronomical observations commenced in 1965. Construction of large buildings on Cerro Tololo ended with the completion of the Víctor Blanco Telescope in 1974, but smaller facilities have been built since then. Cerro Pachón is still under development, with two large telescopes inaugurated since 2000, and one in the final stages of construction as of 2023
The David Dunlap Observatory (DDO) is an astronomical observatory site in Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada. Established in 1935, it was owned and operated by the University of Toronto until 2008. It was then acquired by the city of Richmond Hill, which provides a combination of heritage preservation, unique recreation opportunities and a celebration of the astronomical history of the site. Its primary instrument is a 74-inch (1.88 m) reflector telescope, at one time the second-largest telescope in the world, and still the largest in Canada. Several other telescopes are also located at the site, which formerly also included a small radio telescope. The scientific legacy of the David Dunlap Observatory continues in the Dunlap Institute for Astronomy & Astrophysics, a research institute at the University of Toronto established in 2008.
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Bryan Malcolm Gaensler is an Australian astronomer based at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He studies magnetars, supernova remnants, and magnetic fields. In 2014, he was appointed as Director of the Dunlap Institute for Astronomy & Astrophysics at the University of Toronto, after James R. Graham's departure. He was the co-chair of the Canadian 2020 Long Range Plan Committee with Pauline Barmby. In 2023, he was appointed as Dean of Physical and Biological Sciences at UC Santa Cruz.
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Macarthur Astronomical Society is an organisation of amateur astronomers, based in the Macarthur Region of outer South Western Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
Macarthur Astronomy Forum is a monthly public forum organised by Macarthur Astronomical Society, providing leading national and international professional astronomers with a platform to address the Forum on topics of astronomical interest; also providing members of the Society and the general public with opportunities to learn and ask questions.
Wendy Laurel Freedman is a Canadian-American astronomer, best known for her measurement of the Hubble constant, and as director of the Carnegie Observatories in Pasadena, California, and Las Campanas, Chile. She is now the John & Marion Sullivan University Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Chicago. Her principal research interests are in observational cosmology, focusing on measuring both the current and past expansion rates of the universe, and on characterizing the nature of dark energy.
ARC Centre of Excellence for All-Sky Astrophysics was a collaboration of international astronomers dedicated to wide field astronomy. It was formally launched on 12 September 2011, at Sydney Observatory and ceased in 2018.
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Amanda Elaine Bauer is an American professional astronomer and science communicator. She is the Deputy Director and Head of Science and Education at Yerkes Observatory in Williams Bay, Wisconsin. She was previously based in Tucson, Arizona, working as Head of Education and Public Outreach at the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope. From 2013 to 2016 she was a Research Astronomer at the Australian Astronomical Observatory (AAO). Her principal field of research concerns how galaxies form, how they create new stars, and particularly why they suddenly stop creating new stars.
Kim A. Venn is a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Victoria, Canada, and director of the university's Astronomy Research Centre. She researches the chemo-dynamical analysis of stars in the galaxy and its nearby dwarf satellites.
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