The Australia Telescope National Facility operates the Australia Telescope, a set of eight individual radio telescopes, as a national research facility for use by Australian and international researchers.
Six of the telescopes make up the Australia Telescope Compact Array, located at the Paul Wild Observatory near the town of Narrabri in the Australian State of New South Wales. Each of these antennas has a reflecting surface with a diameter of 22 metres. A further 22-metre antenna, known as the Mopra telescope, is located near Coonabarabran.
The Australia Telescope also includes the Parkes 64-metre radio telescope. This telescope has been successfully operated since 1961. Recent upgrades to accommodate a 13-beam focal plane array have maintained its world-class position as a state-of-the-art instrument.
The eight telescopes can be used together as a Long Baseline Array for a technique known as Very Long Baseline Interferometry.
The Anglo-Australian Observatory operates the Anglo-Australian and UK Schmidt telescopes on behalf of the astronomical communities of Australia and the UK. Its function is to provide world-class observing facilities for British and Australian optical astronomers.
Excellent optics, exceptional mechanical stability and precision computer control make the Anglo-Australian Telescope one of the finest telescopes in the world. It was constructed in Australia so that astronomers could explore in detail some of the most exciting regions of the sky, including the centre of our own Milky Way Galaxy and its nearest neighbours the Magellanic Clouds. Some of the finest globular clusters and nearest radio galaxies can only be seen with difficulty from northern latitudes, if at all.
The UK Schmidt Telescope is a special purpose camera, a survey telescope with a very wide-angle field of view.
The characteristics of the two telescopes complement each other perfectly and many Anglo-Australian Telescope projects depend on the wide field capabilities of the UK Schmidt Telescope. These telescopes have together discovered and confirmed distant quasars, the most energetic but often the most distant objects in the Universe.
Under its National Collaborative Infrastructure Strategy, the Australian Government is committing $45 million to a range of projects to help ensure that Australian astronomers stay internationally competitive and have access to the facilities they require. This investment will be managed by a new organisation, Astronomy Australia.
Funding will be directed to the ASKAP telescope in Western Australia, a significant next-generation radio telescope and a demonstration project for the Square Kilometre Array (SKA).
Other funded projects include the further development of the Anglo-Australian Observatory, continued access to the world-leading Gemini Observatory and a contribution to the design and development phase of Antarctic telescopes and the proposed 25-metre Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) in Chile.
Many Australian universities have active astronomy research and teaching programmes.
The Astronomical Society of Australia provides a comprehensive listing of higher education astronomy courses.
New Horizons: A Decadal Plan for Australian Astronomy 2006-2015 presents the Australian astronomical community’s strategic vision for the next decade. It aims to maximise astronomy’s benefit to Australia by:
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continuing and enhancing our capacity to undertake world-leading research;
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stimulating our capacity for innovation in science and engineering;
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training a new generation of graduate and postgraduate students in science and engineering;
- and, perhaps most importantly, inspiring and educating the public at large.