Gordon James Stanley and the Early Development of Radio Astronomy in Australia and the United States

Kellermann, K. I.; Orchiston, Wayne; Slee, Bruce

doi:10.1071/as04008

Cited by 32 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…He spent his final years in Carmel Valley with wife Helen, where he died on 17 December 2001. For a memoir see Kellermann, Orchiston and Slee (2005). At the Potts Hill field station two other RP staff, Bernie Mills (1920Mills ( -2011Fig.…”

Section: Spherical Nebulamentioning

confidence: 99%

Expanding Horizons – The Milky Way and Beyond

Orchiston

Robertson

Sullivan

2021

Golden Years of Australian Radio Astronomy

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Non-solar research at the Radiophysics Laboratory (RP) was launched in September 1946 when Joe Pawsey (1908–1962) tried unsuccessfully to observe the enigmatic ‘radio star’ in Cygnus that the British team of Stanley Hey (1909–2000, Fig. 4.1), John Parsons and James Phillips (1946) had announced in the 17 August issue of Nature. Two months later, John Bolton (1922–1993; Fig. 4.2) and research assistant Bruce Slee (1924–2016) were at Dover Heights trying to observe the Sun at 60 MHz. When it insisted on remaining inactive they decided to use their 2-Yagi antenna in sea interferometer mode to search for radio emission from other types of objects. Neither had a background in astronomy, and their astronomical knowledge and resources were virtually non-existent. Bolton (1982: 349) later described how they used the Russell, Duggan and Stewart book Astronomy to “… hazard guesses as to which types of objects might emit copious amounts of radio emission …” and Norton’s Star Atlas “… to find the position of the brightest candidate in each class.”

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Section: Spherical Nebulamentioning

confidence: 99%

Expanding Horizons – The Milky Way and Beyond

Orchiston

Robertson

Sullivan

2021

Golden Years of Australian Radio Astronomy

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“…Gordon James Stanley (1921( -2001, Kellermann et al [105]) came from Cambridge, New Zealand. From 1944 he helped build radio receivers in Australia before relocating to the USA at the start of 1954.…”

Section: -1950mentioning

confidence: 99%

History of Astronomy in Australia: Big-Impact Astronomy from World War II until the Lunar Landing (1945–1969)

Graham

Kenyon

Bull³

et al. 2021

Galaxies

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Radio astronomy commenced in earnest after World War II, with Australia keenly engaged through the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research. At this juncture, Australia’s Commonwealth Solar Observatory expanded its portfolio from primarily studying solar phenomena to conducting stellar and extragalactic research. Subsequently, in the 1950s and 1960s, astronomy gradually became taught and researched in Australian universities. However, most scientific publications from this era of growth and discovery have no country of affiliation in their header information, making it hard to find the Australian astronomy articles from this period. In 2014, we used the then-new Astrophysics Data System (ADS) tool Bumblebee to overcome this challenge and track down the Australian-led astronomy papers published during the quarter of a century after World War II, from 1945 until the lunar landing in 1969. This required knowledge of the research centres and facilities operating at the time, which are briefly summarised herein. Based on citation counts—an objective, universally-used measure of scientific impact—we report on the Australian astronomy articles which had the biggest impact. We have identified the top-ten most-cited papers, and thus also their area of research, from five consecutive time-intervals across that blossoming quarter-century of astronomy. Moreover, we have invested a substantial amount of time researching and providing a small tribute to each of the 62 scientists involved, including several trail-blazing women. Furthermore, we provide an extensive list of references and point out many interesting historical connections and anecdotes.

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“…Haleakala, and, after his moves to Tasmania and to very low frequencies (that is, long wavelengths) of necessity switched to extended arrays of dipoles and such. But the much later 23-meter University of Tasmania parabolic dish actually looks a good deal like the primordial Wheaton, IL installation (Kellermann 2005).…”

Section: Midcourse Corrections and Digressionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Interferometry meets the third and fourth dimensions in galaxies

Trimble¹

2014

Proc. IAU

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Abstract. Radio astronomy began with one array (Jansky's) and one paraboloid of revolution (Reber's) as collecting areas and has now reached the point where a large number of facilities are arrays of paraboloids, each of which would have looked enormous to Reber in 1932. In the process, interferometry has contributed to the counting of radio sources, establishing superluminal velocities in AGN jets, mapping of sources from the bipolar cow shape on up to full grey-scale and colored images, determining spectral energy distributions requiring nonthermal emission processes, and much else. The process has not been free of competition and controversy, at least partly because it is just a little difficult to understand how earth-rotation, aperture-synthesis interferometry works. Some very important results, for instance the mapping of HI in the Milky Way to reveal spiral arms, warping, and flaring, actually came from single moderate-sized paraboloids. The entry of China into the radio astronomy community has given large (40-110 meter) paraboloids a new lease on life.

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Gordon James Stanley and the Early Development of Radio Astronomy in Australia and the United States

Cited by 32 publications

References 33 publications

Expanding Horizons – The Milky Way and Beyond

Expanding Horizons – The Milky Way and Beyond

History of Astronomy in Australia: Big-Impact Astronomy from World War II until the Lunar Landing (1945–1969)

Interferometry meets the third and fourth dimensions in galaxies

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