ZADKO OBSERVATORY NEWS

2017-NOV

Official opening of OzGrav in Melbourne. OzGrav supports the Zadko Telescope and Multimessenger Astronomy.

2017-AUG

Zadko Telescope discovers the optical emissions from a binary neutron star merger gravitational wave event. UWA News Release

2017-JUN

The newly formed Faculty of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences releases a flyer on the Zadko Telescope.

2017-APR

Airbus Safran Launchers establishes a space situational awareness (SSA) facility within the Zadko Observatory.

2017-FEB

The Zadko telescope captures optical images of a Gamma ray burst. The images were first acquired only seconds after the burst was reported from a gamma ray observatory in space and continued for many hours. The last image of the event was recorded 24 hours after the light from the massive stellar explosion first reached the Earth. The sequence of images will allow astronomers to plot a light curve to explore the physics of this cataclysmic energy release. UWA News Release

2017-JAN

Summer student Gavin Siouw explores a simple model of space debris evolution.

2016-DEC

Work started to develop a backup control system for the Zadko telescope.

2016-NOV

Channel 10 story together with a UWA press release tells how the Zadko Telescope was used to help reconstruct the shape of rare asteroids called “Barbarians”. Only a handful of Barbarians have been discovered and they are very ancient, forming during the birth of the planets. UWA News Release

2016

Dr David Coward becomes a Chief Investigator of OzGrav.

2016-JUL

The Zadko Telescope joins with Swinburne University's Deeper, Faster, Wider (DWF) project to discover and monitor the fastest astronomical transient events. The Zadko Telescope is used to follow up the most interesting of these phenomena.

2016-OCT

ARC announces it will establish a Centre of Excellence called OzGrav for Gravitational Wave and Multimessenger Astronomy. UWA will be one of the nodes of this centre.

2015

Zadko Telescope and Parkes 'dish' join hunt of mystery radio bursts. The University of Western Australia’s Zadko Telescope and the Parkes Radio Telescope have joined forces in a new mission involving an international team of radio astronomers to hunt for mystery radio bursts in the universe. The new project, SUPERB (SUrvey for Pulsars and Extragalactic Radio Bursts), will try and understand the origin of mysterious radio flashes, known as Fast Radio Bursts or FRBs. UWA News Release

2014-2017

PhD work by Damien Turpin at the University of Toulouse to follow up neutrino events detected by the Antares neutrino telescope in Europe.

2013-DEC

A new Andor IKON-L DW 936N CCD astronomical camera is installed.

2012-DEC

The Zadko Observatory reopens in a new Roll-Off Roll-On Observatory Building, controlled by a Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) designed and constructed under contract by l'Observatoire de Haute-Provence (OHP) staff.

2011-SEP

Senior Technical Officer John Moore receives a Federal Government Endeavour Executive Award for international travel to gain expert technical knowledge and examine best practice in the principles and process of large telescope optical cleaning and aluminizing by visiting Observatoire de Haute-Provence (OHP) Saint-Michel Observatory - France, Gemini Observatory (North) Hawaii and DFM Engineering Optics laboratory Colorado, USA.

2011-JUN

Decision made to replace Sirius Dome with a new custom built Roll-Off Roll-On observatory.

2011

Zadko telescope will provide follow-up to the ESA GAII satellite for the discovery and study of transient astronomical sources.

2010-JUN

Sirius 6.7 metre fibreglass dome starts to experience operational problems.

2010

First imaging of space debris (including the defunct Australian Fedsat satellite).

2010

Dr David Coward, Director of the Zadko Telescope receives an ARC Future Fellowship for Multimessenger Astronomy.

2010-2014

PhD work by Michael Todd for the "Detection of Trojan Asteroids in the orbits of Earth and Mars". Thesis

2010-APR

Start of Robotic Operations

2010-MAR

Dr Myrtille Laas-Bourez from Observatoire de Haute-Provence (OHP) commences a one year post-doctoral fellowship.

2009

The Zadko Telescope was the first telescope on Earth to detect light from a massive gamma ray explosion 11 billion years ago.

2008-JUN

First light for the one metre f/4 Cassegrain Zadko Telescope with Andor IKON DW 436BV camera housed in a Sirius 6.7 metre fibreglass dome.

2006

Australian Research Council (ARC) linkage grant awarded to UWA to work with the Observatoire de Haute-Provence (OHP) France for the construction of a robotic telescope to form part of the TAROT network.

2006

Philanthropic donation to the UWA by businessman Jim Zadko (CEO of Claire Energy) to establish a large optical telescope at Gingin 31.357 degrees south and 115.714 degrees east.