Southern Cross 2017: Surveying the Cosmos - The Science From Massively Multiplexed Surveys

by Anna Arnadottir on 2017-01-13

In June this year, the AAO in Sydney is running the Southern Cross Conference on "Surveying the Cosmos, The Science From Massively Multiplexed Surveys”. Registration and abstract submission is now open:

Conference website: Southern Cross 2017

The Southern Cross Astrophysics Conferences, which are jointly supported by the Australian Astronomical Observatory (AAO) and the CSIRO Astronomy and Space Science (CASS), are held annually in Australia with the aim of attracting international experts with wide ranging skills to discuss a particular astrophysical topic. The 2017 conference will be on the results of massively multiplexed surveys across the electromagnetic spectrum and at all scales of the cosmos.

Large astronomical surveys have been key to many of the major advances in our understanding of the cosmos at all scales over the last two decades. This conference will focus on the scientific returns from massively multiplexed surveys: in terms of the number of targets that are observed simultaneously, and massive in the number of objects observed in totality. Australia has often been at the forefront of these types of surveys, with a key development being the start of regular scientific observations with the Two-Degree Field instrument on the Anglo-Australian Telescope in 1997. The 2017 Southern Cross Astrophysics Conference will include a retrospective on such surveys, the current surveys underway, and also a look forward to the future.