John HEARNSHAW Home Page

How to contact me:

Study leave (sabbatical) 2009

In 2009 I was on study leave from late December 08 until the end of August 2009. I spent March to July at the Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia in Granada, Spain, and August in Latin America (including the IAU General Assembly in Rio).

Scientific interests:

• Astronomical spectrographs
• Stellar spectroscopy
• Binary stars
• Detection of extrasolar planets
• Variable stars
• History of astrophysics

My curriculum vitae can be downloaded here.

And here's a publications list in reverse chonological order.

PhD research project: Earth-mass planets orbiting alpha Centauri

I am looking for an excellent student to do a PhD on the search for Earth-mass planets orbiting our nearest star, alpha Centauri. This is a very exciting and topical research program. It is observationally intensive for the next two years, and needs a student with an aptitude for data analysis. In addition the project will involve numerical simulations, perfecting instrumental techniques and careful error analysis, and a good understanding of orbital dynamics. The project will be in collaboration with astronomers in Texas and Australia and make use of the Hercules spectrograph at Mt John.

Please talk to me if you are interested.

John Hearnshaw (November 2009)

Cosmic Diary and the International year of Astronomy

2009 was the International Year of Astronomy (IYA). See the IYA website at www.astronomy2009.org for details. I was one of about two dozen bloggers selected from astronomers from around the world who are participating in one of the cornerstone IYA projects, namely the Cosmic Diary. Each blogger writes an article about once a week. You can read my blogs at www.cosmicdiary.org/blogs/john_hearnshaw and you can read what the other Cosmic Diary bloggers wrote at www.cosmicdiary.org/ .

Read my latest scholarly book!

Astronomical spectrographs and their history

John Hearnshaw, published 12 February 2009 by Cambridge University Press.

ISBN-13: 9780521882576

See CUP website: www.cambridge.org

And read my latest popular book too!

Cosmic Essays

A collection of 53 popular essays written to mark the International Year of Astronomy 2009

See flyer and ordering information at: Cosmic Essays flyer

Mt John Observatory

I have been director of Mt John Observatory for a number of years, but am relinquishing this position on 1 December 2008, when Dr Karen Pollard takes over.

IAU Comm. 46 Program Group for the World-wide Development of Astronomy (PGWWDA)

A major interest over the last decade has been the promotion of astronomy teaching and research in developing countries, with the sponsorship of Commission 46 of the IAU. Click here for information about the activities of this IAU program group.

A list of publications and reports concerning the work of PGWWDA since 2003 is available here (under development, so not all links work).

Here's a list of my visits to developing countries for PGWWDA of IAU Commission 46 (Astronomy education and development)

• Ulaanbataar, Mongolia: March 2004
• Havana, Cuba: January 2005
• St Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago: December 2005
• Chiang Mai, Bangkok, Khon Kaen, Phitsanulok,Thailand and Vientiane, Laos: January 2007
• Hanoi, Vietnam: August 2007 (sponsored by TAD of Comm.46)
• Tashkent, Samarkand and Mt Maidanak Observatory, Uzbekistan: August 2008
• Mauritius, National University and Mauritius Radio Telescope: March 2009
• Paraguay, National University of Asuncion: August 2009
• Tajikistan, Tajik Institute of Astrophysics, Dushanbe: June 2010

IAU General Assembly Prague

August 2006

In 2006 I ran a two-day special sessiuon at the IAU General Assembly in Prague on Astronomy for the Developing World. About 280 astronomers from 61 countries registered their interest in participating. This Special Session resulted in a published book of proceedings entitled 'Astronomy for the Developing World' edited by John Hearnshaw and Peter Martinez (Cambridge Univ Press 2007). The book contains 56 key papers that were presented, covering the development of astronomy in all regions of the developing world.

The SPS5 website is here and is still active, though it was established for pre-special session information to intending participants

PhD students supervised

• Andrew Collier Cameron 'Late-type CaII emission-line stars in the southern hemisphere' (1982)
• Phillip MacQueen 'Solid-state image detector development: a linear diode array for astronomical spectroscopy' (1986)
• Kaylene Murdoch 'A high-precision radial-velocity search for substellar companions to southern solar-type stars' (1992)
• Irene Cummings 'High precision radial-velocity measurements of late-type evolved stars' (1998)
• Lyndon Watson 'A photometric and spectroscopic study of selected southern, chromospherically active stars' (1999)
• Jovan Skuljan 'A study of moviong groups of stars in our Galaxy' (1999)
• David Ramm 'A spectroscopic study of detached binary systems using precise radial velocities' (2004)
• Stuart Barnes 'The design and performance of very high resolution echelle spectrographs in astronomy' (2004)
• Andrew Rakich 'Simple four-mirror anastigamatic systems with at least one infinite conjugate' (2007)
• Siramas Komonjinda 'A study of binary star orbits usding precise radial velocity measurements with the HERCULES spectrograph' (2008)
• Rebecca Priestley 'Nuclear New Zealand: New Zealand's nuclear and radiation history to 1987' (jointly supervised with P. Catton and P. Mein Smith)

Masters students supervised

• Stephen Mackwell 'Excitation temperatures for late-type stars' (1979)
• Martin England 'A spectroscopic analysis of the alpha Centauri system' (1979)
• David Buckley 'A photometric analysis of some neglected southern eclipsing binary stars' (1980)
• Duncan Hall 'A linear diode array detector for high resolution spectroscopy' (1980)
• Boonrucksar Soonthornthum 'An abundance analysis of the high velocity giant star, omega Pavonis' (1981)
• Adeline MacDonald 'An analysis of the Wolf 630 and Arcturus moving groups of stars' (1981)
• Mark Mowat 'Surface gravities of red giant stars' (1982)
• Matthew Morgan 'Techniques for the production of a spectrographic atlas of Canopus' (1983)
• Susan Reynolds 'The r- and s-process elemnts in the spectrum of Canopus' (1985)
• Vincent McIntyre 'Optical spectroscopy of supernova SN1987A in the Large Magellanic Cloud' (1988)
• Donna-Maree Ward 'A study of the variability of southern late-type supergiants using an echelle radial-velocity spectrometer' (1992)
• Lyndon Watson 'Measurements of stellar radial velocities using the LUCIFERS radial-velocity spectrometer' (1993)
• James Yan Tse 'An analysis of the light curve and spectra of Nova Velorum 1999 (V382 Vel)' (2001)
• Andrew Rakich 'A complete survey of three-mirror anastigamatic reflecting telescope systems with one aspheric surface' (2001)
• Ceridwen Livingston 'An analysis of the light curves of 20 novae and their use as distance indicators' (2002)
• Tamsyn McClelland 'A review of the history, theory and observations of gravitational microlensing up until the present day' (2008)
• Vincent Thompson 'A study of southern spectroscopic binaries' (2009)