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The South African SKA site in the Karoo is currently a hub of construction activity, and plans are on track to deliver the 64 MeerKAT antennas by the end of 2016, says MeerKAT project manager, Willem Esterhuyse. "Antenna 1 will be installed by December 2013." Read on |
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Industry partners are integral members of the SKA SA team. Various contractors have been hired to design and manufacture, and install the antennas, roads, buildings and other infrastructure that support the MeerKAT (and the SKA in the future). Read on |
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SKA Board members represent the ten countries that are driving the design and pre-construction phase of the SKA telescope. Germany, the most recent member, joined in December 2012. Read on |
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AERAP (African - European Radio Astronomy Platform) invests in ongoing workshops, and participates in major science conferences, to promote investments in infrastructure and capacity building in radio astronomy in Africa and Europe.
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The Mauritian Minister of Tertiary Education, Science, Research and Technology, Hon. Rajeshwar Jeetah, visited the Mauritius Radio Telescope (MRT) at Bras d'Eau to receive an update on the development of radio astronomy in Mauritius, the SKA, and the Multi-frequency Interferometry Telescope for Radio Astronomy (MITRA) project. Read on |
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The 2012 event was the seventh SKA SA bursary conference, and the attendance list included nearly 200 delegates. The conference has become a highlight for local and international radio astronomers and engineers working on the MeerKAT and SKA. Read on |
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Creating the best possible images from the information gathered by the SKA telescope will be a major challenge, which can only be solved by combining high quality hardware and software. This was the focus of the 7th Workshop on Calibration and Imaging (CALIM), hosted in Cape Town at the end of 2012.
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Roughly every 10 years, astronomers studying nova outbursts get together to discuss their latest research. To discuss the current state of nova research, the Astronomy department at the University of Cape Town (UCT) hosted and organised the 4th meeting in this series under the header "Stella Novae: Past and Future Decades", from 4 - 8 February 2013. Read on |
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A workshop on high-performance signal processing was held at the University of Cape Town in January 2013. The workshop provided an opportunity to share ideas on the technology underpinning high-performance computing, and to present signal processing to young students considering a career in a field critical to the MeerKAT and SKA. Read on |
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"The elephants in the room" was the theme of a workshop on third-generation calibration (3GC) in radio astronomy, held in Port Alfred, during February 2013. "By 'elephants', we refer to possible fundamental or practical limits on the scientific performance of upcoming telescopes," explains Prof Oleg Smirnov, SKA SA Research Chair. Read on |
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"You could say my entire academic career is owed to the SKA," said Professor Oleg Smirnov, who holds the SKA SA Research Chair in Radio Astronomy Techniques and Technologies (RATT), at Rhodes University, and heads up the new Radio Astronomy Research Group at the SKA SA office in Cape Town. Read on |
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As a system engineering technician, Obert Toruvanda is involved in the design, procurement and installation of the MeerKAT and the African VLBI Network (AVN). Charl Daniels provides project management support to the MeerKAT team, as the SKA SA project controls officer. Read on |
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Without proper maintenance, a sophisticated radio telescope cannot meet its science goals, says Sizwe Seranyane, better known as "Sky". Sky is the KAT-7 operations and maintenance manager, and he is responsible for the upkeep of the telescopes. Read on |
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Virgillian Kasper and Priscilla Malgas are electrical assistants working at the MeerKAT site. Thanks to SKA SA's artisan programme, they received bursaries to train as electrical artisans at the Kimberley FET College. Read on |
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