Michael Ashley (astronomer)

Australian astronomer

Michael C. B. Ashley

Nationality	Australian
Known for	Dome C seeing qualities
Scientific career
Fields	Astrophysics, astronomy
Institutions	University of New South Wales

Michael C. B. Ashley is an Australian astronomer and professor in the school of physics at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), in Sydney. He is most famous for his work in Antarctica, with the study of the seeing capability at Dome C.

Education

Ashley graduated in 1981 as BSc from Australian National University, in 1983 as MSc in astrophysics from Caltech, and in 1989 as PhD in astronomy. While completing his PhD, he worked as a consultant on the Endeavour project (an ultraviolet imaging experiment on the Space Shuttle) and worked at the Anglo-Australian Observatory as a research assistant.

Career

After graduating in 1989, Ashley joined the faculty of the School of Physics, UNSW.

Antarctica and Dome C

Ashley has led teams to Antarctica on four separate trips, in 1995, 1998, 2001, and 2004 to conduct experiments and take measurements of the near-infrared quality and brightness of the sky.

In September 2004, Nature published a report written by Jon Lawrence, Michael Ashley, Andrei Tokovinin, and Tony Travouillon on the seeing abilities of astronomical telescopes in Antarctica. The paper concluded that the area known as "Dome C" would be "the best ground-based site to develop a new astronomical observatory". The data used in this report was collected by a remote control experiment run through the French-Italian Concordia Station near Dome C.

It was found that pictures taken from a telescope at Dome C are, on average, 2.5 times better than those taken at observatories elsewhere. This discovery has been lauded as finding the clearest skies on Earth.

Publications

As of January 2025, Scopus lists 230 academic papers written by Ashley, and calculates his h-index as 39, while Google Scholar calculates his h-index as 54.

References

"Michael Ashley". www.phys.unsw.edu.au. Retrieved 18 January 2022.
"Astronomy from the South Pole". www.physics.adelaide.edu.au. Australian Institute of Physics - SA branch. 3 September 1997. Retrieved 18 January 2025.
"Michael C. B. Ashley". University of New South Wales. 5 May 2009.
Ashley, Michael C. B.; Burton, Michael G.; Storey, John W. V.; Lloyd, James P.; Bally, John; Briggs, John W.; Harper, Doyal A. (August 1996). "South Pole Observations of the Near-Infrared Sky Brightness". Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. 108: 721–723. Bibcode:1996PASP..108..721A. doi:10.1086/133792.
Lawrence, Jon; Ashley, Michael; Tokovinin, Andrei; Travouillon, Tony (16 September 2004). "Exceptional astronomical seeing conditions above Dome C in Antarctica" (PDF). Nature. 431 (7006): 278–81. Bibcode:2004Natur.431..278L. doi:10.1038/nature02929. PMID 15372024. S2CID 4388419. Retrieved 30 June 2009.
"Why has it taken so long to measure the seeing at Dome C?". University of New South Wales. 16 September 2004. Archived from the original on 15 February 2006. Retrieved 30 June 2009.
Ashley, Michael (16 September 2004). "Just how significant is the good seeing at Dome C?". University of New South Wales. Archived from the original on 15 February 2006. Retrieved 30 June 2009.
Ananthaswamy, Anil (6 June 2009). "Earth's clearest skies revealed". New Scientist. Retrieved 30 June 2009.
Reddy, Francis (17 September 2004). "Antarctica: best seeing on Earth". Astronomy. Retrieved 30 June 2009.
"Ashley, Michael C.B. - Author details". www.scopus.com. Retrieved 18 January 2025.
"Michael C. B. Ashley". scholar.google.com.au. Retrieved 18 January 2025.

External links

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