Rob Sharp
The operation of the ANU 2.3m telescope transitioned from classically scheduled remote observing to fully autonomous queue scheduled observing in March 2023. The instrument currently supported is WiFeS, a visible-light low-resolution…
Reverberation mapping is the leading technique used to measure direct black hole masses outside of the local Universe. Additionally, reverberation measurements calibrate secondary mass-scaling relations used to estimate single-epoch virial…
High-quality Extragalactic Legacy-field Monitoring (HELM) is a long-term observing program that photometrically monitors several well-studied extragalactic legacy fields with the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) imager on the CTIO 4m Blanco…
Reverberation mapping measurements have been used to constrain the relationship between the size of the broad-line region and luminosity of active galactic nuclei (AGN). This $R-L$ relation is used to estimate single-epoch virial black hole…
Contemporary reverberation mapping campaigns are employing wide-area photometric data and high-multiplex spectroscopy to efficiently monitor hundreds of active galactic nuclei (AGN). However, the interaction of the window function(s)…
We present the statistical methods that have been developed to analyse the OzDES reverberation mapping sample. To perform this statistical analysis we have created a suite of customisable simulations that mimic the characteristics of each…
We study the Fundamental Plane (FP) for a volume- and luminosity-limited sample of 560 early-type galaxies from the SAMI survey. Using r-band sizes and luminosities from new Multi-Gaussian Expansion (MGE) photometric measurements, and…
We have entered a new era where integral-field spectroscopic surveys of galaxies are sufficiently large to adequately sample large-scale structure over a cosmologically significant volume. This was the primary design goal of the SAMI Galaxy…
Metallicity gradients are important diagnostics of galaxy evolution, because they record the history of events such as mergers, gas inflow and star-formation. However, the accuracy with which gradients can be measured is limited by spatial…
Astronomical observations often require the detection of faint signals in the presence of noise, and the near-infrared regime is no exception. In particular, where the application has short exposure time constraints, we are frequently and…
The WiggleZ Dark Energy Survey measured the redshifts of over 200,000 UV-selected (NUV<22.8 mag) galaxies on the Anglo-Australian Telescope. The survey detected the baryon acoustic oscillation signal in the large scale distribution of…
We present the second major release of data from the SAMI Galaxy Survey. Data Release Two includes data for 1559 galaxies, about 50% of the full survey. Galaxies included have a redshift range 0.004 < z < 0.113 and a large stellar mass…
We present The Machine, an artificial neural network (ANN) capable of differentiating between the numbers of Gaussian components needed to describe the emission lines of Integral Field Spectroscopic (IFS) observations. Here we show the…
Stellar population and stellar kinematic studies provide unique but complementary insights into how galaxies build-up their stellar mass and angular momentum. A galaxy's mean stellar age reveals when stars were formed, but provides little…
We present the first major release of data from the SAMI Galaxy Survey. This data release focuses on the emission-line physics of galaxies. Data Release One includes data for 772 galaxies, about 20% of the full survey. Galaxies included…
We examine the kinematic morphology of early-type galaxies (ETGs) in eight galaxy clusters in the Sydney-AAO Multi-object Integral field spectrograph (SAMI) Galaxy Survey. The clusters cover a mass range of 14.2<log(M_200/M_odot)<15.2 and…
We present the discovery of a z=0.65 low-ionization broad absorption line (LoBAL) quasar in a post-starburst galaxy in data from the Dark Energy Survey (DES) and spectroscopy from the Australian Dark Energy Survey (OzDES). LoBAL quasars are…
We present a pilot analysis of the influence of galaxy stellar mass and cluster environment on the probability of slow rotation in 22 central galaxies at mean redshift $z=0.07$. This includes new integral-field observations of 5 central…
Recent cosmological hydrodynamical simulations suggest that integral field spectroscopy can connect the high-order stellar kinematic moments h3 (~skewness) and h4 (~kurtosis) in galaxies to their cosmological assembly history. Here, we…
Galaxy mergers are important events that can determine the fate of a galaxy by changing its morphology, star-formation activity and mass growth. Merger systems have commonly been identified from their disturbed morphologies, and we now can…