Benjamin Pope
@benjaminpope.bsky.social
Australian astronomer
he/him
Sydney/Gadi
he/him
Sydney/Gadi
this lede has Crowley energy
February 2, 2026 at 10:09 AM
this lede has Crowley energy
We have a large & friendly astronomy dept, great food, and a lovely campus a short metro ride from the city. We have a large cohort of students and a great grad program - join us!
January 30, 2026 at 7:51 AM
We have a large & friendly astronomy dept, great food, and a lovely campus a short metro ride from the city. We have a large cohort of students and a great grad program - join us!
First seminar at MQ by our new postdoc Mark Fortune, fresh from
Trinity College Dublin!
Trinity College Dublin!
January 30, 2026 at 4:07 AM
First seminar at MQ by our new postdoc Mark Fortune, fresh from
Trinity College Dublin!
Trinity College Dublin!
didn't really need this notification popping up at random in every slack I'm in
January 29, 2026 at 10:35 PM
didn't really need this notification popping up at random in every slack I'm in
and not in a good way!
January 29, 2026 at 8:55 PM
and not in a good way!
Up in the nosebleed section today
January 7, 2026 at 11:25 PM
Up in the nosebleed section today
Beyond excited to see the announcement of the Lazuli Space Observatory project - a 3m optical space telescope concept developed by Schmidt Sciences, with an integral field spectrograph, coronagraph, and widefield imager. What a mission!
January 7, 2026 at 7:49 AM
Beyond excited to see the announcement of the Lazuli Space Observatory project - a 3m optical space telescope concept developed by Schmidt Sciences, with an integral field spectrograph, coronagraph, and widefield imager. What a mission!
Criminal that the SCG uses so much parkland for car parking. Gotta put a metro station here
January 7, 2026 at 3:31 AM
Criminal that the SCG uses so much parkland for car parking. Gotta put a metro station here
broke: dot products
woke: einsums
bespoke: a machine learning library in Penrose graphical notation
github.com/thomasahle/t...
woke: einsums
bespoke: a machine learning library in Penrose graphical notation
github.com/thomasahle/t...
December 5, 2025 at 11:40 AM
broke: dot products
woke: einsums
bespoke: a machine learning library in Penrose graphical notation
github.com/thomasahle/t...
woke: einsums
bespoke: a machine learning library in Penrose graphical notation
github.com/thomasahle/t...
Newcastle make up your mind
November 19, 2025 at 5:27 AM
Newcastle make up your mind
Terrifically funny to just have a monument to Coal, the Concept, in Newcastle. It’s just a cube of coal on a heavily vandalised plinth. What a country
November 18, 2025 at 7:55 AM
Terrifically funny to just have a monument to Coal, the Concept, in Newcastle. It’s just a cube of coal on a heavily vandalised plinth. What a country
this paragraph could apply in so many science contexts
November 7, 2025 at 2:22 AM
this paragraph could apply in so many science contexts
this but physicists with the Ising model
October 28, 2025 at 6:49 AM
this but physicists with the Ising model
Really, truly affecting talk today, that I will be thinking about for a long time
October 21, 2025 at 10:42 AM
Really, truly affecting talk today, that I will be thinking about for a long time
the ARC RMS interface is what you take if you apply the CIA sabotage manual as a software development paradigm
October 21, 2025 at 5:06 AM
the ARC RMS interface is what you take if you apply the CIA sabotage manual as a software development paradigm
I especially want to call out @spiralstar.bsky.social for his vision and leadership, from designing AMI, proposing targets, supervising these projects, solving problems, and being a fantastic mentor to all of us. We were delighted to see him honoured with the Michelson Prize in 2024 for this.
October 14, 2025 at 3:35 AM
I especially want to call out @spiralstar.bsky.social for his vision and leadership, from designing AMI, proposing targets, supervising these projects, solving problems, and being a fantastic mentor to all of us. We were delighted to see him honoured with the Michelson Prize in 2024 for this.
We can see Io rotate slightly over the hour-long timelapse, tracking volcanoes on its surface!
And check out the Conversation piece for a cool slider showing how NGC 1068 lines up perfectly with previous data from LBTI.
And check out the Conversation piece for a cool slider showing how NGC 1068 lines up perfectly with previous data from LBTI.
October 14, 2025 at 3:35 AM
We can see Io rotate slightly over the hour-long timelapse, tracking volcanoes on its surface!
And check out the Conversation piece for a cool slider showing how NGC 1068 lines up perfectly with previous data from LBTI.
And check out the Conversation piece for a cool slider showing how NGC 1068 lines up perfectly with previous data from LBTI.
The raw data look like messy interferograms that are hard to understand by eye - and we enhance these data to restore beautiful images of the environment of the black hole in NGC 1068, Jupiter's moon Io, and a dusty binary system WR 137.
October 14, 2025 at 3:35 AM
The raw data look like messy interferograms that are hard to understand by eye - and we enhance these data to restore beautiful images of the environment of the black hole in NGC 1068, Jupiter's moon Io, and a dusty binary system WR 137.
By forward-modelling through this, we can reverse out what the uncorrupted images look like, recovering known planets at the theoretical photon noise and diffraction limit of AMI. I told Louis it would Just Work™ and two years and tens of thousands of lines of code later, he made it work.
October 14, 2025 at 3:35 AM
By forward-modelling through this, we can reverse out what the uncorrupted images look like, recovering known planets at the theoretical photon noise and diffraction limit of AMI. I told Louis it would Just Work™ and two years and tens of thousands of lines of code later, he made it work.
Now we are able to correct the mask metrology, infer the wavefront, and infer the mask is not *quite* in focus. We also learn the pixel sensitivities and a neural network for how pixels interact with their neighbours - this 'effective detector model' is probably the most impactful part of the paper.
October 14, 2025 at 3:35 AM
Now we are able to correct the mask metrology, infer the wavefront, and infer the mask is not *quite* in focus. We also learn the pixel sensitivities and a neural network for how pixels interact with their neighbours - this 'effective detector model' is probably the most impactful part of the paper.
The Aperture Masking Interferometer (AMI) is a tiny piece of metal in Webb's NIRISS camera, filtering light through a pattern of holes where no pairs are have the same direction and spacing. This means that we can unambiguously tie changes in the telescope images to the optics ('phase retrieval').
October 14, 2025 at 3:35 AM
The Aperture Masking Interferometer (AMI) is a tiny piece of metal in Webb's NIRISS camera, filtering light through a pattern of holes where no pairs are have the same direction and spacing. This means that we can unambiguously tie changes in the telescope images to the optics ('phase retrieval').
I feel like I'm going insane that the Herald and the Foreign Minister are discussing peace in Palestine in terms of a fanciful peace prize for Trump. We're on aestheticization of politics level 7 or 8 by now and it's so dumb
October 10, 2025 at 6:50 AM
I feel like I'm going insane that the Herald and the Foreign Minister are discussing peace in Palestine in terms of a fanciful peace prize for Trump. We're on aestheticization of politics level 7 or 8 by now and it's so dumb
Super proud of @tamarastro.bsky.social winning this year’s Moyal Medal!
October 9, 2025 at 10:22 AM
Super proud of @tamarastro.bsky.social winning this year’s Moyal Medal!
Excited to have a tour today of the new AAO building at Macquarie, where the astronomers and engineers are just beginning to bump into their new facilities! The atrium and forum are going to be awesome event spaces and the labs are enormous.
October 9, 2025 at 9:47 AM
Excited to have a tour today of the new AAO building at Macquarie, where the astronomers and engineers are just beginning to bump into their new facilities! The atrium and forum are going to be awesome event spaces and the labs are enormous.