Introducing: Jérôme Margueron

Hello World !

I am working @ Orsay (France) and I will try (!?) to blog on the importance of being a micro-physicist among neutron star's practitioners !

Keep connected !

The hunter

Arecibo - Costa Rica

Parkes - AU

Green Bank - USA

Which telescope has been the best Radio Pulsar chaser in the world so far? We have three candidates: Arecibo (300 m fixed antenna also featuring as guest actor in 'Contact' with Jody Foster), Green Banks (100 m swinging antenna in West Virginia) and Parkes (70 m swinging antenna in Australia).

Exercise to the reader: guess the winner!

A few hints:

• All of them are in quite - radio quiet location
• Two of them points towards the galactic center (more pulsars) one towards the galactic anticenter
• Two of them can follow sources one of them cannot
• One of them is run by the same people who run the ATNF Radio Pulsar catalogue.

Twitter

You can follow us live on Twitter: #CSTAR11

Introducing Nicola Bassan

Hello world!

I'm Nicola Bassan, currently a 3rd year PHD student in SISSA (astrophysics sector).

I'm hoping to give you at least a flavour of what is going here in the volcanic Catania.

Stay tuned!

Introducing: Daniele Viganò

Hi people!
I'm Daniele Viganò, I will contribute to this Compstar blog together with other guys. I have just finished the first year of PhD in University of Alicante, studying the magnetosphere of magnetars. Of course, I love Sicily and its food!
Stay tuned

New Bloggers

Welcome to our new intrepid bloggers Lucy Keer and Nicola Bassan! Lucy and Nicola will be offering inside views of what is going on at the COMPSTAR meeting, goings on about town in Catania, and what is overheard in the hallways of INFN.

Anna Watts: X-ray and Gamma Ray properties of Neutron Stars

Anna Watts is covering these topics today -- lots to cover! I'm looking forward to hearing about the proposed X-ray timing experiment LOFT, its sensitivities, and its expected scientific capabilities.