PD Dr. Enno Middelberg (short CV)

Former Astronomer at the
Astronomical Institute of the University of Bochum
 

Address:   Ruhr-Universität Bochum
           Astronomisches Institut, NA 7/73
           Universitätsstr. 150
           44801 Bochum
           Germany
Phone:     +49 234 32 23448
Fax:       +49 234 32 14169
Email:    

"It is not likely that we primates gazing through bits of glass for a century or two will dissemble the architecture and history of infinity. But if we don't try we won't get anywhere."

M. J. Disney, in "The case against cosmology", General Relativity and Gravitation, Volume 32, Issue 6, p.1125-1134



View from my office on winter solstice 2007.

Panoramic view of the Effelsberg telescope.


Here are some photographs from the annual assembly of the German Astronomical Society in Bochum in 2016.

And here are some photographs from the subsequent celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the Astronomical Institute.

Full-sized photographs from both events can be downloaded as a zip file via a link at the bottom of the pages.


Research interests, projects, involvements

  • Wide-field VLBI:
    • A Wide-field VLBI survey of the ATLAS/CDFS area (paper)
    • Mosaiced wide-field VLBI observations of the Lockman Hole/XMM (paper)
    • A VLBI survey of 3000 radio sources in the COSMOS field (web page)
  • ATLAS - The Australia Telescope Large Area Survey (more)
    • Polarimetric images / rotation measure synthesis of the ATLAS fields
    • Spectral index properties of ATLAS sources
    • Radio Galaxy Zoo (web page)
  • LOFAR:
    • LOFAR observations of nearby galaxies
    • The German-led Magnetism Key Science Project for LOFAR
    • I am co-I of DFG Project FOR1254, which also pushes LOFAR observations.
  • The 7 mm upgrade of the Compact Array (science case)
  • Radio telescope webcam movies (see below)
  • Python scripts for astronomy, in particular automated flagging of radio interferometer data with Pieflag. I have also coded up a script to read in interferometer data from Aips to display dynamic spectra and flag data at the same time - very useful.

Teaching

Over time I have given several lectures at the Ruhr-University Bochum:

  • Experimental physics for electrical engineers (winter terms 2013/14, 2014/15 and 2015/16)
  • Fundamentals of radio astronomy and aperture synthesis (winter terms 2009/10, 2010/11, 2011/12, 2012/13)
  • Astronomical instrumentation (summer terms 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014)
  • Physics for electrical and mechanical engineers at the Hochschule Bochum (winter term 2013/14)

Since 2007 I have also been working with PhD students. Currently I am supervising three at the Astronomical Institute and at Australia Telescope National Facility and Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia.

Other teaching-related links:

  • Slides for a talk on radio astronomy receivers.
  • Slides for a talk on Fourier transforms.
  • Paul Falstad has a mind-boggling collection of maths and physics Java applets. In particular the Fourier applet is very insightful, and I have used it for my talk on Fourier transforms.
  • Another Java applet to demonstrate how cosine and sine waves can approximate all sorts of periodic functions.
  • Link to a Java applet where one can play with 2D-Fourier transforms. You can even supply your own images via a URL.
  • The Virtual Radio Interferometer applet lets you simulate observations with radio interferometers. VERY instructive.
  • A document (76k) suggesting various improvements to scientific presentations (and slides from a talk, in German)

Fun with telescope webcams

At some point I became fascinated with making time-lapse movies from radio telescopes. They provide some good insight (or confusion!) into how astronomers observe the sky, and experimenting with them is good fun.


This is the current image from the Parkes webcam, which I installed there as a postdoc. Click on the image for the full-size version, visit the page with movies made from the camera's images and a page with more information about it.


Ah well, just another average day at Parkes...




Here is a poster using one day's images from the Parkes webcam, showing the telescope in 5 min intervals.


On 21 October 2005, the webcam captured a thunderbolt. Nice, isn't it?


The current Effelsberg webcam image. Check out the page with intersting movies made from images taken with the old camera (which died in mid-2005).

Panels, boards, committees

  • Member of the Early Career Researchers Board (ECR Board) of the Ruhr-University's Research School Plus. The board members provide funding recommendations to the school's executive board and give feedback on the PhD students' own review process.
  • Member of the Global Young Faculty II, a program of the Mercator Foundation and University Alliance Ruhr, providing young scientists with the opportunity to carry out research in various fields. I joined a group dedicated to investigating the effects of neuroenhancing drugs on moral decisions.
  • I used to be referee for time allocations of the Australia Telescope Compact Array, the Very Large Array, and the Very Long Baseline Array
  • Also I regularly review papers for the major astronomical journals, ApJ, A&A, MNRAS, and so on.

Publication record

  1. "ATLAS 1.4 GHz Data Release 2 - I. Observations of the CDF-S and ELAIS-S1 fields and methods for constructing differential number counts" (ADS)
    Hales, C. A., R. P. Norris, B. M. Gaensler, et al. 2014, MNRAS, 441, 2555
  2. "Infrared-faint radio sources are at high redshifts. Spectroscopic redshift determination of infrared-faint radio sources using the Very Large Telescope" (ADS)
    Herzog, A., E. Middelberg, R. P. Norris, et al. 2014, A&A, 567, AA104
  3. "ATLAS 1.4 GHz data release 2 - II. Properties of the faint polarized sky" (ADS)
    Hales, C. A., R. P. Norris, B. M. Gaensler, et al. 2014, MNRAS, 440, 3113
  4. "Erratum: "Constraints on Two Active Galactic Nuclei in the Merger Remnant Cosmos J100043.15+020637.2" (2014, ApJ, 782, 116)" (ADS)
    Wrobel, J. M., J. M. Comerford, & E. Middelberg 2014, ApJ, 784, 175
  5. "Constraints on Two Active Galactic Nuclei in the Merger Remnant COSMOS J100043.15+020637.2" (ADS)
    Wrobel, J. M., J. M. Comerford, & E. Middelberg 2014, ApJ, 782, 116
  6. "mJIVE-20: A Survey for Compact mJy Radio Objects with the Very Long Baseline Array" (ADS)
    Deller, A. T. & E. Middelberg 2014, AJ, 147, 14
  7. "Active Galactic Nucleus Feedback Works Both Ways" (ADS)
    Zinn, P.-C., E. Middelberg, R. P. Norris, et al. 2013, ApJ, 774, 66
  8. "LOFAR: The LOw-Frequency ARray" (ADS)
    van Haarlem, M. P., M. W. Wise, A. W. Gunst, et al. 2013, A&A, 556, AA2
  9. "Wide-field VLBI Observations of M31: A Unique Probe of the Ionized Interstellar Medium of a Nearby Galaxy" (ADS)
    Morgan, J. S., M. K. Argo, C. M. Trott, et al. 2013, ApJ, 768, 12
  10. "Radio Continuum Surveys with Square Kilometre Array Pathfinders" (ADS)
    Norris, R. P., J. Afonso, D. Bacon, et al. 2013, PASA, 30, e020
  11. "Mosaiced wide-field VLBI observations of the Lockman Hole/XMM" (ADS)
    Middelberg, E., A. T. Deller, R. P. Norris, et al. 2013, A&A, 551, AA97
  12. "The Australia Telescope Large Area Survey: spectroscopic catalogue and radio luminosity functions" (ADS)
    Mao, M. Y., R. Sharp, R. P. Norris, et al. 2012, MNRAS, 426, 3334
  13. "The ATLAS 5.5 GHz survey of the extended Chandra Deep Field South: catalogue, source counts and spectral indices" (ADS)
    Huynh, M. T., A. M. Hopkins, E. Lenc, et al. 2012, MNRAS, 426, 2342
  14. "BLOBCAT: software to catalogue flood-filled blobs in radio images of total intensity and linear polarization" (ADS)
    Hales, C. A., T. Murphy, J. R. Curran, et al. 2012, MNRAS, 425, 979
  15. "Analytic detection thresholds for measurements of linearly polarized intensity using rotation measure synthesis" (ADS)
    Hales, C. A., B. M. Gaensler, R. P. Norris, et al. 2012, MNRAS, 424, 2160
  16. "The Australia Telescope Large Area Survey: 2.3 GHz observations of ELAIS-S1 and CDF-S. Spectral index properties of the faint radio sky" (ADS)
    Zinn, P.-C., E. Middelberg, R. P. Norris, et al. 2012, A&A, 544, AA38
  17. "A wider audience: Turning VLBI into a survey instrument" (ADS)
    Middelberg, E., A. T. Deller, W. F. Brisken, et al. 2012, AN, 333, 447
  18. "Spectral index properties of milliJansky radio sources" (ADS)
    Randall, K. E., A. M. Hopkins, R. P. Norris, et al. 2012, MNRAS, 421, 1644
  19. "ATLAS, and Wide-Angle Tail Galaxies in ATLAS" (ADS)
    Mao, M. Y., R. Sharp, D. J. Saikia, et al. 2011, JApA, 32, 585
  20. "The Radio Continuum Structure of Centaurus A at 1.4 GHz" (ADS)
    Feain, I. J., T. J. Cornwell, R. D. Ekers, et al. 2011, ApJ, 740, 17
  21. "EMU: Evolutionary Map of the Universe" (ADS)
    Norris, R. P., A. M. Hopkins, J. Afonso, et al. 2011, PASA, 28, 215
  22. "Are the infrared-faint radio sources pulsars?" (ADS)
    Cameron, A. D., M. Keith, G. Hobbs, et al. 2011, MNRAS, 415, 845
  23. "Deep Spitzer Observations of Infrared-faint Radio Sources: High-redshift Radio-loud Active Galactic Nuclei?" (ADS)
    Norris, R. P., J. Afonso, A. Cava, et al. 2011, ApJ, 736, 55
  24. "Infrared-faint radio sources: a cosmological view. AGN number counts, the cosmic X-ray background and SMBH formation" (ADS)
    Zinn, P.-C., E. Middelberg, & E. Ibar 2011, A&A, 531, AA14
  25. "DiFX-2: A More Flexible, Efficient, Robust, and Powerful Software Correlator" (ADS)
    Deller, A. T., W. F. Brisken, C. J. Phillips, et al. 2011, PASP, 123, 275
  26. "VLBI imaging throughout the primary beam using accurate UV shifting" (ADS)
    Morgan, J. S., F. Mantovani, A. T. Deller, et al. 2011, A&A, 526, AA140
  27. "Wide-field VLBA observations of the Chandra deep field South" (ADS)
    Middelberg, E., A. Deller, J. Morgan, et al. 2011, A&A, 526, AA74
  28. "The radio properties of infrared-faint radio sources" (ADS)
    Middelberg, E., R. P. Norris, C. A. Hales, et al. 2011, A&A, 526, AA8
  29. "Wide-angle tail galaxies in ATLAS" (ADS)
    Mao, M. Y., R. Sharp, D. J. Saikia, et al. 2010, MNRAS, 406, 2578
  30. "Evidence for Infrared-faint Radio Sources as z > 1 Radio-loud Active Galactic Nuclei" (ADS)
    Huynh, M. T., R. P. Norris, B. Siana, et al. 2010, ApJ, 710, 698
  31. "Faraday Rotation Structure on Kiloparsec Scales in the Radio Lobes of Centaurus A" (ADS)
    Feain, I. J., R. D. Ekers, T. Murphy, et al. 2009, ApJ, 707, 114
  32. "The first VLBI image of an infrared-faint radio source" (ADS)
    Middelberg, E., R. P. Norris, S. Tingay, et al. 2008, A&A, 491, 435
  33. "Erratum: "deep Australia Telescope Large Area Survey Radio Observations of the European Large Area ISO Survey S1/SPITZER Wide-Area Infrared Extragalactic Field" (2008, AJ, 135, 1276)" (ADS)
    Middelberg, E., R. P. Norris, T. J. Cornwell, et al. 2008, AJ, 136, 519
  34. "High resolution radio astronomy using very long baseline interferometry" (ADS)
    Middelberg, E. & U. Bach 2008, RPPh, 71, 066901
  35. "Deep Australia Telescope Large Area Survey Radio Observations of the European Large Area ISO Survey S1/Spitzer Wide-Area Infrared Extragalactic Field" (ADS)
    Middelberg, E., R. P. Norris, T. J. Cornwell, et al. 2008, AJ, 135, 1276
  36. "Very long baseline interferometry detection of an Infrared-Faint Radio Source" (ADS)
    Norris, R. P., S. Tingay, C. Phillips, et al. 2007, MNRAS, 378, 1434
  37. "Dressing a Naked Quasar: Star Formation and Active Galactic Nucleus Feedback in HE 0450-2958" (ADS)
    Feain, I. J., P. P. Papadopoulos, R. D. Ekers, et al. 2007, ApJ, 662, 872
  38. "Jet-cloud collisions in the jet of the Seyfert galaxy NGC3079" (ADS)
    Middelberg, E., I. Agudo, A. L. Roy, et al. 2007, MNRAS, 377, 731
  39. "Extending the infrared radio correlation" (ADS)
    Boyle, B. J., T. J. Cornwell, E. Middelberg, et al. 2007, MNRAS, 376, 1182
  40. "Deep ATLAS Radio Observations of the Chandra Deep Field-South/Spitzer Wide-Area Infrared Extragalactic Field" (ADS)
    Norris, R. P., J. Afonso, P. N. Appleton, et al. 2006, AJ, 132, 2409
  41. "Automated Editing of Radio Interferometer Data with pieflag" (ADS)
    Middelberg, E. 2006, PASA, 23, 64
  42. "The ATCA Seeing Monitor" (ADS)
    Middelberg, E., R. J. Sault, & M. J. Kesteven 2006, PASA, 23, 147
  43. "VLBI observations of weak sources using fast frequency switching" (ADS)
    Middelberg, E., A. L. Roy, R. C. Walker, et al. 2005, A&A, 433, 897
  44. "Gas Around Active Galactic Nuclei and New Phase Calibration Strategies for High-Frequency VLBI" (ADS)
    Middelberg, E. 2004, PhDT,
  45. "Motion and properties of nuclear radio components in Seyfert galaxies seen with VLBI" (ADS)
    Middelberg, E., A. L. Roy, N. M. Nagar, et al. 2004, A&A, 417, 925
  46. Radioastronomie in der Schule
    Middelberg, E. and Fuhrmann, L. 2003, Astronomie und Raumfahrt im Unterricht, 76, 16 (in German)

Here is my thesis (in PDF format, 2 MB, ADS abstract), entitled "Gas Around Active Galactic Nuclei and New Phase Calibration Strategies for High-Frequency VLBI".
Last modified: Tue Jan 24 13:59:16 CET 2017