Netherlands Astronomy Conference 2025

Light pollution not only disrupts ecosystems and human health but also severely impacts astronomical observations by increasing skyglow, limiting our ability to study the universe. DARKER SKY is an Interreg North Sea project dedicated to reducing light pollution to enhance biodiversity and ecological connectivity across the North Sea region. It has a budget of €4.2 million and involves 13...

Direct imaging is a technique that allows us to spatially resolve the planet from its host star. Due to the big difference in flux between star and planet, a very high contrast must be reached to observe the planet that would be otherwise hidden in the glare of the star.

Coronagraphs are optical systems that work as angular filters, suppressing the on-axis star light and letting the...

In this talk, I will give an overview of the IT research services at SURF that are relevant for astronomy research. In paricular, which solutions are there for large-scale simulations, high-throughput data processing and data storage and management? And how can you get (free) access to the national Computing facilites at SURF or, for even larger needs, to Europe’s fastest supercomputer LUMI.

Pulsar Timing Array (PTA) projects hold the promise of becoming sensitive Gravitational-Wave (GW) detectors in the nanoHertz frequency band. Multiple international PTA collaborations are actively timing an array of pulsars with their respective radio observatories, and each collaboration carries out GW searches in their own data. In principle, a combined search over all available PTA data is...

The design of the Multi-Object Spectrograph (MOS) for Astrophysics, Intergalactic-medium studies and Cosmology (MOSAIC) for the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) is optimized for key capabilities such as high survey efficiency, high sensitivity to faint targets, and covering an extended parameter space, in terms of available modes (MOS & mIFU), bandwidth, spectral resolution, for the wavelength...

In this presentation, we will share the first results of our project to reach underrepresented school children with our interactive planetarium shows. The NOVA Mobile Planetarium project started in 2010 and has reached approximately 500,000 school children to date. However, data collected over the period 2010-2023 showed that certain regions and groups were underrepresented. Therefore, in 2024...

MICADO is a first light instrument for the Extremely Large Telescope. Together with an adaptive optics system, it will make supersharp images of the near-infrared sky (0.8-2.3 micron). The instrument is lead by the Max-Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial physics in Munich. NOVA contributes to this instrument, with the design and manufacturing of 2 filterwheels, a pupilwheel (including...

Enriching press releases and social media posts with short videos is becoming increasingly important. In 2024, the NOVA Information Center experimented with content creation. For example, we produced one-and-a-half minute videos in which we interviewed three researchers per video. In these videos, we also included b-roll footage of telescopes and astronomical phenomena. In this presentation,...

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are bright, millisecond-duration radio transients with diverse morphologies and uncertain origins. As detection rates accelerate, manual classification becomes impractical. In this talk, I present a new framework for exploring FRB time-frequency structures using unsupervised machine learning techniques. We apply Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and a Convolutional...

We have recently opened a window on the seconds-to-minutes variable radio sky, and through these observations, a new source class of LPTs has begun to emerge. These new transients have emitted unknown radio flares with durations of seconds to minutes and periodicities of minutes to hours (Hyman et al. 2005; Hurley-Walker et al. 2022). These timescales imply that these transients exhibit...

The Mid-Infrared ELT Imager and Spectrograph (METIS) is one of the first-light instruments for Europe’s Extremely Large Telescope (ELT). Covering the L, M, and N bands, METIS will offer imaging, coronagraphy, and medium-resolution spectroscopy across its full wavelength range (3-13 microns), as well as high-resolution integral field spectroscopy in the L and M bands (3-5 microns).

Following...

We would like to present the Black Hole Render Engine for the industry standard, open-source, 3d graphics software Blender. Our render engine has two unique capabilities. First it is able to render images of textured meshes at arbitrarily close and far away positions to a black hole. Secondly, the camera can be freely orientated in spacetime and placed anywhere between far away (for...

Unlucky stars that venture too close to a supermassive black hole (BH) get ripped apart by gravitational tidal forces. These tidal disruption events (TDEs) offer a rare probe of otherwise quiescent BHs.

TDEs are usually detected in the optical and ultraviolet (UV), where light curves show an early-time peak, often followed by a late-time plateau. Recent modelling shows that these plateaus...

Astronomical instrumentation projects are often very international, with team members coming from different cultural backgrounds, being proficient in multiple different languages, working across different time zones, and frequently having a different (professional) understanding of the same – often English – working language.

In this talk, I would like to share my personal and professional...

We see considerable political pressure against "DEI" (Or EDI, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion). We still have more freedom of speech on this than our colleagues in the USA (where I previously lived and worked for 20 years);

We need to address the question of how we can explain to guys like Donald why EDI matters, what it is and what it isn't. Much of the time we are "preaching to the...

The European Regional Office of Astronomy for Development (E-ROAD), part of the International Astronomical Union’s global OAD network, harnesses astronomy to drive societal progress and contribute to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Based at Leiden University, E-ROAD focuses on quality education (SDG 4), gender equality (SDG 5), economic growth (SDG 8), and reducing...

Ground-based observations of spacecraft signals have been used to study space weather. However, single spacecraft measurements observed from the Earth have limitations in studying the structure and evolution of solar plasma as they are unable to differentiate spatial and temporal variations. To overcome this limitation and improve our understanding of interplanetary scintillation, we...

After more than 30 years of talking, the construction of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) is now well underway. In this talk, I will give a update on construction, discuss how anyone can get involved in the SKA now, and what this stage of project development means for the Dutch astronomy community. In particular, I will focus on the establishment of our own regional centre, and its expected...

One of the most ambitious goals of modern astronomy is to uncover signs of extraterrestrial biological activity. This is, primarily achieved through spectroscopic analysis of light emitted by exoplanets to identify specific atmospheric molecules. Most exoplanets are indirectly identified through techniques like transit or Doppler shift of the host star's flux. Long-term surveys have yielded...

Have you ever looked at a dataset and thought, I know the question I want to ask—but how do I actually get the answer? Or perhaps you’ve developed a new method and are wondering where else it could be useful. Maybe you're curious whether others in the Dutch astronomy community are facing similar data challenges, or have already found creative solutions. If so, this session is for you.

Data...

The Advanced Telescope for High-Energy Astrophysics (Athena) has successfully completed a redefinition phase – both of the technical implementation, and mission driving science objectives – becoming ‘NewAthena’. With mission adoption by ESA foreseen in early 2027, the activities of the NewAthena Science Community are expected to ramp up in the very near term. I will give an update on the...

The Africa Millimeter Telescope (AMT) is the first African millimeter-wave radio telescope and will link to the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) network. The AMT will be built in the Khomas Highlands of Namibia and due to its unique location will be able to contribute significantly to increased angular and temporal resolution of the EHT array. In addition to participation in Very Long Baseline...

Since 2020, Microsoft’s emissions have risen by more than 30%, and Google’s by almost 50%. The reason, according to both companies, is the insatiable energy demand of generative AI. As a result, both companies are now openly wavering on their previous corporate emissions targets and making it clear that AI growth will take priority over achieving any climate goals.

To put it another way:...

The Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) telescope is preparing for a major upgrade, known as LOFAR2.0. In 2025 and 2026 all 16.000 receivers, the station digital beam formers, clock distribution system, data network, correlator/beam former and central processing cluster will be replaced. On top, two new stations in Italy and Bulgaria will be built and added to the telescope.
LOFAR is a pan-European...

The NOVA Submillimeter (submm) Group was established at the Kapteyn Astronomical Institute in 1998 as part of the Netherlands Research School for Astronomy (NOVA) instrumentation effort. Its primary goal was to develop technology for the ALMA project. This focus shaped the group's research and development direction, particularly in the field of low-noise heterodyne receivers for submillimeter...

The impetus for wide-field searches for counterparts of explosive transients including binary neutron-star mergers, supernovae, and tidal disruption events has never been higher. The ongoing operations with the LIGO-Virgo network of gravitational wave detectors in the 4th observing period continues to offer challenges for optical observers, primarily due to the poor (~100 deg$^2$) localisation...