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Storm Bram Approaches…

Posted in Biographical, Maynooth with tags , , on December 9, 2025 by telescoper

The weather is rather strange today, as a result of Storm Bram which is approaching from the South. The storm is bringing warm air with it, so the temperature is around 15°C which is very mild for December. The prevailing winds are usually westerly or south-westerly.

Heavy rain fell overnight, especially in the South. It’s clearer now and the winds are starting to pick up. Although Maynooth is relatively sheltered we’re still expecting gusts up to 100 km/h. As a precaution, the large tent which is usually situated outside the John Hume building has been dismantled to stop it blowing away.

Campus remains open and lectures are going ahead as normal.

At least mine are…

UPDATE: 4.25pm. I spoke to soon. I have a teaching session between 2pm and 4pm on Tuesdays; I usually take a break halfway through, as I did this afternoon. Chatting with some students in the interval we noted the wind was picking up and discussed the possibility of a power cut. We obviously tempted fate, as no sooner had we resumed for the second half when all the power went off. It came on intermittently a few times, but at 3.30pm I called off the lecture. It was too dark to see the blackboard and no other AV equipment was working. When I got back to the Physics Department, where the power was also off, as it appeared to be for the whole campus, a colleague who lives nearby told me that our area of Maynooth still had power. So I headed home, via Dunnes (which has a generator) to buy a few things. As I walked through Maynooth some lights were on, some were off. The worst affected area seemed to be to the north-west and around campus. Anyway, I’m home safely and can continue working here as long as the power stays on.

P.S. The storm is named after Bram Stoker, author of Dracula, who was born in Dublin.

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Nine Teaching Days to Christmas

Posted in Biographical, mathematics, Maynooth, Television with tags , , , on December 8, 2025 by telescoper

This week is the penultimate week of teaching term at Maynooth and, as usual at this stage of the Semester, we’re getting busier and busier. The examinations for January have been sent off for printing and are (presumably) ready to go, and I’m up to date with all my coursework gradin so I am, miraculously, on schedule as far as teaching is concerned. I should finish covering the respective syllabuses by Tuesday 16th, with the remaining teaching sessions devoted to revision. I don’t have any lectures on Fridays this term, so my teaching ends, a day before the end of term, on Thursday 18th December. To celebrate the end of term I’ll be presenting the students in the last session of my Engineering Mathematics module the gift of a final Class Test. I’m not sure when I’ll get to correct it. Oh, and our Department Christmas Dinner is on Wednesday 17th.

I’ll soon have to decide when to pause the publication of new papers at the Open Journal of Astrophysics and prepared for next year’s Volume 9. A certain person is insisting that I take a complete break for at least a week, so I think we’ll probably stop on Christmas Eve and begin again in the New Year.

In the meantime, term goes on. I have three lectures to get ready for tomorrow. Incidentally, my mid-Semester feedback suggested that I start each lecture with an introduction to say what I’m going to be covering. Here are some examples of what I’ve been doing in response:

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Viva Chair

Posted in Biographical, Maynooth with tags , , , , on December 5, 2025 by telescoper

Yesterday afternoon I acted as Chair of the viva voce examination for a PhD degree in the Department of Mathematics & Statistics at Maynooth University. I have done this once before at Maynooth, in the Department of Biology, but had to look back through my archive of blog posts to find out when that was: it was in June 2023.

For those of you not familiar with how this works, a PhD involves doing research into a particular topic and then writing up what you’ve done in a thesis. The thesis is a substantial piece of work, often in the region of 100,000 words (200 pages or so), which is then assessed by two examiners (one internal to the university at which the research was done, and one external). They read copies of the thesis and write preliminary reports on it. Then the candidate has to defend it in an oral examination, which was what happened yesterday, after which they make a recommendation to the university about whether the degree should be awarded.

There aren’t many rules for how a viva voce examination should be conducted or how long it should last, but the can be as short as, say, 90 minutes and can be as long as 5 hours or more. The examiners usually ask a mixture of questions, some about the details of the work presented and some about the general background. Sometimes, especially in Mathematics, the candidate might be asked to use the chalkboard to explain something, as was the case yesterday.

The unpredictable content of a viva voce examination makes it very difficult to prepare for, and it can be difficult and stressful for the candidate (as well as just tiring, as it can drag on for a long time). However, call me old-fashioned but I think if you’re going to get to call youself Doctor of Philosophy you should expect to have to work for it. 

I found it interesting when I first arrived here that viva voce examinations at Maynooth follow a similar practice to those at my previous institution, Cardiff University my previous institution, in that each viva has a Chair as well as the usual internal and external examiners. The Chair is really only present to ensure fair play, that proper procedure is followed, and that all the paperwork is done in timely fashion. The Chair is rarely (if ever) called upon to intervene in the viva itself, though I have on some previous occasions done so, mainly to ask if the candidate and/or examiners would like to take a comfort break. Other than that it’s just a matter of sitting quietly and getting on with something else while the viva proceeds.

I have done quite a lot of examinations as internal or external examiner over the years and most institutions don’t have a Chair – only the two examiners and the candidate are present. Cardiff University is an exception: I chaired a quite a few vivas when I was there. The difference there was that the Chair was from the same School (Physics & Astronomy) as the candidate, whereas in Maynooth the Chair must be from a different Department (which is why I was asked to Chair examinations in Biology and, more recently, Mathematics).

I think having an independent Chair is a good idea, but I do understand that it involves finding a person willing to do it which, it seems, sometimes slows down the organization of a viva, as the process does not start until a Chair is appointed.

Anyway, in this case it all went well. The candidate passed, the forms were filled in and sent to the relevant people. Now there are just minor corrections to be done, everything approved at the relevant Faculty meeting, and then the PhD degree can be conferred.

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Eight Years in Maynooth…

Posted in Artificial Intelligence, Biographical, Education, Maynooth with tags , , on December 1, 2025 by telescoper
Maynooth University Library, home of the famous cat

Today is 1st December 2025, which means that it’s eight years to the day since I started work at Maynooth University. Despite the frustrations, I’m still very happy I made the move all that time ago.

We’ve now had more than a year since the merger of the former Departments of Theoretical and Experimental Physics. This has gone pretty well, actually, with significant improvements in terms of some steps forward in rationalising teaching. It does, however, feel less like a merger and more like an acquisition, with the theoretical activity effectively subsumed into the old Experimental Physics department. I suppose that was inevitable given the relative sizes of the two former Departments, but it has led to a loss of identity and the loss of the group spirit we use to have in Theoretical Physics. To add to this a number of familiar faces have left – two of my own PhD students, Aonghus Hunter-McCabe and Aoibhinn Gallagher have graduated and left, as have others with different supervisors. I am delighted for their success, of course, but will miss having them around.

I continue to enjoy teaching, and was pleasantly surprised to continue doing the same modules this academic year as last. The big change in that regard has been the adoption of different assessment methods to deal with the possibility of students using AI to do their coursework. That seems to be going reasonably well, though I’ll have to wait until the January examinations to see the outcomes.

The thing I’m probably most proud of over the past eight years is, with the huge help of staff at Maynooth University Library, getting the Open Journal of Astrophysics off the ground and attracting some excellent papers. This year has seen yet more significant growth, publications this year set to reach 200, after 120 in 2024 and just 50 the year before that (2024). We’re still smaller than many of the mainstream astrophysics journals, but we’re still growing…

Anyway, eight years of service mean that only two remain until I can claim the full state pension. I’ll be retiring as soon as I can afford to. There were Open Days at Maynooth on Friday and Saturday (28th and 29th November, respectively). These were for prospective students to enter in September 2026. Since I don’t teach any first or second year Physics modules now, and that is likely to continue, it looks like I’ll never see any of that intake in class.

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MAUVE Launched!

Posted in Maynooth, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , , on November 28, 2025 by telescoper

After a false start a couple of days ago, the satellite MAUVE was launched at (10.44 Pacific Time (18.44 GMT) today from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on a SpaceX Falcon-9 Transporter-15. So far, about 40 minutes after liftoff, it’s looking good.

You can see the live feed here:

As far as I know the launch went perfectly, but I’m waiting for confirmation of payload deployment, which begins about an hour after launch. The vehicle is carrying 140 different satellites, of which MAUVE (“Mission to Analyze the UltraViolet universE”) is just one.

The following is taken from my previous post. I repeat it here for completeness.

The Falcon-9 launcher ready to go, but not going…
The payload: MAUVE is at the bottom right
Closeup of MAUVE

I’m not personally involved in MAUVE but the Department of Physics at Maynooth University is, through my colleague Dr Emma Whelan (who sent the above pictures) and her group. You can read more about the science – related to star and planet formation – it will do in a nice piece by Emma on RTÉ Brainstorm.

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Maynooth University Library Cat (and Bat) Update

Posted in Maynooth with tags , , , on November 27, 2025 by telescoper

On my way to lunch today I saw Maynooth University Library Cat trying the well-known “staring at an empty dish” ploy. It worked, as it always does..

When I got to Pugin Hall for my own lunch I was confronted by this

I didn’t see the bat in question.

P.S. WordPress just told me that this is my 7,500th blog post!

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MAUVE Postponed

Posted in Maynooth, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , , on November 26, 2025 by telescoper

I was hoping to do a post this evening about the satellite MAUVE which was due to be launched at 18.18 GMT from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on a SpaceX Falcon-9 Transporter-15. Unfortunately the launched was scrubbed with about 15 minutes to go. In fact it was originally scheduled for 11th November but was postponed then. It’s now supposed to be launched on Friday 28th November. Let’s hope it’s third time lucky!

MAUVE is a small satellite, which is to be launched with a number of others; the name stands for “Mission to Analyze the UltraViolet universE” and the heart of it is a 60cm ultraviolet telescope.

The Falcon-9 launcher ready to go, but not going…
The payload: MAUVE is at the bottom right
Closeup of MAUVE

I’m not personally involved in MAUVE but the Department of Physics at Maynooth University is, through my colleague Dr Emma Whelan (who sent the above pictures) and her group. You can read more about the science – related to star and planet formation – it will do in a nice piece by Emma on RTÉ Brainstorm.

There’s a more technical description of MAUVE on the arXiv here. The abstract reads:

We present the mission concept “Mission to Analyze the UltraViolet universE” (MAUVE), a wide-field spectrometer and imager conceived during the inaugural NASA Astrophysics Mission Design School. MAUVE responds to the 2023 Announcement of Opportunity for Probe-class missions, with a budget cap of $1 billion, and would hypothetically launch in 2031. However, the formulation of MAUVE was an educational exercise and the mission is not being developed further. The Principal Investigator-led science of MAUVE aligns with the priorities outlined in the 2020 Astrophysics Decadal Survey, enabling new characterizations of exoplanet atmospheres, the early-time light curves of some of the universe’s most explosive transients, and the poorly-understood extragalactic background light. Because the Principal Investigator science occupies 30% of the observing time available during the mission’s 5 yr lifespan, we provide an observing plan that would allow for 70% of the observing time to be used for General Observer programs, with community-solicited proposals. The onboard detector (THISTLE) claims significant heritage from the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph on Hubble, but extends its wavelength range down to the extreme UV. We note that MAUVE would be the first satellite in decades with the ability to access this regime of the electromagnetic spectrum. MAUVE has a field of view of 900″ x 900″ a photometric sensitivity extending to mUV ≤ 24 , and a resolving power of R ~ 1000. This paper provides full science and mission traceability matrices for this concept, and also outlines cost and scheduling timelines aimed at enabling a within-budget mission and an on-time launch.

Anyway, I hope to be able to give an update on Friday evening about the successful launch of MAUVE. Fingers crossed!

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A month to go

Posted in Artificial Intelligence, Biographical, Education, mathematics, Maynooth with tags , , , , , on November 25, 2025 by telescoper

I’ve been a bit preoccupied these recent weeks so it was with a shock that I realised that we’re into Week 9, which means just four weeks (including this one) until the end of term and just a month before Christmas. Teaching finishes here in Maynooth on Friday 19th December, but I don’t have any lectures on Fridays so in my case it will finish the day before (with a tutorial). I don’t know how many students will be there, but the module concerned is my 4th year Mathematical Physics module and the students are very hard-working, so I think most will attend. After such a busy term I’m sure that they will need a break as much as I will.

I had to rejig the schedule for both modules I am teaching this semester to accommodate the introduction of in-class tests to replace take-home assignments (for reasons I outlined here). I’ve also been handing out voluntary exercises for practice, not counting towards the module mark but for formative reasons. Both modules are mathematical in nature, and I think the best way to learn mathematics is by doing it…

Despite the changes with respect to last year, I am still roughly on track. In my Engineering Mathematics module I’ve just finished Laplace transforms, and will start Fourier methods tomorrow. With the mathematical physicists, I am in the middle of complex analysis, having done complex differentiation and conformal mappings and starting complex integration next week.

I still have a couple more class tests to get through. On the positive side, the students are turning up for them and have expressed approval for the fact that they don’t have compulsory homework to do off-campus. This form of assessment is undoubtedly harder work for the students, it’s also better preparation for the examination that take-home assignments.

We’ve just received the draft examination timetable for January, and I’m pleased that both of the examinations for which I am responsible will take place quite early in the examination period (on 12th and 15th January, respectively) so I should be able to get them corrected in time to have a break for some research before teaching resumes at the start of February.

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For the Birds

Posted in Biographical, Maynooth with tags , , , , , , , on November 23, 2025 by telescoper

The weather here in Maynooth was very mild until a couple of weeks ago and with the arrival of inclement conditions I started putting out the bird feeders in my garden. I can see the level of the seed from my kitchen window so know when they need filling up. I had one out for a couple of days before the arrival of Storm Claudia with associated torrential rain, but when it passed I was surprised to see the feeders were still half full so I left them.

Last weekend it started to become very cold so I was surprised there were no birds at the feeder. When I went out to look I realized that owing the heavy rainfall some water had got into the seed container, with the result that some of the seeds had started to germinate. This formed a tangled mass of shoots that blocked the gap through which seed is dispensed. The reason the feeders were not empty was not that the birds weren’t hungry, but that no seed was coming out.

I took the feeders inside and cleaned out all the matted seedlings. Then I took them back to the shed to fill up, at which point I knocked over the jar in which I stored the birdseed, scattering the supply all over the floor. There wasn’t much left anyway, but my clumsiness reduced the stock to zero so I was unable to feed the birds despite having functioning feeders.

Yesterday I finally had time to buy some more birdseed. I filled up the feeders as soon as I got home. It was quite interesting to watch the sequence of events. The first to arrive were sparrows who, being small and agile, were quite happy taking terms perching at the feeders. Not long after, however, starlings arrived, squabbling and squawking as they usually do. Starlings are much larger then sparrows and are extremely messy and noisy eaters, their attempts to perch at a feeder causing it to swing and scatter seed all over the ground.

(Incidentally, the term for a large group of starlings is a murmuration, a congregation, a cloud, or a constellation, but there are alternatives for a smaller group like the dozen or so that arrived in my garden. These include a clutter, a scourge, a vulgarity and, my favourite, a filth…)

Some starlings and sparrows started to feed on the ground, as did a very bonny collared dove, walking around calmly amid the flurry of other birds and paying them no attention at all .

At this point the feeder was almost empty.

The last cohort to arrive were the rooks and jackdaws. These are too big to even attempt to perch so their modus operandi is to crash into the feeders to try to break them or knock them down to the ground where they are easier to attack. They didn’t succeed, so they left.

Now the feeders are empty, the birds have gone, and all is quiet. I think I’ll put more food out tomorrow before I go to work. I imagine they’ll be empty by the time I get back home.

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Visiting Speaker

Posted in Maynooth, OJAp Papers, Open Access, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , on November 21, 2025 by telescoper

I’ve been playing host today to my former PhD student, now at the University of Vienna, Mateja Gosenca, who gave a talk on “Ultralight Dark Matter: Phenomenology and Observational Constraints”. Mateja did an MSc at the University of Sussex before doing a PhD under my supervision, so it is very nice to have her visit us in Maynooth.

It was only when I started to think about how to introduce her Colloquium that I remembered that Mateja was co-author of the very first paper published by the Open Journal of Astrophysics, way back in 2016. At that time we were running an experimental prototype site before switching to the Scholastica platform we now use, but it was still a landmark. We’ve now published 415 papers.

Update: Obligatory pub photograph

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