Astronomy Group - Quentin Parker
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Quentin Parker obtained a BSc(Hons) in 1982 and a PhD (1986) from the University of St.Andrews in Scotland. He joined the faculty at Macquarie in April 2002 as the joint AAO/Macquarie lecturer in astronomy. Prior to that Quentin worked at the Royal Observatory Edinburgh (1986-1992), Anglo-Australian observatory (1992-1999) as an instrument scientist/astronomer and as a senior research fellow at the Institute for Astronomy (1999-2002). Quentin was responsible for helping to develop and manage the FLAIR-II fibre-spectroscopy system at the UKST and had also worked extensively with the new 6dF robotic fibre system that replaced FLAIR-II. Quentin was also P.I. for the UKST H-alpha survey. Research activities are mainly but not exclusively associated with Wide Field Astronomy, including large-scale redshift surveys and the new Macquarie/Edinburgh/Strasbourg Catalogue of Galactic Planetary Nebulae. He has supervised and co-supervised a number of PhD and MSc students aswell as senior honours projects and Nuffield, Cormack and AAO vacation research scholars and is always keen to attract students. Quentin is currently Chair of the IAU working group on sky-surveys, is a member of the 6dF Science Advisory Group and heads both the H-alpha international survey consortium and the associated Planetary nebulae team.
A HST image of the Cat's Eye Nebula. Found in the northern Draco constellation it's relatively bright and nearby (~1.0kpc +/- 0.3)..
Acknowledgment: R. Corradi (Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes, Spain) and Z. Tsvetanov (NASA)