This study examined the response of forage crops to composted dairy waste (compost) applied at low rates and investigated effects on soil health. The evenness of spreading compost by commercial machinery was also assessed. An experiment was established on a commercial dairy farm with target rates of compost up to 5 t ha−1 applied to a field containing millet [Echinochloa esculenta (A. Braun) H. Scholz] and Pasja leafy turnip (Brassica hybrid). A pot experiment was also conducted to monitor the response of a legume forage crop (vetch; Vicia sativa L.) on three soils with equivalent rates of compost up to 20 t ha−1 with and without ‘additive blends’ comprising gypsum, lime or other soil treatments. Few significant increases in forage biomass were observed with the application of low rates of compost in either the field or pot experiment. In the field experiment, compost had little impact on crop herbage mineral composition, soil chemical attributes or soil fungal and bacterial biomass. However, small but significant increases were observed in gravimetric water content resulting in up to 22.4 mm of additional plant available water calculated in the surface 0.45 m of soil, 2 years after compost was applied in the field at 6 t ha−1 dried (7.2 t ha−1 undried), compared with the nil control. In the pot experiment, where the soil was homogenized and compost incorporated into the soil prior to sowing, there were significant differences in mineral composition in herbage and in soil. A response in biomass yield to compost was only observed on the sandier and lower fertility soil type, and yields only exceeded that of the conventional fertilizer treatment where rates equivalent to 20 t ha−1 were applied. With few yield responses observed, the justification for applying low rates of compost to forage crops and pastures seems uncertain. Our collective experience from the field and the glasshouse suggests that farmers might increase the response to compost by: (i) increasing compost application rates; (ii) applying it prior to sowing a crop; (iii) incorporating the compost into the soil; (iv) applying only to responsive soil types; (v) growing only responsive crops; and (vi) reducing weed burdens in crops following application. Commercial machinery incorporating a centrifugal twin disc mechanism was shown to deliver double the quantity of compost in the area immediately behind the spreader compared with the edges of the spreading swathe. Spatial variability in the delivery of compost could be reduced but not eliminated by increased overlapping, but this might represent a potential 20% increase in spreading costs.

Among the most important stimuli for developing the FLAIR multi-object spectroscopy system on the 1.2-m UK Schmidt Telescope was its potential for carrying out large-scale redshift surveys of galaxies of intermediate magnitude (B <~ 17). During FLAIR’s lengthy development period, these objects provided the yardstick by which the system’s performance was measured, and a number of limited-area redshift surveys were carried out. We are now following these with a 1-in-3 survey over the 60 fields of the ROE/Durham Galaxy Catalogue to produce a redshift map of some 4000 galaxies out to a distance of ~ 300h −1 Mpc (where the parameter h is the Hubble constant expressed as a fraction of 100 kms−1 Mpc−1). In this paper we summarise the results from our redshift surveys to highlight the capabilities of FLAIR. We present a status report on the current large-scale survey, and show that the recently-introduced FLAIR II system will speed its progress considerably.

This paper presents the design and science goals for the SkyMapper telescope. SkyMapper is a 1.3-m telescope featuring a 5.7-square-degree field-of-view Cassegrain imager commissioned for the Australian National University's Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics. It is located at Siding Spring Observatory, Coonabarabran, NSW, Australia and will see first light in late 2007.

The imager possesses 16 384 × 16 384 0.5-arcsec pixels. The primary scientific goal of the facility is to perform the Southern Sky Survey, a six-colour and multi-epoch (four-hour, one-day, one-week, one-month and one-year sampling) photometric survey of the southerly 2π sr to g ∼23 mag. The survey will provide photometry to better than 3% global accuracy and astrometry to better than 50 milliarcsec. Data will be supplied to the community as part of the Virtual Observatory effort. The survey will take five years to complete.

We examine 48 Swift/UVOT long Gamma-ray Burst light curves and find acorrelation between the logarithmic luminosity at 200 s and average decay rate determinedfrom 200 s onwards, with a Spearman rank coefficient of −0.58 at a significance of 99.998%(4.2σ). We determine thelog L200s − α > 200s correlation to beintrinsic and discuss two possible causes: there is a property of the central engine,outflow or external medium that effects the rate of energy release so that the brightafterglows release their energy more quickly and decay faster than the fainter afterglows;alternatively, the observers viewing angle may produce the correlation, with observers atlarge viewing angles observing fainter and slower decaying light curves.

GRB 110715A had a bright afterglow that was obscured in the optical by a high Galactic extinction. We discovered the submillimeter counterpart with APEX and followed it in radio with ATCA for over 2 months. Additional submm observations were performed with ALMA as a test of the ToO procedures during commissioning, becoming the first GRB afterglow to be detected by the observatory. UV, optical and NIR observations were performed with Swift/UVOT and 2.2 m/GROND in La Silla and X-ray data were obtained by Swift/XRT. The dataset is complemented with spectroscopic data from the VLT/X-shooter spectrograph. The absorption features present in the intermediate resolution optical/nIR spectra reveal a redshift of 0.8224 and a host galaxy environment with low ionization. We fit in the host galaxy absorption features two velocity components separated by 30 km/s, implying a host galaxy with low dynamical activity.

We report on the long term X-ray monitoring with Swift, RXTE, Suzaku, Chandra, and XMM-Newton of the outburst of the newly discovered magnetar Swift J1822.3–1606 (SGR 1822-1606), from the first observations soon after the detection of the short X-ray bursts which led to its discovery (July 2011), through the first stages of its outburst decay (April 2012). Our X-ray timing analysis finds the source rotating with a period of P = 8.43772016(2) s and a period derivative Ṗ = 8.3(2) × 10−14 ss−1, which entails an inferred dipolar surface magnetic field of B ≃ 2.7 × 1013 G at the equator. This measurement makes Swift J1822.3–1606 the second lowest magnetic field magnetar (after SGR 0418+5729; Rea et al. 2010). Following the flux and spectral evolution from the beginning of the outburst, we find that the flux decreased by about an order of magnitude, with a subtle softening of the spectrum, both typical of the outburst decay of magnetars. By modeling the secular thermal evolution of Swift J1822.3–1606, we find that the observed timing properties of the source, as well as its quiescent X-ray luminosity, can be reproduced if it was born with a poloidal and crustal toroidal fields of Bp ~ 1.5 × 1014 G and Btor ~ 7 × 1014 G, respectively, and if its current age is ~550 kyr (Rea et al. 2012).

The immensely bright and intrinsically simple afterglow spectra of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) have proven to be highly effective probes of the interstellar dust and gas in distant, star-forming galaxies. Despite significant progress, many aspects of the host galaxy attenuating material are still poorly understood. There is considerable discrepancy between the amount of X-ray and optical afterglow absorption, with the former typically an order of magnitude higher than what would be expected from the optical line absorption of neutral element species. Similar inconsistencies exist between the abundance of interstellar dust derived from spectroscopic and photometric data, and the relation between the line-of-sight and integrated host galaxy interstellar medium (ISM) remains unclear. In these proceedings we present our analysis on both spectroscopic and photometric multi-wavelength GRB afterglow data, and summarise some of the more recent results on the attenuation properties of the ISM within GRB host galaxies.