Programme and Slides

The presentation titles are linked to the slides of the presentation, where available.

13 November
17:30 Registration desk open
18:30 Welcome reception drinks and snacks
Wednesday 14 November
Time Speaker Title
8:00-9:00 Registration and coffee
Chair: Lisa Crause
9:00-9:30 Welcomes from the DST, NRF and SALT
9:30-9:50 Petri Vaisanen Future plans for SAAO: An Intelligent Observatory
9:50-10:10 Encarni Romero Colmenero An Update on SALT Status
10:10-10:30 Lerothodi Leeuw Oral Histories of Individuals Involved with Astronomy in South Africa: Advances with SALT
10:30-11:00 Tea
Transients/Time Domain
Chair: Brent Miszalski
11:00-11:20 Paul Groot The MeerLICHT project as a SALT diamond mine
11:20-11:40 David Buckley Status of the SALT Transients Programme
11:40-12:00 Elias Aydi SALT – an ultimate machine to observe classical novae
12:00-12:20 Marina Orio Following luminous novae into quiescence
12:20-12:30 Poster presenters Brief summary of posters (1 min per person)
12:30-13:30 Lunch and posters

Poster presenters:
Wathela Alhassan – The FIRST Classifier: compact and extended radio galaxy classification using deep Convolutional Neural Networks
Kelebogile Bonokwane – The long orbital period eccentric binary central star of MPA 1508-6455
Cezary Galan – Hen 3-160 – the first symbiotic binary with Mira variable S star?
Munira Hoosain – Galaxy mergers in the Hubble Frontier Fields Cluster MACS J0717
Quinton Kaplan – Future SALT Observations for AR Scorpii
Spencer Tendai Madzime – The search for particle acceleration in AE Aquarii
Nazir-Ahmed Adam Makda – Ultradiffuse galaxies in Stripe 82 Clusters
Tekano Mbonani – Optical Gamma-ray variability studies of quasar 3C 279 during the April and June 2018 flares
Joshua Oppor – Investigating Focal Ratio Degradation in Fiber Fed Instrumentation for SALT
Fidy A. Ramamonjisoa – Polarized emission from blazars during high emission states
Jessymol Thomas – MAXI J 1820+070: A new black hole low-mass X-ray binary candidate
Chair: Ros Skelton
13:30-13:50 Elisabeth Newton Studying close-orbiting exoplanets with SALT
13:50-14:10 Mike Smith NIR update
Unconference
14:20-14:50 Unconference Room 1: NIR (Chair: Mike Smith)

Room 2: How can SALT help you? (Chair: Christian Hettlage)

15:00-15:30 Unconference Room 1: HRS-HS + exoplanets (Chair: Lisa Crause)

Room 2: Other topics

15:30-15:50 Tea
15:50-16:20 Unconference Room 1: MaxE (Chair: Janus Brink / Ockert Strydom)

Room 2: Other topics

16:30-17:00 Unconference Room 1: Transient strategy (Chair: David Buckley)

Room 2: Other topics

17:10-17:30 Discussion summary
Thursday 15 November
Time Speaker Title
Galactic
Chair: Brian van Soelen
9:00-9:20 Mike Shara BH-BH Merger Progenitors: The Spins of O stars in Wolf-Rayet + O Binaries
9:20-9:40 Joanna Mikolajewska Highlights from ongoing SALT HRS monitoring of Magellanic symbiotic stars
9:40-10:00 Krystian Ilkiewicz Symbiotic stars in the Magellanic Clouds
10:00-10:20 Brent Miszalski SALT HRS discovery of the binary nucleus of the Etched Hourglass Nebula MyCn 18
10:20-10:40 Jack Hughes Constraints on Particle Acceleration from Optical Spectra of Fast Shocks in Supernova Remnants
10:40-11:10 Tea
Extragalactic
Chair: Eric Wilcots
11:10-11:30 Matt Hilton SALT Science with Sunyaev-Zel’dovich Selected Galaxy Clusters
11:30-11:50 Julie Davis SALT-ed CHILES: Neutral and Ionized Gas Kinematics in the CHILES Survey
11:50-12:10 Moses Mogotsi Combining SALT Kinematics of SUNBIRD LIRGS with MUSE and ALMA
12:10-12:30 Rob Yates Probing the true evolution of the mass-metallicity relation with SALT
12:30-13:30 Lunch
Chair: Moses Mogotsi
13:30-13:50 Andri Prozesky The effects of continuum radiation fields on H populations and recombination line masers
13:50-14:10 Piotr Guzik Early results from the first dedicated search for asteroid dust trails with SALTICAM
Unconference
14:20-14:50 Unconference Room 1: Science engagement (Chair: Daniel Cunnama)

Room 2: Other topics

15:00-15:30 Unconference Room 1: Optimizing observations (Chair: Encarni Romero Colmenero)

Room 2: Other topics

15:30-15:50 Tea
15:50-16:20 Unconference Room 1: PolSALT (Chair: Danièl Groenewald)

Room 2: MOS (Chair: Ros Skelton)

16:30-17:00 Unconference Room 1: RSS Longslit reduction strategies (Chair: Brent Miszalski)

Room 2: Other topics

17:10-17:30 Discussion summary
19:00 Conference dinner

The conference dinner takes place at Forti. The shuttle leaves the Lynnwood City Lodge Hotel at 18:45.
Friday 16 November
Time Speaker Title
AGN/High energy
Chair: David Buckley
9:00-9:20 Brian van Soelen Optical Light and Gamma-rays: Using SALT to understand very high energy sources
9:20-9:40 Hester Schutte Modelling the Spectral Energy Distribution and Polarisation of Blazars
9:40-10:00 Neeraj Gupta MALS-SALT: large survey to discover high-z quasars for MALS
10:00-10:20 Gitika Shukla Extended Lyman-Alpha Emission around high redshift radio loud quasars
10:20-10:40 Raphael Hviding Understanding Galactic Scale Effects of AGN from Fabry Perot observations with SALT
10:40-11:10 Tea
Galactic
Chair: Joanna Mikolajewska
11:10-11:30 Phil Charles X-ray Binary Transients with SALT
11:30-11:50 Itumeleng Monageng The orbital parameters of 1FGL J1018.6-5856
11:50-12:10 Naomi van Jaarsveld Searching for young radio pulsars located in new SMC SNR candidates
12:10-12:30 Stefano Ciroi SALT spectroscopic observations of supersoft Be binaries in the Magellanic Clouds
12:30-13:30 Lunch
Chair: Jack Hughes
13:30-13:50 Brian Chaboyer RR Lyrae as Distance Indicators
13:50-14:10 Meridith Joyce The power of high resolution spectroscopy for mixing length calibrations in theoretical stellar evolution models
14:10-14:30 Christina Gilligan Testing Stellar Evolution Models in the Gaia Era
14:30-14:50 Moses Mogotsi and Lisa Crause Conference summary
14:50-15:00 Thanks and Close