The Asiago Red Clump Spectroscopic Survey and Its First Applications

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

The Asiago Red Clump Spectroscopic Survey and Its First Applications Universita’ degli Studi di Padova Facoltà di Scienze MM.FF.NN. Dipartimento di Astronomia Scuola di Dottorato in Astronomia ARCS:THEASIAGOREDCLUMP SPECTROSCOPICSURVEYANDITS FIRSTAPPLICATIONS Ph. D. Thesis of: Supervisor: Marica Valentini Prof. Ulisse Munari Marica Valentini: ARCS: the Asiago Red Clump Spectroscopic Survey and its first applications, Ph. D. Thesis, © December 2009 To my family... CONTENTS 1 red clump stars 1 1.1 Introduction1 1.2 The Red Clump2 1.3 Structure and evolution of Red Clump stars2 1.3.1 The Fine Structure9 1.4 Properties 11 1.5 The Red Clump in Hipparcos 11 1.6 Red Clump Stars as Standard Candles: the calibra- tion of MRedClump 14 1.7 Red Clump stars as Milky Way structure indica- tors 19 1.8 The Red Clump as Star Formation History Trac- ers 22 1.9 Catalogs of Red Clump in literature 23 1.9.1 This thesis and the ARCS survey 24 2 target selection and assembling of the imput catalogue 27 2.1 ARCS Selection Criteria 27 2.2 The Problem of contamination 30 2.2.1 Binaries 30 2.2.2 AGB 31 2.3 Comparison of ARCS with other catalogs in litera- ture 31 3 data acquisition and reduction 35 3.1 Instrument and performances 35 3.1.1 Spectrograph characteristics 35 3.2 Modus operandi at the telescope 36 3.3 Data Reduction 36 3.3.1 Data Modeling with IRAF 36 3.3.2 Scattered Light Evaluation and Correction 38 4 radial velocity and atmospheric parame- ter determination 45 4.1 Introduction 45 4.2 The synthetic library 45 4.3 Cross Correlation on syntetic Spectra 48 4.4 χ2 test 49 4.4.1 The χ2 method 49 vii viii Contents 5 testing the method 51 5.1 Introduction 51 5.2 Tests on radial velocity measurements 52 5.2.1 IAU Velocity Standards 52 5.2.2 RAVE 52 5.3 Test on atmospheric parameters :Soubiran, Hekker, Takeda catalogs 54 5.3.1 The importance of the S/N 55 5.4 Test on atmospheric parameters: stars from litera- ture 55 5.5 Test on atmospheric parameters: Open Clusters 65 5.6 Discussion 65 6 constructing arcs high resolution cata- log 69 6.1 Introduction 69 6.2 Distances 69 6.2.1 Hipparcos distances 70 6.2.2 K-band 71 6.2.3 Spectrophotometric distances 71 6.3 Galactic Velocities 71 6.4 Reddening 75 6.5 Detected binaries 75 7 arcs output catalogue 83 7.1 Introduction 83 7.2 The Catalog 83 8 applications of arcs results on galactic structure and kinematics 95 8.1 Introduction 95 8.2 The Milky Way Disk 96 8.3 Moving Groups 96 8.4 Thin Disk 99 8.5 ARCS space velocities and orbits 99 8.5.1 Distances and space velocities 99 8.5.2 Galactic model of mass distribution and or- bits integration 102 8.6 ARCS Ages 102 8.6.1 Comparison of ARCS gravities with PARAM gravities 104 8.7 Age distribution of ARCS objects 104 8.7.1 Age-Velocity relation - don’t know if feasi- ble 104 8.7.2 Age-Metallicity relation -to check 106 8.7.3 Vertical metallicity gradient- to check 106 Contents ix 8.7.4 A signature of Radial Mixing?(provvisory ti- tle) 106 8.8 Structures in the U-V velocity space of ARCS ob- jects 107 8.8.1 Moving Groups 107 8.8.2 Kinematic branches 107 8.9 Conclusions 107 Bibliography 127 LISTOFFIGURES Figure 1 Hertzsprung-Russell (MV , B-V) diagrams for the 4902 and 16631 stars from the Hipparcos Catalog.3 Figure 2 The evolution of the internal structure of a star of 1.3 M 4 Figure 3 Evolutionary tracks on Hertzsprung-Russel Diagram6 Figure 4 Position of the ZAHB for stellar evolution- ary tracks of different masses and metallic- ity.7 Figure 5 The evolution of the internal structure of a star of 1.3 M during the He flash.8 Figure 6 Distribution of clump stars in the MV vs B − V diagram, from theoretical models and from Hipparcos data. 10 Figure 7 Udalski calibration of MI vs V − I color and metallicity. 15 Figure 8 Groenewegen (2008) calibration of MI vs V − I color and metallicity. 17 Figure 9 Groenewegen (2008) calibration of MK vs V − K color and metallicity. 18 Figure 10 Subtracted map in terms of surface density in the sky for RC stars in order to detect Canis Major 21 Figure 11 Spectral type distribution if ARCS objects 28 Figure 12 Aitoff equatorial projection of ARCS targets. 28 Figure 13 Aitoff galactic projection of ARCS targets. 29 Figure 14 Distribution in magnitude of ARCS, Famaey, Takeda, Soubiran and Hekker targets. 33 Figure 15 Echelle Orders 31-35 of ARCS 203222. 37 Figure 16 Echelle orders 36-40 dof ARCS 203222. 38 Figure 17 Echelle orders 41-45 of ARCS 203222. 39 Figure 18 Echelle orders 46-51 of ARCS 203222. 40 Figure 19 Echelle orders 52-57 of star ARCS 203222 . 41 Figure 20 Scattered light. 43 Figure 21 Comparison between radial velocities present in Raave DR2 and atmospheric parameters derived by our cross-correlation method. 54 xi xii List of Figures Figure 22 Differences between atmospheric parameters obtained with rogue ARCS χ2 technique and literature values. 60 Figure 23 Differences between atmospheric parameters obtained with ARCS χ2 technique with the correction and literature values. 61 Figure 24 Comparison between atmospheric parame- ters present in literature and atmospheric patameters derived by our χ2. 62 Figure 25 Comparison between atmospheric parame- ters present in literature and atmospheric patameters derived by our χ2. 63 Figure 26 Comparison between distances from Hippar- cos 1997 parallaxes and distances from the 2007 Revised Hipparcos parallaxes. 70 Figure 27 Distances from Hipparcos New Reduction of Raw Data (2007) catalog plotted against photometric distance from K-2MASS. 72 Figure 28 Mean MV as function of the spectral type, from Keenan & Barnbaum (1999). 73 Figure 29 Distances from Hipparcos New Reduction of Raw Data (2007) catalog plotted against photometric distance from V Keenan & Barn- baum calibrations. 73 Figure 30 Distances from Hipparcos New Reduction of Raw Data (2007) catalog plotted against photometric distance from V Keenan & Barn- baum calibrations. 74 Figure 31 Comparison between distances obtained with revised Hipparcos parallaxes (Van Leeuwen , 2007) and those derived from V calibration of Red Clump (Keenan & Barnbaum, 2000) and V magnitudes. 76 Figure 32 ARCS’s V absolute magnitude vs [M/H] for the 46 ARCS targets which parallax has σπ π ≤ 15% (from revised Hipparcos parallaxes, van Leeuwen, 2007). From top to bottom: MV vs Teff , M V vs logg and MV vs [M/H]. There is no relevant dependence of MV from [M/H]. 77 List of Figures xiii Figure 33 V and K absolute magnitude vs [M/H] for the 46 ARCS targets which parallax has σπ π ≤ 15% (from revised Hipparcos parallaxes, van Leeuwen, 2007). Top panel: MK vs [M/H]. Dashed line is the dependence of MK on [M/H] of Alves (2000): MKRC 0.57 ± 0.36F e/H 0.25 −1.64 ± 0.07. Dotted line is the mean MK for the Red Clump found by Groenewe- gen (2008), MKRC = -1.54. Bottom panel: MV vs [M/H]. There is no relevant depen- dence of MV from [M/H]. 78 Figure 34 Histogram differences in radial velocities. 80 Figure 35 Histograms of distribution of the U,V,W ve- locities of ARCS objects. 100 Figure 36 Distribution in the U,V,W velocity space of ARCS objects. 101 Figure 38 UV distribution of the 300 ARCS objects. 104 Figure 37 Distribution in age of the ARCS stars with a meaningful age computed by PARAM. 105 Figure 39 UV distribution of the 300 ARCS objects. 106 LISTOFTABLES Table 1 Atmospheric parameters of RC stars present in literature. 12 Table 2 Distances of Milky Way bulge,LMC, SMC, M31, Fornax and Carina as obtained using Red Clump stars method. 16 Table 3 Wavelenght intervals covered by Echelle Or- ders. 42 Table 4 Range of atmospheric parameters explored by the adopted synthetic spectral library. 47 Table 5 Comparison between literature velocities and velocity measured with the ARCS’s method of cross-correlation for 7 IAU standard ve- locity stars. All the values are in km s−1 52 Table 6 Comparison between velocities given by RAVE DR2 (Zwitter et al., 2008) and velocity mea- sured with the ARCS’s method of cross-correlation for stars. All the values are in km s−1 53 Table 7 Average and errors of the difference between the values of the atmospheric parameters of the 34 stars present in literature catalogs and the ones obtained with the χ2 method for Echelle orders from 38 (5830-5966 Å) to 46 (4815-4922 Å). 56 Table 8 Comparison between the atmospheric param- eters obtained with ARCS’s χ2 method and values present in Soubiran catalog (Soubi- ran et al. 2005) for 14 stars. Soubiran’s objects were observed with the same set-up and S/N of ARCS sample, and atmospheric parameters were derived by using the same method and synthetic grid as ARCS. 57 Table 9 Comparison between the atmospheric param- eters obtained with ARCS’s χ2 method and values present in Hekker catalog (Hekker & Mendelez, 1997 ) for 11 stars. Hekkers’s objects were observed with the same set-up and S/N of ARCS sample, and atmospheric parameters were derived by using the same method and synthetic grid as ARCS. 58 xv xvi List of Tables Table 10 Comparison between the atmospheric param- eters obtained with ARCS’s χ2 method and values present in Takeda catalog (Takeda et al., 2008 ) for 10 stars.
Recommended publications
  • A Revised View of the Canis Major Stellar Overdensity with Decam And
    MNRAS 501, 1690–1700 (2021) doi:10.1093/mnras/staa2655 Advance Access publication 2020 October 14 A revised view of the Canis Major stellar overdensity with DECam and Gaia: new evidence of a stellar warp of blue stars Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/501/2/1690/5923573 by Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas (CSIC) user on 15 March 2021 Julio A. Carballo-Bello ,1‹ David Mart´ınez-Delgado,2 Jesus´ M. Corral-Santana ,3 Emilio J. Alfaro,2 Camila Navarrete,3,4 A. Katherina Vivas 5 and Marcio´ Catelan 4,6 1Instituto de Alta Investigacion,´ Universidad de Tarapaca,´ Casilla 7D, Arica, Chile 2Instituto de Astrof´ısica de Andaluc´ıa, CSIC, E-18080 Granada, Spain 3European Southern Observatory, Alonso de Cordova´ 3107, Casilla 19001, Santiago, Chile 4Millennium Institute of Astrophysics, Santiago, Chile 5Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, NSF’s National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory, Casilla 603, La Serena, Chile 6Instituto de Astrof´ısica, Facultad de F´ısica, Pontificia Universidad Catolica´ de Chile, Av. Vicuna˜ Mackenna 4860, 782-0436 Macul, Santiago, Chile Accepted 2020 August 27. Received 2020 July 16; in original form 2020 February 24 ABSTRACT We present the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) imaging combined with Gaia Data Release 2 (DR2) data to study the Canis Major overdensity. The presence of the so-called Blue Plume stars in a low-pollution area of the colour–magnitude diagram allows us to derive the distance and proper motions of this stellar feature along the line of sight of its hypothetical core. The stellar overdensity extends on a large area of the sky at low Galactic latitudes, below the plane, and in the range 230◦ <<255◦.
    [Show full text]
  • Spatial Distribution of Galactic Globular Clusters: Distance Uncertainties and Dynamical Effects
    Juliana Crestani Ribeiro de Souza Spatial Distribution of Galactic Globular Clusters: Distance Uncertainties and Dynamical Effects Porto Alegre 2017 Juliana Crestani Ribeiro de Souza Spatial Distribution of Galactic Globular Clusters: Distance Uncertainties and Dynamical Effects Dissertação elaborada sob orientação do Prof. Dr. Eduardo Luis Damiani Bica, co- orientação do Prof. Dr. Charles José Bon- ato e apresentada ao Instituto de Física da Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul em preenchimento do requisito par- cial para obtenção do título de Mestre em Física. Porto Alegre 2017 Acknowledgements To my parents, who supported me and made this possible, in a time and place where being in a university was just a distant dream. To my dearest friends Elisabeth, Robert, Augusto, and Natália - who so many times helped me go from "I give up" to "I’ll try once more". To my cats Kira, Fen, and Demi - who lazily join me in bed at the end of the day, and make everything worthwhile. "But, first of all, it will be necessary to explain what is our idea of a cluster of stars, and by what means we have obtained it. For an instance, I shall take the phenomenon which presents itself in many clusters: It is that of a number of lucid spots, of equal lustre, scattered over a circular space, in such a manner as to appear gradually more compressed towards the middle; and which compression, in the clusters to which I allude, is generally carried so far, as, by imperceptible degrees, to end in a luminous center, of a resolvable blaze of light." William Herschel, 1789 Abstract We provide a sample of 170 Galactic Globular Clusters (GCs) and analyse its spatial distribution properties.
    [Show full text]
  • Annual Report 2005
    Max Planck Institute t für Astron itu o st m n ie -I k H c e n id la e l P b - e x r a g M M g for Astronomy a r x e b P l la e n id The Max Planck Society c e k H In y s m titu no Heidelberg-Königstuhl te for Astro The Max Planck Society for the Promotion of Sciences was founded in 1948. It operates at present 88 Institutes and other facilities dedicated to basic and applied research. With an annual budget of around 1.4 billion € in the year 2005, the Max Planck Society has about 12 400 employees, of which 4300 are scientists. In addition, annually about 11000 junior and visiting scientists are working at the Institutes of the Max Planck Society. The goal of the Max Planck Society is to promote centers of excellence at the fore- front of the international scientific research. To this end, the Institutes of the Society are equipped with adequate tools and put into the hands of outstanding scientists, who Annual Report have a high degree of autonomy in their scientific work. 2005 Max-Planck-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Wissenschaften e.V. 2005 Public Relations Office Hofgartenstr. 8 80539 München Tel.: 089/2108-1275 or -1277 Annual Report Fax: 089/2108-1207 Internet: www.mpg.de Max Planck Institute for Astronomie K 4242 K 4243 Dossenheim B 3 D o s s E 35 e n h e N i eckar A5 m e r L a n d L 531 s t r M a a ß nn e he im B e e r r S t tr a a - K 9700 ß B e e n z - S t r a ß e Ziegelhausen Wieblingen Handschuhsheim K 9702 St eu b A656 e n s t B 37 r a E 35 ß e B e In de A5 r r N l kar ec i c M Ne k K 9702 n e a Ruprecht-Karls- ß lierb rh
    [Show full text]
  • Carbon Stars T. Lloyd Evans
    J. Astrophys. Astr. (2010) 31, 177–211 Carbon Stars T. Lloyd Evans SUPA, School of Physics and Astronomy, University of St. Andrews, North Haugh, St. Andrews, Fife KY16 9SS, UK. e-mail: [email protected] Received 2010 July 19; accepted 2010 October 18 Abstract. In this paper, the present state of knowledge of the carbon stars is discussed. Particular attention is given to issues of classification, evolution, variability, populations in our own and other galaxies, and circumstellar material. Key words. Stars: carbon—stars: evolution—stars: circumstellar matter —galaxies: magellanic clouds. 1. Introduction Carbon stars have been reviewed on several previous occasions, most recently by Wallerstein & Knapp (1998). A conference devoted to this topic was held in 1996 (Wing 2000) and two meetings on AGB stars (Le Bertre et al. 1999; Kerschbaum et al. 2007) also contain much on carbon stars. This review emphasizes develop- ments since 1997, while paying particular attention to connections with earlier work and to some of the important sources of concepts. Recent and ongoing develop- ments include surveys for carbon stars in more of the galaxies of the local group and detailed spectroscopy and infrared photometry for many of them, as well as general surveys such as 2MASS, AKARI and the Sirius near infrared survey of the Magel- lanic Clouds and several dwarf galaxies, the Spitzer-SAGE mid-infrared survey of the Magellanic Clouds and the current Herschel infrared satellite project. Detailed studies of relatively bright galactic examples continue to be made by high-resolution spectroscopy, concentrating on abundance determinations using the red spectral region, and infrared and radio observations which give information on the history of mass loss.
    [Show full text]
  • Die Lokale Gruppe
    Die „lokale Gruppe“ Vortrag im Rahmen des Seminars „Entstehung und Entwicklung der Galaxis“ Vortrag imVortrag Rahmen im des Rahmen Seminars „Entstehung des Seminars und Entwicklung „Entstehung der Galaxis“ und Entwicklung der Galaxis“ Marius Halosar 31.5.2013 Übersicht • Definitionen • Struktur • Mitglieder der verschiedenen Untergruppen • Satellitenscheiben (DoS) • Umgebung und Dynamik der lokalen Gruppe • Morphologie und Eigenschaften von Zwerggalaxien • Populationsboxen • Vorstellung ausgewählter Mitglieder • Nachschlag Lokale Gruppe: Definitionen und Allgemeines • Der Begriff „Lokale Gruppe“ (LG) stammt aus dem Buch von Edwin HUBBLE „the realm of the Nebulae“ (E. Hubble, 1936), in dem er bereits die Mitgliedschaft von 12 Galaxien postulierte. • Eine Gruppe ist eine Ansammlung von 20 – 60 Galaxien mit einer Ausdehnung 7 13 von bis zu 10 Lj, enthält ca. 10 MO. Ihre Mitglieder sind gravitativ gebunden. • Galaxienhaufen bestehen aus bis zu 1000 Galaxien, die sich zu Superhaufen zusammenschließen. Ihre Abgrenzung zu den Gruppen ist nicht ganz eindeutig. • Die LG ist eine Galaxiengruppe, die Bestandteil des Virgo – Galaxienhaufens ist und der Andromeda (M 31) und die Milchstraße (MS) als dominante Komponenten angehören. Diese beiden enthalten 80% der Leuchtkraft der LG. • Die LG enthält 75 Galaxien und hat eine Ausdehnung von 1.8 – 2.4 Mpc. • Da die meisten Zwerggalaxien nur sehr geringe Oberflächenhelligkeiten aufweisen, wurden viele von ihnen erst kürzlich entdeckt. Es ist zu erwarten, dass durch verfeinerte Technik insbesondere in niedrigen galakt. Breiten in naher Zukunft noch weitere gefunden werden. 12 • Gesamtmasse beträgt ca. 2.10 MO • Geschwindigkeitsdispersion innerhalb der LG beträgt σ = 61 8 km/s • In einer Galaxie ist die Verteilungsfunktion des Phasenraums innerhalb des Alters des Universums inkompressibel.
    [Show full text]
  • Determination of Stellar Parameters Through the Use of All Available Flux Data and Model Spectral Energy Distributions
    University of Kentucky UKnowledge Theses and Dissertations--Physics and Astronomy Physics and Astronomy 2017 Determination of Stellar Parameters through the Use of All Available Flux Data and Model Spectral Energy Distributions Gemunu Ekanayake University of Kentucky, [email protected] Digital Object Identifier: https://doi.org/10.13023/ETD.2017.170 Right click to open a feedback form in a new tab to let us know how this document benefits ou.y Recommended Citation Ekanayake, Gemunu, "Determination of Stellar Parameters through the Use of All Available Flux Data and Model Spectral Energy Distributions" (2017). Theses and Dissertations--Physics and Astronomy. 44. https://uknowledge.uky.edu/physastron_etds/44 This Doctoral Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Physics and Astronomy at UKnowledge. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations--Physics and Astronomy by an authorized administrator of UKnowledge. For more information, please contact [email protected]. STUDENT AGREEMENT: I represent that my thesis or dissertation and abstract are my original work. Proper attribution has been given to all outside sources. I understand that I am solely responsible for obtaining any needed copyright permissions. I have obtained needed written permission statement(s) from the owner(s) of each third-party copyrighted matter to be included in my work, allowing electronic distribution (if such use is not permitted by the fair use doctrine) which will be submitted to UKnowledge as Additional File. I hereby grant to The University of Kentucky and its agents the irrevocable, non-exclusive, and royalty-free license to archive and make accessible my work in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known.
    [Show full text]
  • Flight Skill: Pilot
    ADVENTURES IN SPACE Space Travel Space and Distance By way of introduction to this section, one does well to remember the sage advice of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: “Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space.” Distance between objects in space is measured in two units—light-minutes (lm) which is used to describe the distance between relatively small objects, meaning anything the size of a planet or smaller; and light-years (ly) which describes the distance between stars, star-like objects like black holes, and massive objects such as nebulae. Time Span Increments Span: How Far Away Am I? Second/Round Minute Light-minutes and light-years determine the true distance Hour between objects, but what you really need to know is how long Day it takes to travel those distances. That time period is called Month Span. Year Decade For example, a setting may assume that travelling Century between planets can be done in a matter of days. In that case, Millennium we would say that its Span is Days. By default, light-years have spans four levels longer than light-minutes. So if a setting’s light-minute span is Days, then its light-year span is Centuries. This is based on a very rigid interpretation of interstellar distances—GMs are encouraged to bend this rule to better fit their narrative.
    [Show full text]
  • Young Stars Raining Through the Galactic Halo: the Nature and Orbit of Price-Whelan 1 Michele Bellazzini, Rodrigo Ibata, Nicolas F
    Young stars raining through the galactic halo: the nature and orbit of price-whelan 1 Michele Bellazzini, Rodrigo Ibata, Nicolas F. Martin, Khyati Malhan, Antonino Marasco, Benoit Famaey To cite this version: Michele Bellazzini, Rodrigo Ibata, Nicolas F. Martin, Khyati Malhan, Antonino Marasco, et al.. Young stars raining through the galactic halo: the nature and orbit of price-whelan 1. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Oxford University Press (OUP): Policy P - Oxford Open Option A, 2019, 490 (2), pp.2588-2598. 10.1093/mnras/stz2788. hal-03095291 HAL Id: hal-03095291 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-03095291 Submitted on 4 Jan 2021 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. MNRAS 490, 2588–2598 (2019) doi:10.1093/mnras/stz2788 Advance Access publication 2019 October 04 Young stars raining through the galactic halo: the nature and orbit of price-whelan 1 Michele Bellazzini ,1‹ Rodrigo A. Ibata,2 Nicolas Martin,2,3 Khyati Malhan,4 Antonino Marasco 5,6 and Benoit Famaey 2 1INAF - Osservatorio di Astrofisica e Scienza dello
    [Show full text]
  • Annual Report 2007 ESO
    ESO European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere Annual Report 2007 ESO European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere Annual Report 2007 presented to the Council by the Director General Prof. Tim de Zeeuw ESO is the pre-eminent intergovernmental science and technology organisation in the field of ground-based astronomy. It is supported by 13 countries: Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Further coun- tries have expressed interest in member- ship. Created in 1962, ESO provides state-of- the-art research facilities to European as- tronomers. In pursuit of this task, ESO’s activities cover a wide spectrum including the design and construction of world- class ground-based observational facili- ties for the member-state scientists, large telescope projects, design of inno- vative scientific instruments, developing new and advanced technologies, further- La Silla. ing European cooperation and carrying out European educational programmes. One of the most exciting features of the In 2007, about 1900 proposals were VLT is the possibility to use it as a giant made for the use of ESO telescopes and ESO operates the La Silla Paranal Ob- optical interferometer (VLT Interferometer more than 700 peer-reviewed papers servatory at several sites in the Atacama or VLTI). This is done by combining the based on data from ESO telescopes were Desert region of Chile. The first site is light from several of the telescopes, al- published. La Silla, a 2 400 m high mountain 600 km lowing astronomers to observe up to north of Santiago de Chile.
    [Show full text]
  • Searching for RR Lyrae Stars in the Canis Major Overdensity C
    Stellar Populations as Building Blocks of Galaxies Proceedings IAU Symposium No. 241, 2006 c 2007 International Astronomical Union A. Vazdekis & R. F. Peletier, eds. doi:10.1017/S1743921307008459 Searching for RR Lyrae stars in the Canis Major overdensity C. Mateu1,2,K.Vivas1,R.Zinn3 and L. Miller3 1Centro de Investigaciones de Astronom´ıa (CIDA), M´erida, Venezuela 2Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Central de Venezuela, Caracas, Venezuela 3Astronomy Department, Yale University, New Haven, USA. Abstract. The Canis Major overdensity (CMa) was initially proposed to be the remnant of a tidally disrupting dSph galaxy. Since its nature is still subject of debate, the goal of the present work was to conduct a large-scale RR Lyrae survey in CMa, in order to see if there is an overdensity of these stars. The survey spans a total area of ∼ 34 sq. deg. with observations in V and R filters, made with the 1.0m J¨urgen Stock Schmidt telescope at the National Astronomical Observatory of Venezuela. Current results in a subregion, including spectroscopic observations, show that the small number of RR Lyrae stars found can be accounted for by the halo and thick disk components of our Galaxy. Keywords. Galaxy: structure, Galaxy: stellar content, stars: variables: RR Lyrae 1. Introduction The nature of the so-called Canis Major (CMa) overdensity has been the center of a lively debate ever since its discovery (Martin et al. 2004, Momany et al. 2004). It was originally proposed to be the remant core of a tidally disrupting dSph galaxy, and even though further observational evidence gathered in CMa has supported this view, it also has opened other possibilities for explaining its nature without invoking an origin external to our Galaxy.
    [Show full text]
  • Dwarf Cosmology with the Stromlo Missing Satellites Survey
    Hindawi Publishing Corporation Advances in Astronomy Volume 2010, Article ID 434390, 9 pages doi:10.1155/2010/434390 Review Article Dwarf Cosmology with the Stromlo Missing Satellites Survey Helmut Jerjen Research School of Astronomy & Astrophysics, Mt Stromlo Observatory Australian National University, Cotter Road, Weston ACT 2611, Australia Correspondence should be addressed to Helmut Jerjen, [email protected] Received 11 May 2009; Accepted 30 July 2009 Academic Editor: Regina Schulte-Ladbeck Copyright © 2010 Helmut Jerjen. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The standard Lambda Cold Dark Matter model is considered to be a triumph of theoretical astrophysics but observations of the Milky Way and its system of satellite galaxies irresistibly signal that theory is incomplete on galactic and subgalactic scales. The Stromlo Missing Satellites (SMS) Survey is a critical endeavor to investigate at what level predictions of CDM cosmology are consistent with the observed matter distribution in the Milky Way halo. It will be the deepest, most extended search for optically elusive satellite galaxies to date, covering 20 000 square degrees of sky. The international SMS Survey collaboration will exploit 150 TB of CCD images in six filters acquired by the new SkyMapper telescope of the Australian National University over the next five years, expecting on completion photometric limits 0.5–1.0 mag fainter than the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. The primary objective of the program is to characterise the baryonic and dark matter components of a complete sample of MW satellites in the Southern hemisphere to provide stringent observational constraints for improving our understanding of how the Milky Way formed and what physical processes governed galaxy formation and evolution in general.
    [Show full text]
  • Towards Advanced Astronomical Imaging: New Techniques of Data Reduction and Their Applications
    Jagiellonian University Doctoral Thesis Towards advanced astronomical imaging: new techniques of data reduction and their applications Author: Supervisor: Aleksander Kurek Dr hab. Agnieszka Pollo A thesis submitted in fulllment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Physics, Astronomy and Applied Computer Science 30 marca 2017 ii I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on re o the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate Roy Batty iii Abstract Goal The main goal of this thesis is to present new advanced methods of data acquisition and reduction developed in order to increase the photometric eciency and angular resolution of astronomical imaging. Methods I present an overview of the techniques I developed during my PhD studies. They include: (1) increasing the precision of bad pix- els removal, (2) impulse noise removal, (3) precise photometry and high angular resolution imaging of extremely faint sources, (4) ef- cient exposure times planning and (5) superresolved imaging of extended distant sources. Results It was shown that (1) is is possible to interpolate over bad pixels in the CCD ∼4× more eciently than it is done by standard meth- ods. A review of impulse noise removal techniques demonstrated (2) that the standard method (Laplacian Edge Detection) is in most cases the most ecient one, however, there are exceptions – mainly astrometric applications. Our evolutionary algorithm-based meth- ods were shown to be able to: (3) recover the surface prole of sources which are only ∼2-3 % stronger than their background; and (4) nd an optimal way to divide the available observing time to multiple exposures, so that the average photometric error of a dense eld photometry was lowered by 0.05 mag.
    [Show full text]