NOAO Newsletter

NOAO-NSO Newsletter Issue 80 December 2004

Science Highlights Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory A Deep Imaging Survey for Intracluster Light ...... 3 Dark Energy Camera Team Visits Chile ...... 24 Optical Interferometry of High-Luminosity Cool Stars ...... 4 SMARTS: Results and Upgrades ...... 25 Temperate Latitude Clouds on Titan ...... 5 SOAR Update ...... 25 New Interest in an Old Line ...... 7 The UNC Burch Program Brings Astronomy Students to La Serena ...... 26 Director's Office The Perfect Decade ...... 8 Kitt Peak National Observatory New Guidelines for TSIP in FY 2005 ...... 9 WIYN’s Major Advances in Upgrades LSST Update ...... 9 and New Instrumentation ...... 28 Regional Workshop on Public Facilities First-Light Run for IRMOS a Major Success ...... 29 and the System at Yale ...... 10 KPNO and the University of Maryland— Q&A with Letizia Stanghellini ...... 11 An Effective Partnership ...... 31

NOAO Gemini Science Center National Solar Observatory Gemini Update ...... 13 From the NSO Director’s Office ...... 32 Opportunities to Use the Gemini Telescopes to Good Science Usually Means a Good Mystery ...... 32 Observe the Deep Impact Comet Encounter ...... 13 ATST Project Developments ...... 34 Following the Aspen Process: SOLIS ...... 36 Extreme Adaptive Optics Coronagraph ...... 14 Solar MHD: Theory and Observations— Two New NGSC Staff Members ...... 15 A High Spatial Resolution Perspective ...... 37 NGSC Instrumentation Program Update ...... 16 GONG ...... 38

Observational Programs Public Affairs and Educational Outreach NOAO Survey Program Letters of Intent Due January 31 ...... 18 NOAO-Trained Teachers to Observe with Spitzer ...... 41 2005A Proposal Process Update ...... 18 ASTRO-Tucson Fall 2004 Workshop Largest Yet ...... 42 2005A Instrument Request Statistics by Telescope ...... 19 The 2005 REU Program at the 2005A TAC Members ...... 22 Kitt Peak National Observatory ...... 43 “CATCH”— A Web-Based Clearinghouse for “Nebulosa Del Ojo De Gato” ...... 44 Community Telescope Information and Access ...... 23 Notable Quotes On the Cover This image of the massive N11 complex Question: What would be the number one thing you’d advise men who just in the Large Magellanic Cloud shows don’t get the fashion “thing”? My husband is an astronomer, and you can tell by the way he dresses! numerous star forming regions and shells blown out by supernovae and strong stellar Carson Kressley: For novices, and astronomers, I like to employ the time-tested winds. The color image was produced using adage of “KISS”—Keep it simple, sister. Baby steps. Start with good looking three exposures taken in filters that highlight classics from a traditional designer. Think blue blazers, flat front khakis, and emissions from ionized atoms of hydrogen oxford shirts… (red), sulfur (green), and oxygen (blue). —From a WashingtonPost.com online chat with Carson Kressley, the wickedly funny ‘fashionista’ from the Bravo Channel television show “Queer Eye for the These data were taken with the University of Straight Guy,” on 27 September 2004 Michigan Curtis Schmidt telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory near v La Serena, Chile, as part of the Magellanic Clouds Emission Line Survey (MCELS). “The satellite landed in our home. Maybe this means we’ll have good luck this year.” Image Credit: Sean Points, Chris Smith and Mark —Huo Jiyu, the tenant of an apartment building in Penglai, a village in the Hanna, NOAO/AURA/NSF. southwestern Chinese province of Sichuan, which was hit by a kettle-shaped piece of a Chinese scientific satellite that crashed to Earth, according to the Tianfu Morning News, quoted by the Associated Press, 17 October 2004.

The American Astronomical The NOAO-NSO Newsletter is published quarterly Society (AAS) meeting in by the National Optical Astronomy Observatory San Diego from 9–13 January P.O. Box 26732, Tucson, AZ 85726 2005 is expected to be the largest in history, with more than 2,500 attendees. Douglas Isbell, Editor Stop by the talks, poster sessions, and exhibit booths from NOAO, the NOAO Gemini Science Center, Section Editors and the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope Corp. Joan Najita Science Highlights Learn about the latest news and developments in the Dave Bell Observational Programs LSST, the Thirty-Meter Telescope, the Dark Energy Mia Hartman Observational Programs Camera, the MCELS survey, the NOAO Deep Nicole S. van der Bliek CTIO Wide-Field Survey, the SMARTS consortium, and Richard Green KPNO interesting results from the Research Experiences for Ken Hinkle NGSC Undergraduates program. Sally Adams NGSC John Leibacher NSO Priscilla Piano NSO Douglas Isbell Public Affairs & Educational Outreach

Production Staff Stephen Hopkins Managing Editor Have you seen an interesting comment in the news or heard Mark Hanna Digital Processing one during a NOAO-related meeting or workshop? Please Pete Marenfeld Design & Layout share them with the Newsletter Editor ([email protected]). Kathie Coil Production Support

2 December 2004 Science Highlights

A Deep Imaging Survey for Intracluster Light

John Feldmeier (NOAO), Chris Mihos, Heather Morrison & Paul Harding (Case Western Reserve University)

bserving intracluster light (ICL), light from stars between the galaxies in a galaxy cluster, Ois a revealing way to study some of the processes that govern cluster galaxy evolution— processes such as galaxy encounters, cluster accretion, and tidal stripping. However, detailed data on ICL has been historically diﬃcult to obtain due to its low surface brightness, which is usually 5–6 magnitudes below the brightness of the night sky at the maximum. In the past few years On the left is our image of the center of the galaxy cluster MKW7, with the brightest though, there has been an explosion of cluster galaxy partially subtracted. The subtraction is not perfect due to the presence intracluster star research. There have of a 12th magnitude star near the cluster core, but a tidal plume is clearly visible been many detections of individual going up and to the right from the cluster center. The magnitude of this plume is intracluster stars in nearby galaxy V ~ -17, about equal to a small galaxy. On the right is a binned-up image of clusters, and also with the advent of Abell 1914. There is a large tidal plume extending down from the cluster center. high-quality CCDs, a renewal of deep This plume is quite large (60 × 30 kpc), and has a total magnitude of V ~ -21. surface photometry of intracluster This plume is also seen in the weak lensing maps of this cluster by Dahle et al. light on more distant galaxy clusters. (2002, ApJS, 139, 313).

Using the Kitt Peak 2.1-meter half of our candidate clusters were distribution. This is most prominent telescope, we have recently completed eliminated by this constraint. Because in Abell 1914, which is believed to be a survey of Abell clusters that is of the need for excellent sky flats, the undergoing a cluster merger. We also designed to measure the amount and data for this survey could only be taken found numerous examples of tidal spatial distribution of ICL. Our goal in photometric conditions. After a total debris in the clusters, some of which was to take a representative sample of 39 nights at the telescope over three are displayed here. Generally, we found of galaxy clusters and to search each years, we have high-quality data on 13 plume-like structures, as opposed to one for ICL. We were interested in different galaxy clusters. the arc-like structures found by others. seeing if the properties of ICL varied It is currently unclear if this is due to a in a systematic way over such known With half of the data reduced and selection effect, or by chance. Some of cluster properties as richness, optical published (Feldmeier et al. 2002, 2004), these plume-like structures contain a and X-ray morphology, and the we have a number of interesting results. large amount of stellar luminosity: the presence of a cD galaxy. We were also ICL appears to be present in all of the largest plume in Abell 1914 has a total interested in searching for the presence clusters we have surveyed. At least magnitude comparable to that of M31. of intracluster tidal debris, which had 10–20% of all stars in these galaxies are been detected accidentally in studies of present in an intracluster component. So These results are in good agreement other galaxy clusters. far, it appears that clusters that contain a with numerical models of galaxy luminous brightest cluster galaxy (such clusters, which predict that ICL is a

The observations were challenging as Abell 1413) have a larger intracluster generic feature, and is mostly produced NOAO-NSO 80 Newsletter since the uncertainty in deep surface star fraction than galaxy clusters that by encounters between galaxies and the photometry is generally dominated do not. cluster potential as a whole. From our by systematic effects. We spent half results, we suggest that the ICL may of our observing time constructing In terms of its spatial distribution, the act as a dynamical “clock’’ of galaxy a night sky flat taken at the same ICL in some clusters closely follows the clusters, one that is complementary to hour angle as our target clusters. We distribution of the galaxies, while in other studies of galaxy clusters, such as deliberately chose clusters far away other cases there are clear offsets between X-ray substructure, weak lensing, and from bright stars: approximately the galaxy distribution and the ICL galaxy radial velocities.

December 2004 3 NOAO-NSO Newsletter 80 4 of K and early M giants show that that show giants M Studies early and K of possible. are distributions O diameters. diameters. measured the of intercomparison complicating the technologies, using out different difficult carried were and both make to were the measurements However, yielded wavelengths. at stars different these have for diameters different measurements angular size rudimentary years, many period of a Over atmospheres. low- density extended, and sizes radial large of terms common in have they evolution, in stellar different quite are types stellar two these Although stars. AGB and supergiants cool Two are examples of structure. their correcting even our basic understanding ofclasses interferometry optical isstars, at least to a first order. For otherseveral profiles, brightness limb observed their predict correctly models atmosphere Science Highlights Optical Interferometry of High-Luminosity Cool Stars December 2004 December band is clear from the differing characteristic widths. characteristic differing the from is clear band two- simple a to band size from of apparent by from variation strong The model. matched component well strongly are but differ disk, darkened distributions or uniform a visibility observed The 1. Figure studies of stellar brightness brightness stellar of studies systematic where point the at ptical interferometry is just now Stephen Ridgway (NOAO) & Guy Perrin (Observatory of Meudon) accurate visibility measurements. These measurements. These visibility accurate highly give to and calibration photometric filtering spatial combines 1990s, early the in Peak Kitt at The demonstrated interferometer.combiner,FLUOR first beam was which optical IOTA the at operating combiner beam fiber FLUOR instrument—the single a with 1), figure (see microns 4 and 2 at stars Mira of measurement interferometric direct the was interpretation to key The visibility functions should vary strongly vary should functions visibility and appearance or the and disk, darkened uniform standard a deviate from should strongly band K brightness the The in profile predictions. several gave immediately model empirical This atmosphere. deep very a with model empirical an to in led Merand NOAO,at student Antoine visiting a then 2001, by out carried were results, these of microns Analysis microns. 2 at 4 at diameters the than larger 50% typically Miras of sizes showed measurements that the apparent

a density for layer.molecular the high for the core star and both an altitude and to diameter visible a providing infrared, fromthermal size stellar of apparent variation This the for 2). accounted model figure (see altitude high at shell molecular a thin a with of star central consists model ultrasimple This sufficient to account for the observations. simpler empirical model was completely even an that found was it Remarkably, quantitatively. butnotunderstood qualitatively known molecular within phenomenon bands—a already was that wavelength with o ie eog fo te pulsation the from enough differ to pulsation to isThis be calculated. found stellar the of constant time ballistic the allow dimensions relative The two. the between gradient density radial strong the for a is there that responsibleshowing emission, maser region higher the magnitude than of orders several density a have to and shell, maser the inside just lie to found is layer high The radius in thickness, is nevertheless nevertheless is transparent. thickness, relatively in radius a stellar though atmosphere, intervening to The owing region. molecular that in altitude, temperatures lower of high at enhancement densities an has thin atmosphere actual the likely Most plus shell. components—star two only contains model ultrasimple 2. The Figure continued Science Highlights

Optical Interferometry of High-Luminosity Cool Stars continued periods to give strong nonperiodic radii offers strong constraints on the with a long-standing puzzle—cool, effects, which are in fact observed. environment where dust formation and high-luminosity stars typically show The free-fall time from the molecular wind acceleration must take place. evidence of both high-temperature layer is short enough that the stellar chromospheres and of low-temperature pulsation alone does not appear capable Having extracted a model for the extreme molecular shells. These may be of maintaining the upper atmosphere. Mira atmosphere, we can now turn to occurring on a scale that is resolvable The stellar diameter is found to be the less extreme supergiant case (see with existing instruments. consistent with pulsational models figure 3). There also, evidence is found for of fundamental mode oscillation, wavelength-dependent diameters, and Additional details will be found in resolving a long-standing puzzle. again the model of a star plus molecular A&A 418, 675 (2004) and A&A 426, layer is quite successful, revising upward 279 (2004). This much clearer view of the upper our estimate of the photospheric atmospheres of Mira stars is of great effective temperatures. In this case, we interest. Intermediate mass stars actually have visible images of the stellar EDITOR’S NOTE: This research by convert hydrogen into helium and surface, obtained with HST and ground- Ridgway, Perrin and collaborators was then into light elements during their based speckle and interferometeric the subject of a joint press release by evolution. These elements are then measurements. These visible images the Journal Astronomy & Astrophysics returned to space in a strong mass-loss show a large disk with bright spots. and NOAO, which produced strong media wind during the Mira phase. In fact, coverage on Space.com (reprinted at some 75% of the light elements in the Now we can understand this disk as Yahoo.com, MSNBC.com, and USATODAY. Universe are probably produced from dominated by scattering from the high com), NewScientist.com, Physics.org, this source. The mechanism of the molecular layer, and the bright spots as Astronomy.com, and various media mass loss is not understood at all. The due to regions where the molecular layer outlets in France, Spain, Austria, ability of optical interferometery to is thin or absent. Thus we are beginning Germany, Chile, and Venezuela; probe the atmospheric structure from to access the lateral inhomogeneities in further coverage in popular astronomy the stellar surface up to several stellar the upper atmosphere. This ties in nicely magazines is likely.

Figure 3. An idea of how the appearance of the supergiant alpha Ori varies with wavelength, from left to right: 700 nm, 905 nm, 1290 nm, 2200 nm, and 11200 nm. The ﬁrst two are from actual interferometric image reconstruction by Young et al, MNRAS 315, 635 (2000), and the others are derived from our model interpretation of data from our own and other interferometric measurements.

Temperate Latitude Clouds on Titan

Henry Roe (Caltech) NOAO-NSO 80 Newsletter

n the thick atmosphere of Saturn’s P=10-3 bar) conditions on Titan are near Due to Titan’s small angular size moon Titan, the second most methane’s triple point, just as conditions (~0.8 arcsec), imaging Titan and its abundant species after nitrogen on Earth are near water’s triple point. clouds requires the high-angular Iis methane (3–7%). From the This leads to the existence of a methane resolution available with adaptive surface (T=93K, P=1.5 bar) up to the meteorological cycle on Titan, analogous optics on a large telescope. We ﬁrst tropopause at 40 km altitude (T=70K, to water-driven weather here on Earth. directly detected Titan’s clouds in continued

December 2004 5 NOAO-NSO Newsletter 80 6 The occurrence and location of these these of location and occurrence The pole. south at the activity cloud always almost is there that found polar and clouds polar south the finding first south in numerous times the years since three Titan’s troposphere. We in have Titan reobserved clouds discovered we when 2001, December Temperate on Titan Latitude Clouds continued ehn gyes cyvlaim or cryovolcanism, geysers, methane include circulation. of possibility first the Examples global in shift seasonal a either or events surface transient of result are the clouds latitude these temperate that proposing are We clouds. polar south the as hypothesis heating solar same the by explained be clouds cannot latitude temperate new These latitude. at ~40°S on Titan of cloud 2004A class new a In revealed observations these scheduling. queue under per accomplished be time only can observation, telescope of only minutes but few a possible as nights many as on observations needing this, program as A such opacity. atmospheric of degrees varying probe that filters three as asin often NIRI/Altair North possible on Gemini using Titan imaging we are progresses, cycle as clouds seasonal of Titan’s types new for clouds look polar and south Titan’s study To hypothesis. heating solar by this explained be can and (60–90°S) have been found at far southern latitudes of troposphere Titan’s in observed clouds formation the all now the Until clouds. cumulus-like and moist off convection kick and methane saturate to enough just up of layer convective top the the pushes heating additional summer the pole is by heated This a just few Kelvin. at surface solstice the scenario, summer this In region. this in at 2002) (October occurs which Titan’ssurface, of heating solar annual maximum explained the by driven convection by be can clouds polar south Science Highlights December 2004 December the geology-dominated explanation, the explanation, the geology-dominated is resolve morewhich scenario likely. In easily should observations Future 40°S. that a includes zone and of clouds near uplift structure complicated cell more a pole-to-pole to single a seasonally from shifts circulation scenario, global second the Titan’s In cloud formation. methane would and that convection spot drive “warm” geologic a 0.73–0.88 over arcsec. ranged diameter angular its although size, same the at Titan show to scaled 25.6°S.ofare images latitude All and are longitude given. latitude The at wire frame islower right for a sub-observer Sub-observer II. Keck from are which 2004, September 2003and December except North Gemini on NIRI/Altair from are images All appear. also clouds tropospheric the and apparent is rate 22.5°/dayTitan’s rotation images probing surface the In arrows. white with indicated are clouds latitude temperate new The 2. September images), these of one and 4, 8–9,May April on every apparent especially in are which clouds, ~40°S new pole the and south the near is the cloud in a although 9, brightening April general especially (see a clouds polar south distinct brightened, the cirrus, tropopause limb the to due south hazes stratospheric the see we images probing tropospheric Inthe asymmetry. north-south seasonal a with haze, stratospheric brightened limb the only see we images probing stratospheric the In Observatory (A.H. Bouchez). (A.H. Observatory Trujillo), (C.A. North and Keck Gemini a Schaller), E.L. by Caltech Brown, M.E. Roe, (H.G. between watched effort is collaborative weather Titan’s move years. few should next the over north clouds circulation-dominated the hypothesis, the in while 40°S, at remain to expected are clouds

Science Highlights

New Interest in an Old Line

Harrison Jones (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center)

he He I 1083-nm spectral line is of great interest to both solar and stellar physicists since it is formed at a crucial layer of a stellar atmosphere between Tthe top of the chromosphere and base of the transition region, where the temperature begins an abrupt rise from surface (10,000 K) to coronal (1,000,000 K) values. Spectroheliographic images of He I 1083-nm equivalent width have been obtained at the NSO Kitt Peak Vacuum Telescope (KPVT) for 30 years, and show a wealth of solar phenomena including, in particular, coronal holes, a source of high-speed solar wind. In 1992, the capability for obtaining true imaging spectroscopy in this important line was initiated with the NASA/NSO spectromagnetograph (SPM) and now continues in more advanced form with the new SOLIS vector spectromagnetograph (VSM).

Spectroscopically, the 1083-nm line is very diﬃcult to reduce and analyze since it is weak, highly variable in both space and time, and blended with nearby solar and telluric lines. Over several years, Olena Malanushenko (NSO) and I have obtained imaging spectroscopy of coronal holes and other Figure 2. He I 1083-nm equivalent width, 2 February 2004. First reduced data from the VSM.

interesting features with the SPM and have developed new techniques for dealing with the data. Results of this effort include the development of methods for removing spectral lines from flat-field images of the average solar spectrum (Jones 2003, Solar Physics, 218, 1) and for accurate separation of line and continuum using a well-calibrated standard (Malanushenko and Jones 2004, Solar Physics, 222, 43).

Malanushenko and Jones (2004, Solar Physics, in press) have recently discovered that line width and central intensity are negatively correlated in the quiet Sun but have a different relation in coronal holes. As shown in figure 1, adding statistically normalized images of intensity and width (bottom panel) suppresses the appearance of chromospheric network and enhances the contrast between coronal holes and quiet Sun, areas which are often difficult to separate in images

of central intensity alone (top panel). This characteristic NOAO-NSO 80 Newsletter promises to allow development of a new objective and automated method for coronal hole recognition.

In another important development, Malanushenko produced Figure 1. Top: He I 1083-nm central intensity with 1% equivalent width images of the 1083-nm line from VSM contrast contour for SPM observations on 17 April 2000. observations in spite of strong fringing in the detectors. The Bottom: Sum of statistically normalized intensity and half- ﬁrst full disk 1083-nm image from the VSM, which replaces width images with 1-sigma contour. the KPVT and SPM, is shown in ﬁgure 2.

December 2004 7 DIRECTOR’SOFFICE NATIONAL OPTICAL ASTRONOMY OBSERVATORY

The Perfect Decade

Jeremy Mould

rom the outset, we have all recognized that the current Decadal and LSST will be assessed by the NSF over all scientific disciplines Survey, Astronomy and Astrophysics in the New Millennium, and national priorities, in an international context. A project that is ambitious. The survey committee saw revolutionary has a fundamental impact on high-energy physics, or on the life Fastronomy opportunities in diffraction-limited ground-based sciences in an astrobiological context, may thus command a higher telescopes and the digital sky. There was a parallel movement to priority than a pure astronomy project. The committee will be double the National Science Foundation (NSF) budget. Astronomy mustering our arguments to present the intriguing connections was also the beneficiary of some of the biggest philanthropic gifts between astronomy and these other disciplines. to science. These were the conditions, perhaps, for a decade long astrophysics boom, the inverse of the perfect storm! Second, the committee was told to plan for a flat operational budget. That means the resources to operate the new facilities will In response to the opportunity, we have seen an armada of be derived from our existing workforce levels. We therefore foresee new projects emerge from port: two candidates for the Giant the need to retire some current facilities or devolve them to other Segmented Mirror Telescope groups able to continue their (GSMT) and a flotilla of operation. The committee’s survey projects, including road map will need to include PanStarrs, the Dark Energy those decision points too. Survey, and the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope A third challenge became (LSST), complementing clear during the committee’s the spaceborne Joint Dark deliberations. The nature Energy Mission. of the opportunities that make the current Decadal The Decadal Survey also Survey goals so attractive is to entrusted to NOAO the involve disciplines that carry task of leading community out large projects in different strategic planning for the US ways. High-energy physics System of optical/infrared and space science are opposite (O/IR) observing facilities, poles when it comes to including the nurturing of selecting between competing public-private partnerships, Members of the Long Range Planning Committee during their concepts. Computer science and scaling up WIYN November 11 meeting in Tucson. is different again. Physics and SOAR by an order of experiments are finite and magnitude. In response to are more readily sequenced in an NSF request, and recognizing the size of the challenge, we have order of tighter and tighter measurements. We need to absorb the recently established a Long Range Planning Committee to develop best from this diversity of approaches to the tasks of planning and a road map that can guide us to success with the decadal goals. The working together. More details of the first meeting are on the Web committee has the benefit of a chair who knows the community at www.noao.edu/dir/lrplan/lrp-committee.html. well, Caty Pilachowski, and membership that includes the chairs of the GSMT and LSST Science Working Groups. I’m grateful to Caty The Long Range Planning Committee is currently in its input phase, and to Roger Blandford, Julianne Dalcanton, Alan Dressler, Garth receiving presentations and data from interested parties. Its goal Illingworth, Rolf Kudritzki, Pat Osmer, Sara Seager, Chris Sneden, is to produce a scientifically interesting and consensus-based road Michael Strauss, and Alex Szalay (see photo) for their willingness map; it is not a selection committee of any kind. The committee to help with this important activity. will seek feedback from the community before finalizing its report. The report is anticipated in Spring 2005, and it is expected to The NSF briefing at the committee’s first meeting in September inform the Committee on Astronomy and Astrophysics (CAA) identified two special challenges that face us. First, we are working and the NSF astronomy division on a fully integrated road map in a larger context than the astronomy decadal survey. In the that will include radio astronomy and solar physics. future, priority for public funding of facilities of the scale of GSMT

8 December 2004 Director’s Office

New Guidelines for TSIP in FY 2005

Todd Boroson

ollowing the “Building the System from the time equal in value to 50 percent of the funds awarded to be Ground Up” workshop (www.noao.edu/meetings/ provided to the community through the NOAO telescope system2/system2_report.pdf), the Telescope allocation process. FSystem Instrumentation Program (TSIP) guidelines have undergone major revision for the FY 2005 cycle. TSIP System Access proposals are a simple mechanism for is the National Science Foundation (NSF) program, independent observatories to sell telescope time. The administered by NOAO, that awards funds to independent time provided will be equal in value to 100 percent of the observatories to build instruments or upgrade capabilities, funds awarded. and returns observing time on those facilities to the broader astronomical community. The funding in FY 2005 is expected to include the annual allocation of $4 million, plus approximately $1.75 million There are now two types of TSIP proposal—System being carried forward from previous cycles. In FY 2005, Improvement proposals and System Access proposals. System this funding will be divided into two portions, with up Improvement proposals are aimed at providing instruments to one-fourth available for telescopes between 3 and or upgrades that result in enhanced scientific capability, 6.5 meters, and the remainder for telescopes of aperture effectiveness, or efficiency. They may range from complete 6.5 meters and larger. facility instruments to instrument improvements (including data reduction pipelines and data archives) to infrastructure FY 2005 TSIP proposals are due at the end of February, and upgrades. System Improvement proposals require telescope new awards will be announced in May 2005.

LSST Update

Sidney Wolﬀ

major milestone for the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) project is currently being ﬁnalized—a commitment to purchase the primary Amirror with funds generously made available by a private donor. Private donations are key to purchasing long lead time items early in the project and achieving our goal of ﬁrst light in 2012.

Over the past several months, the members of the LSST consortium (under the leadership of Tony Tyson, project director; Don Sweeney, project manager; and John Schaefer, president) have focused their eﬀorts on establishing the science requirements, selecting a baseline optical design, NOAO-NSO 80 Newsletter letting the mirror contract, developing the design for the camera (via work being done at Department of Energy laboratories), initiating work on data management, and narrowing the list of possible sites.

A Science Working Group, chaired by Michael Strauss, has completed its report on the kinds of scientiﬁc programs that will be enabled by a survey capability with a ﬁgure of merit of

continued

December 2004 9 NOAO-NSO Newsletter 80 10 forth by the SWG as well as the three NRC studies that that studies NRC three at posted are requirements the it, these and have recommended as well as SWG the by forth set goals the meet would that camera and telescope the for requirements of set a developed has consortium LSST The NOAO on the found be Web site. can 250, > AΩ achieve to adopted is that design particular the of independent is which report, That view. of field the Ω is and telescope of the aperture the A is where > 250, AΩ LSST Update continued previous national-level workshops (as well as AAS town town AAS I ground, that meetings) covered found similar meeting as this well (as workshops national-level previous of organizer the as and workshop, this in participant a As at www.astro.yale.edu/bailyn/workshopagenda.htm viewed be available can of workshop the of use program The the facilities. in research and education between balance the and time, telescope and funding grant between relationship the large, to small from telescopes on time of availability about concerns hour of the workshop raised A final in the discussion panel access. open funded offer and publicly are those that primarily facilities, future and current both on focused previous Presentations day. the on meeting Board WIYN the for staff of of a NOAOnumber visits the of advantage took who 21 the in Astronomy Optical “Ground-based on workshop a at day a of most spent institutions nearby of number a and University Yale from astronomers 60 about 9, October On LSST. to contribute Community completed. are they see again, comment and input is invited; as soon as posted be lsst.or st Century.” This meetingwas by organized Charles Bailyn, December 2004 December g . Requirements for data management also will will also management data for Requirements . Director’s Office Regional Workshop on Public Facilities y ragn fr paes from NOAO and to participate. attend speakers for workshop arranging regional by a on put be to would anyone whowants assist to happy ([email protected]) Office Project System NOAO The and the System at Yale lsst.or g l for how to . Todd Boroson

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Director’s Office

Letizia Stanghellini joined the NOAO scientific staff in April 2004, along with her spouse, Mark Dickinson. Letizia came to NOAO from a European Space Agency staff position at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI). Before moving to Baltimore, she was an assistant astronomer at the Bologna Observatory in Italy. Letizia earned her master’s degree and PhD from the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, advised by Professor James Kaler; her thesis included observations with the Kitt Peak 2.1-meter telescope. Letizia previously taught physics Letizia Stanghellini and math in Italy, after receiving her undergraduate degree Associate Astronomer from the University of Bologna, where her adviser was Professor Alvio Renzini.

Letizia’s research specialty is planetary nebulae, which she has been studying in an extensive campaign using the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) with collaborators Dick Shaw and postdoc Ting-Hui Lee (NOAO); Eva Villaver, Max Mutchler, Diane Karakla, and Chris Blades (STScI); Bruce Balick (University of Washington); and Anabel Arrieta (UIA, Mexico).

Q. What is the current Q. What are the big questions in the field right now? focus of your research on We don’t have a good understanding of the lower limit for planetary nebulae? the mass of a Type Ia supernova; below that limit, [the death For the past eight years, of a star] produces a planetary nebula. my main focus has been on observations of There are also issues related to theories of single-star star planetary nebulae in the formation. How much carbon and nitrogen are contributed Magellanic Clouds. We into the interstellar medium for the next generation of stars have acquired several from planetary nebula? They are probably a major source, hundred orbits of data but we need more precise measurements and distances from the HST, including to know. the current cycle. We are trying to understand the Another major question is “how do bipolar planetary formation and evolution nebulae form?”—is it from a binary star, or magnetic of planetary nebula in an fields, or is it from stellar rotation associated with higher- environment where their mass stars? distance is known. All these questions are completely open, and they require The distances of planetary nebulae in our own galaxy are absolute measurements of the central star. not known very accurately, even though they are much closer to us—perhaps a dozen in the Milky Way are known Q. There has been some recent research using the WIYN with an accuracy of 20 percent, and many others could be telescope and other facilities suggesting that binary stars 50 percent off or more. We don’t know the absolute brightness are required progenitors of bipolar planetary nebula. of their central star or their true size, so we wanted to obtain Does your work support this trend? an “absolute probe.” The only way to do it with current We are finding some interesting variability in the shapes technology is in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) and of planetary nebulae. In the LMC, about half of planetary Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). nebulae have aspherical features; others are almost round NOAO-NSO 80 Newsletter or elliptical. With Hubble, you can resolve them spatially, and we know their distance with sufficient accuracy. We have observed One of our results that was not a surprise, but is good to about 100 objects to date, and we use an innovative technique know, is that the shapes of planetary nebulae in the LMC of spectroscopy without a slit that gives us an image of the are the same as those we have seen in our galaxy. The nebula in each spectral line, as well as the morphology in distribution is different, but that may be partly because each line. Ground-based optical spectroscopy is extremely the plane of the Milky Way obscures a large fraction of the useful to complete the observations—with a 4-meter class population, many of which are probably bipolar. telescope, they are point sources. continued

December 2004 11 NOAO-NSO Newsletter 80 12 the New Initiatives Office and science operations. science and Office Initiatives New the for Ittasks includes work interesting. is very My functional duties? NOAO your service are Q. staff What papers. my on affiliation that include to continue I why is which easily, back go could I absentia. in position the keep is hard to very it get in general, tenure is to and, in Italy easy hold atof my position I University the Bologna—it staff still with subject. the love in really are who here people 12 or 10 are there charming, very been has It month. the first of afternoon Friday the on meets that Observatory our Steward with at Forum” neighbors Nebula “Planetary a initiated have We Feldmeier. John now, and, Jacoby George like people with along here, moving for motivation strong another was that So brother-and-sister! professional worked like are years—we have ten and advisor past for the project nebulae academic planetary LMC on the together same the had We collaborators. closest my of one is Shaw Dick addition, In and projects current with both ones. new itself, NOAO that tell reinventing new could I is interesting and Very discussed, being are things possibilities. and many general, presented in it astronomy ground-based with science and my area in both an forward, is NOAO looking is that that here visited organization I when me to clear was It at NOAO?staff to you Q. about was attractive a What job on the scientific current Neither answer. necessity. afull give nor theories a observations not is progenitor binary a having but population, massive more a with associated nebulae are planetary bipolar the that hints several are There Q&A continued December 2004 December Director’s Office

the luminosity function for planetary nebulae in our Local Local our in nebulae of planetary for end function faint luminosity the the at nebulae the of spectroscopy allow will areaClouds and ofbeyond. theThe telescope largecollecting the than in our nebulae the study ofenhance Magellanic the planetary resolution will spatial This observations. better infrared for Telescope Space Hubble for even offers do TMT (LSST) The Telescope Survey nebulae? of planetary observations Synoptic and (TMT) Large Telescope Meter the Thirty the could What Q. applications. Goldberg NOAO the chair and we to committee, search are Fellowship to preparing review asked was I recently, Very bureaucratic. than more much scientific is discussions—it scientific in participate youactually is that can difference the but STScI, at process the to similar is It desk! my covering (TAC) Committee proposals of piles the see Allocation can It’syou work, of lot a meeting. Time telescope panel next galactic the the of at chair as serving be will I addition, In Museum of Art. I can see it will be very interesting. We interesting. southwest. very the in here light” be “right the have certainly will it see can I Tucson Art. the of at Museum school a including community, artist found nice have I a and time, spare my in artist amateur an am I told. been Ihad like just spectacular, are sunsets the and beautiful is sky The adjusted! have I guess I so time, I would never get to used nowheat…and the I the cold am all I had only here visited once before moving. In June, I thought Tucson? in Q. life How you do find stellar at look variations. their determine to not easy to it is and strip, interesting instability the cross be observations current Many will pulsations. it LSST, the With Group of galaxies. NOAOGEMINISCIENCECENTER TUCSON, ARIZONA • LA SERENA, CHILE

Gemini Update

Taft Armandroﬀ

he majority of the time on the Gemini telescopes is being used for scientific observations for the Gemini user community. For semester 2004B, science time will represent at least 70 percent of the total time. Instrument commissioning and system verification activities are underway at Gemini as described below. System verification is the final step in readying an instrument for TTAC-approved science observing.

GNIRS The Gemini Near InfraRed Spectrograph (GNIRS) has been provides demonstration, testing, and experience with the adaptive commissioned and verified in its primary modes. During semester optics technology and methodology also used in the Near Infrared 2004B, system verification of the GNIRS integral field unit Coronagraphic Imager (NICI), a future facility instrument for (IFU) and GNIRS’s high spectral resolution mode (R = 18,000) Gemini South. is occurring. Semester 2005A Proposal Statistics Michelle The NOAO Gemini Science Center (NGSC) saw enthusiastic The mid-infrared imager and spectrograph Michelle is undergoing demand from the US community for Gemini observing time for system verification in its spectroscopic mode during semester semester 2005A. One hundred twenty proposals were received for 2004B at Gemini North. Gemini North: 60 for GMOS-North, 35 for NIRI alone, 12 for NIRI with the Altair adaptive optics system, and 22 for Michelle. One Hokupa’a-85 hundred fourteen US proposals requested Gemini South: 39 for A new visitor instrument, Hokupa’a-85, is being commissioned GNIRS, 34 for GMOS-South, 24 for Phoenix, 23 for T-ReCS, and at Gemini South during semester 2004B. Hokupa’a-85 is an 1 for the Acquisition Camera. In total, 217 US Gemini proposals 85-element curvature-sensing adaptive optics system. It was sought 475 nights on the two Gemini telescopes. The numbers of developed by the University of Hawaii, under the leadership of US Gemini proposals and nights requested represent record highs. Mark Chun and Christ Ftaclas. Hokupa’a-85 is used in tandem with The oversubscription factors of 5.1 at Gemini North and 4.2 at NOAO’s ABU infrared imager. Among its benefits, Hokupa’a-85 Gemini South demonstrate healthy community engagement.

Opportunities to Use the Gemini Telescopes to Observe the Deep Impact Comet Encounter

Verne Smith

eep Impact is a NASA Discovery Program mission maneuver so as to observe the impact from a distance of about designed to intercept and study Comet Tempel 1 in July 500–700 kilometers. Instruments on the flyby spacecraft include 2005, centered on an ambitious plan to strike the comet high-resolution and medium-resolution optical CCD imagers Dwith a 370-kilogram copper projectile that will impact at a relative (with respective scales of 1.4 meters per pixel and 7 meters per pixel velocity of 10.2 kilometers per second. This event will take place at 700 kilometers). In addition, the flyby spacecraft has an infrared when Comet Tempel 1 is about 0.9 astronomical units from Earth. spectrometer with an HgCdTe array, having spectral sensitivity The current nominal mission timeline calls for a Delta II launch in from 1.05 to 4.8 microns, and a spectral resolution of R = 216. The December 2004, followed by a six-month cruise to comet encounter. impactor itself carries a targeting optical CCD camera that will The planned encounter will take place on, or near, 4–5 July 2005, guide it to the comet. This camera will return images up to a few with the impactor being released from the flyby spacecraft about seconds before impact and provides a scale of 0.2 meters per pixel 24 hours before the Tempel 1 encounter. The flyby spacecraft will at 20 kilometers. continued

December 2004 13 NOAO-NSO Newsletter 80 14 to 13 hours 40 minutes in right ascension and -9 to to -9 and ascension right in minutes minutes 35 40 hours 13 hours about 13 from to be positions will comet approximate the the of encounter, 1 Tempel the of dates the During impact. the of day the after and during, before, immediately on be will nights nights These three telescope. support each reserving by will mission Impact instruments, Deep of the suite deployed telescopes, their Gemini and the that aware be should Observers toImpactOpportunities the Observe Deep Comet Encounter continued at this separation. at this 22 magnitude than fainter object an detect must one star, 5 a For arcsec 0.1 Jupiter. of of orbit the separation to a corresponds distance, parsecs 50 at star a For star. the of radius arcsec 1.5 a inside star, central the 10 the planets of for detection is goal star coronagraph performance the The than orbit. fainter they which much around still are Jupiter significantly than planets even larger since difficult, quite is say, to needless which, spectroscopy, low-resolution and imaging direct includes planets these Studying stars. other around Aspen the by identified Workshop topics is the and identification study of planets research orbiting key the of One (ExAOC). Coronagraph Optics Adaptive Extreme the is developed being are designs concept which for instrument second The developed. being are designs concept which for instruments two the of one (HRNIRS), spectrograph near-infrared high-resolution the described September 2004 the In priority. highest as identified studies instruments four for feasibility or design concept funded has Gemini research. this of pursuit the to essential instrumentation identifying and telescopes Gemini the for paths research T nights those on Observations declination. in -10degrees NGSC December 2004 December convened for the purpose of outlining future future outlining of purpose was the which for Workshop, Aspen convened the of results the 2004 March he NOAO-NSO Newsletter Extreme Adaptive Optics Coronagraph OONO Newsletter NOAO-NSO Following the Aspen Process: 7 , Ken briefly Hinkle times fainter than than fainter times th magnitude magnitude reported reported Jay Elias

California) and involves also other institutions. several of University by Optics, Adaptive led for (Center is Macintosh team Bruce second The NOAO. including partnership, Gemini the within institutions other Arizona), from participants of with University (Center Optics, Close Laird Adaptive by Astronomical led is for teams the of One year. next early concepts the review will and studies design competitive out carry to teams two selected has Gemini HRNIRS, with As minimum separation. follows)thatin versatility it sacrifices for maximum contrast at Instrumentation“NGSCUpdate”Program the that(see article coronagraphic the NICI,from constructionimagernowunder specifically differsIt detection. planet of purpose primary the special-purpose disks around young stars, this science is definitely to secondary a dust or much nuclei galactic active of observations as such very projects, other is for useful prove possibly may it it Although instrument. that Gemini proposed in and present instruments other from differs ExAOC strong show should bands. methane atmospheres planetary the where star the and with contrast maximum show should planets giant inwhere addition is scattered bestdoneThis thelight. in near-infrared, of control excellent and capability, coronagraphic instrument a optics, the adaptive high-order task, of combination a difficult on rely must this accomplish to order In at found be can mission Impact Deep the on information More call. proposal the ( site Web Observatory Gemini the on eye an Keep 2005. early in released be to Proposals for Call international and national to and in access a them made available separate observatories, other with coordinated be will deepimpact.jpl.nasa.gov and and deepimpact.umd.edu www.gemini.ed . u for ) NGSC

Two New NGSC Staff Members

Taft Armandroﬀ

he NOAO Gemini Science Center (NGSC) is delighted to announce the arrival of two new scientiﬁc staﬀ members who will contribute to supporting the US Tastronomical community in its use of the twin Gemini 8-meter telescopes. Please join us in welcoming Verne Smith and Tom Matheson to NGSC and NOAO.

Verne Smith assumed the duties of NGSC Deputy Director on August 1; he also holds an appointment as tenured astronomer. Verne is well recognized for his studies of stellar abundances and Galactic chemical evolution. An experienced user of Phoenix and Gemini, Verne is the author of three publications from Gemini observations. He is initially based in Tucson but will relocate to NOAO South in 2005. Verne will provide leadership for NGSC activities at NOAO South and will be active in supporting US users of Phoenix and GMOS. Among his current activities, Smith is exploring how stellar populations and chemical abundances research is enabled by the HRNIRS and WFMOS instrument concepts for Gemini. New NGSC staff members Verne Smith, NGSC Deputy Director (left) and Tom Matheson, Assistant Astronomer (right) in Tom Matheson joined NOAO on September 1 as NGSC front of the NOAO Headquarters building in Tucson. Assistant Astronomer. Tom moved to Tucson from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, where he was a postdoctoral fellow. He received his PhD from GMOS, which he has been using to obtain spectroscopy of the University of California, Berkeley, in 2000. His PhD cosmologically interesting supernovae. thesis topic was “The Spectral Characteristics of Stripped- Envelope Supernovae.” Tom’s main research interests are NGSC is currently recruiting two additional scientiﬁc supernovae, supernova cosmology, and the relation between staﬀ members. Please see the NOAO Web pages for a gamma ray bursts and supernovae. One of his NGSC description of these opportunities (www.noao.edu/cas/hr/ duties will be to serve as instrument support scientist for jobs/jobs_list.html). NOAO-NSO 80 Newsletter

December 2004 15 NOAO-NSO Newsletter 80 16 NICI being instrumentation Gemini on update status a 2004 gives September the since progress article with States, United the This in developed programs. science frontline of support in telescopes fortheGemini itscontinues missionand to capable instrumentation Program innovative provide The NGSCInstrumentation completed. NICI is expected to be deployed on Gemini Gemini on deployed 2005. be in South to expected is NICI been has completed. Gemini by acceptance final NICI to work the of percent 93 that reports MKIR September, of end the of As deliverables. documentation dewar the of proven. has been made on also was progress Good NICI the performance thermal Proper Hall- temperature. and operating NICI’s at mechanisms correctly performing are NICI sensors effect the all that demonstrated test This test. cold NICI second the out carried and dewar NICI the into components NICI the of all integrated MKIR the NICI dewar, in preparation for the second cold test. cold second the for NICIthe dewar, inpreparation into inserted being shown is assembly wheel filter NICI The NGSC Mauna Kea Infrared (MKIR) in Hilo is building building is Toomey. Hilo of Doug leadership the under NICI, in (MKIR) Infrared Kea Mauna telescope. South Gemini the on capability imaging coronagraphic dual-beam 5-micron to 1- a provide The NearImagerCoronagraphic Infrared (NICI) will December 2004 December NGSC Instrumentation Program Update Taft & Mark Armandroff Trueblood FLAMINGOS-2 final acceptance by Gemini has been completed. been has by Gemini acceptance final components. FLAMINGOS-2 workto dewar ofthe 59 percent ofSeptember, As camera the of integration and wheel integration the of part filter of the early fabrication include achievements Recent phase. the to project the of fabrication phase late the from transitioning is FLAMINGOS-2 multi-object spectroscopy and the spacer. the and spectroscopy multi-object for masks the contains that dewar MOS FLAMINGOS-2 The optics system. The University of Florida is building building is Florida of University The system. optics capability for Gemini South’s multiconjugate adaptive field. It also providewill a multi-object spectroscopic providewill multi-object spectra over a 6.1×2-arcmin Gemini standard South. It cover will a 6.1-arcmin-diameter field at the there for some used period and before North being Gemini relocated at commissionedto be Gemini will it multi-object near-infrared telescopes; Gemini the for imager and spectrograph a is FLAMINGOS-2 Investigator Steve Eikenberry. Principal of leadership the under FLAMINGOS-2, NOAO-NSO Newsletter f 1 fcs n mgn md, and mode, imaging in focus /16 . continued NGSC

NGSC Instrumentation Program Update continued

Future Gemini Instrumentation The next generation of instrumentation at Gemini will Groups in the United States are participating strongly in both be the result of the community planning process that the design and feasibility studies. NOAO and the University culminated in the Gemini workshop in Aspen, Colorado, in of Florida form one HRNIRS design-study team, while the June 2003. Design studies are underway for a very capable United Kingdom Astronomy Technology Centre and the high-resolution near-infrared spectrograph (HRNIRS) and University of Hawaii make up the other HRNIRS team. The an ambitious high-contrast adaptive optics system and University of Arizona and the Center for Adaptive Optics at associated imager/spectrograph capable of imaging warm the University of California are each leading independent planets around nearby stars (ExAOC). Gemini has funded design-study teams for ExAOC. Johns Hopkins University two competing design studies for each of these two concepts. and NOAO are collaborators on the Anglo-Australian- Gemini is also conducting feasibility studies for a very Observatory-led WFMOS feasibility study. The University powerful wide-ﬁeld multi-object spectrograph (WFMOS) of Arizona is one of three institutions collaborating on the and for a ground-layer adaptive optics (GLAO) program. international GLAO feasibility study. NOAO-NSO 80 Newsletter A joint Gemini Observatory-NOAO press release on 5 October 2004 highlighted observations by a team including Steve Howell of NOAO-WIYN and Thomas E. Harrison of New Mexico State University, who used the Gemini North and Keck II telescopes to peer inside the violent binary star system EF Eridanus. The team found that that one of the interacting stars has lost so much mass to its partner that it has regressed to a strange, inert body resembling no known star type. The unusual result was reported widely, including a story by Reuters wire service that appeared on CNN.com and ABCNews.com, plus other stories by Space.com, the New Zealand Herald, SkyandTelescope.com, and numerous Hawaiian newspapers.

Artwork: Gemini Observatory and Jon Lomberg.

December 2004 17 OBSERVATIONALPROGRAMS NATIONAL OPTICAL ASTRONOMY OBSERVATORY

NOAO Survey Program Letters of Intent Due January 31

Todd Boroson

here have been no new starts in Surveys are aimed at identification and the approximate amount of time that will be the NOAO Survey Program in the study of complete, well-defined samples requested, and the duration of the proposed last two years, as we have given the of objects that can yield both conclusions survey. Up to 20 percent of the total Tactive surveys a chance to complete their based on analysis of the survey data itself, telescope time at CTIO and KPNO may observations. While a few surveys will still and also provide important subsets for more be awarded through the Survey Program, be observing in 2005, we expect to take detailed observations with larger telescopes. including time allocated in the earlier rounds proposals for new surveys in the 2005B cycle. All survey teams are expected to work to continuing programs. We are exploring This decision is contingent on the success with the NOAO Science Archive project to the possibility of allowing surveys to begin of a review of the Survey Program that ensure effective, timely community access on the Gemini telescopes; watch the Web site the AURA Observatories Council will be to the survey data. given below for an update on this. holding in January 2005. However, because of the lead time in soliciting letters of intent Investigators interested in applying for time A more detailed description of the Survey and proposals, we are planning to accept under the NOAO Survey Program MUST Program requirements and guidelines letters of intent and to inform letter writers submit a letter of intent by 31 January 2005 is available at www.noao.edu/gateway/ if the review results in changes or further (by e-mail to [email protected]) describing surveys/. Proposals must be initiated using delays in the program. Full proposals will the broad scientific goals of the program, the NOAO Web proposal form at www.noao. be due 15 March 2005. the membership of the survey team, the edu/noaoprop/noaoprop.html, which will be telescopes and instruments to be requested, available approximately 15 February 2005.

2005A Proposal Process Update

Dave Bell

OAO received 497 observing proposals for telescope As of this writing, proposals are being reviewed by members of the time during the 2005A observing semester. These NOAO TAC (see the following listing). We expect all telescope included 217 proposals for Gemini, 135 for KPNO, 111 for schedules to be completed by 7 December 2004, and plan to notify NCTIO, 34 for Keck, 10 for MMT, 8 for HET, and 2 for Magellan. principal investigators of the status of their requests at that time. Twenty-two of the Cerro Tololo proposals were processed on Mailed information packets will follow the e-mail notiﬁcations by behalf of the Chilean National Time Allocation Committee (TAC), about two weeks. and 12 of the Kitt Peak proposals were processed on behalf of the University of Maryland TAC. Thesis projects accounted for Looking ahead to 2005B, Web information and forms will be 23 percent (112 proposals) of those received, and 15 proposals available on line in February 2005. The March 2005 issue of requested long-term status. Time-request statistics by telescope this Newsletter will contain updated instrument and proposal and instrument appear in the following tables. Subscription information. rate statistics will be published in the March 2005 issue of the NOAO-NSO Newsletter.

18 December 2004 Observational Programs

2005A2005A Instrument Instrument Request Request StatisticsStatistics by by Telescope Telescope

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December 2004 21 NOAO-NSO Newsletter 80 22 Suchitra Balachandran, University of Maryland University Balachandran, Suchitra SAO Allen, Lori Wolff, NOAO Chair, Sidney NOAO Chair, Stanghellini, Letizia of Cincinnati University Chair, Hanson, Margaret 2004) October (28–29 Galactic Susan Wyckoff, Arizona State University State Wyckoff, Arizona Susan Observatory Lowell Millis, Robert LPL of Arizona, University Hubbard, William University State Francisco Fischer, San Debra NOAO Young, De Dave Chair, System (1Solar November 2004) Tech Young, Mexico New Lisa College Venn, Macalester Kim CTIO Bliek, der van Nicole NOAOVerne Smith, NOAO Ridgway, Steve College Macalester Pritzl, Bart of Michigan Monnier, University John NOAO Mighell, Ken of Minnesota University Lee, Henry Caltech/IPAC Kirkpatrick, Davy University Clemson Jeremy King, of Toronto University Jayawardhana, Ray History of Natural Museum American Burgasser, Adam Observational Programs December 2004 December 2005A TAC Members Malcolm Smith, CTIO Smith, Malcolm of Arizona University Pinto, Philip Lacy, Mark Observatory Lick Holden, Brad of Florida University Gonzalez, Anthony STScI Ferguson, Harry University State Michigan Donohue, Megan Dey, NOAOArjun University Brown Dell’Antonio, Ian STScI Jong, De Roelof of Arizona University Davé, Romeel University Queens Courteau, Stephane Armus, Lee Observatories Carnegie Chair, Mulchaey, John Tod NOAO Lauer, Chair, Young De Dave (2–3 November 2004) Extragalactic Lisa Storrie-Lombardi, Spitzer Science Center Science Spitzer Storrie-Lombardi, Lisa Laboratory National Livermore Lawrence Stanford, Adam Spitzer Science Center Science Spitzer Spitzer Science Center Science Spitzer , Chair, NOAO, Chair, Observational Programs

“CATCH”— A Web-Based Clearinghouse for Community Telescope Information and Access

Katy Garmany & Todd Boroson

here can one find information on all available The PREST awards are for small (<2.5-meter) telescopes that community telescopes and their instrumentation? offer both training and observing experiences, especially This question has been raised by various panels for graduate and undergraduate students. Four PREST Wrecently, who have expressed their view that NOAO could awards were made in August (Michigan State, University most logically provide a Web site that summarizes and links of Toledo, University of North Carolina/CTIO, and Lowell/ all the diverse observing opportunities and set expectations Boston University), and the next proposal opportunity will for the future (see the O/IR System committee report at occur in January 2005. www.noao.edu/meetings/system2/system2_report.pdf). This challenge has been accepted by the System Project Office and The Web site will include time available, how and when is in the planning stage. We envision a Web site that includes to apply, instrument and detector capabilities, selection all NOAO facilities, the TSIP program (which so far has criteria, typical weather, lodging accommodations, and made public observing time available on Keck, HET, MMT, technical assistance or training available at the telescope. Magellan, and LBT), and other telescopes giving public Also, feedback from observers on the performance of the access through NOAO—WIYN, SOAR, and SMARTS. facilities will be made available to potential proposers.

Not only will this site list the observing facilities oﬀered The most immediate need for this project is a snappy through the NOAO proposal process, but it will also include acronym—the best suggestion so far is CATCH other community access telescopes and instrumentation. (Community Access Telescope Clearinghouse). Send In particular, it will identify opportunities oﬀered through additional ideas to Katy Garmany ([email protected]) and PREST (Program for Research and Education with Small win a prize! Telescopes), a new National Science Foundation initiative. NOAO-NSO 80 Newsletter

December 2004 23 CTIO/CERROTOLOLO INTER-AMERICAN OBSERVATORY

Dark Energy Camera Team Visits Chile

Timothy Abbott

even members of the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) team The team and local collaborators presented a brieﬁng on the project visited CTIO in October. Project director John Peoples, to NOAO staﬀ in Chile and engaged in extensive discussions. The project manager Brenna Flaugher, camera and dewar instrument development team have considerable prior experience Sspecialist Greg Derylo, cryogenics and power specialist Del with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey telescope and instrumentation Allspach, mechanical designer French Leger, system integration for it, and also draw on a large pool of expertise from high-energy specialist Peter Limon, and data acquisition specialist Todd Moore physics. The latter is particularly relevant to building large detector spent a week in La Serena and on Cerro Tololo. systems and handling very high data throughput—the DECam will incorporate half a gigapixel of CCDs and be capable of producing an image in 17 seconds.

The camera will be integrated into Blanco telescope operations as a facility instrument and must be designed and built with this in mind. The DECam team’s visit to La Serena has ﬁrmly established productive interaction with on-site staﬀ and paved the way for evolution of the design according to the needs of both groups.

The visit included, of course, an inspection of the telescope and a tour of CTIO’s facilities relevant to instrument construction. While our facilities cannot match those of Fermilab, from which most of the team’s members originate, CTIO nevertheless expects to contribute to the program at a level more extensive than simply hosting the DECam. Our instrument construction and data management facilities and, of course, instrument design skills, provide considerable advantages to the project.

The DECam is the observational instrument for the Dark Energy Survey (DES) project, which has recently been assessed positively by the Blanco Instrument Review Panel (BIRP), led by George Jacoby and Constance Rockosi. This panel was assembled to review the responses to last year’s Announcement of Opportunity to build new instruments for the Blanco telescope and to oﬀer recommendations to the NOAO director. The DES was the only respondent and the panel recommended that the project proceed.

The DES aims to use 30 percent of the available Blanco time to pursue a high-precision, multibandpass survey of 5,000 square degrees of sky over the course of ﬁve years. The collaborating institutes are Fermilab National Accelerator Laboratory, the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, the University of Chicago, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, NOAO, and the National Center for Supercomputer Applications. More information on the project can The Dark Energy Camera will be a Blanco 4-meter telescope be found at www.darkenergysurvey.org. instrument. Photo credit: Milton Urzua/Gemini Observatory.

24 December 2004 CTIO

SMARTS: Results and Upgrades

Alan Whiting

he Small and Medium-Aperture Research Telescope System (SMARTS) consortium will celebrate its second anniversary of operating telescopes on Cerro Tololo in February 2005. Scientiﬁc results from the initial period will be presented at a special session of the AAS meeting in San Diego, the month before. These presentations will range widely, from Tlong-term photometry of distant asteroids and comets to determine their nature (binary? made of what materials?) to short- notice follow-up of gamma-ray bursts.

Immediately following the science session, there will be a planning meeting for future operations. The original SMARTS agreement expires in January 2006, and a new consortium proposal (perhaps with some new members) needs to be put together early in 2005.

In the shorter term, several of the SMARTS telescopes have upgrades planned or in progress: • The ex-YALO 1.0-meter, which had not been used for many months, is now operating with a 512 × 512 CCD made by the Ohio State University group; late in 2004 a 4K CCD is scheduled for installation. • CPAPIR (Camera Panoramique Proche Infra Rouge), a 2K infrared camera built by a group at the University of Montreal, is scheduled to undergo on-telescope tests in the north in November and to be installed on the 1.5-meter in early 2005. Its main task will be an infrared survey of the Milky Way plane (see ftp.astro.umontreal.ca/cpapir). • Planning is in progress for a replacement to the venerable telescope control system of the 0.9-meter, to take place in early 2005. • Neutral-density ﬁlters have been installed in ANDICAM on the 1.3-meter (ex-2MASS), allowing photometry of bright stars in four wavebands. We are ready for the next bright supernova!

SOAR Update

Steve Heathcote

ince the dedication ceremony in April, the SOAR team However, it was intended that in normal operation, the has been busy preparing the telescope and its instruments SOAR AOS would work “open loop” with the forces to in readiness for science operation. Unfortunately, in be applied to each actuator being set by lookup tables, Sthis process we have encountered a significant, but fixable, derived from measurements made in advance with the problem with the telescope’s active optical system (AOS). CWFS at a grid of positions on the sky. In contrast, other telescopes based on similar technology, such as Gemini, SOAR’s thin meniscus primary mirror is supported by use a wavefront sensing guider to close their control loop, 120 axial actuators, which can be adjusted to maintain its allowing continuous optimization of the mirror figure precise figure as the telescope points to different positions on while observing. This option was not open to SOAR, the sky, and six passive lateral links that are simply supposed essentially because of its smaller aperture, which means that to carry an increasing fraction of the mirror’s weight as the a guide star would only rarely be bright enough to use for telescope moves to lower elevation. Using the Calibration wavefront sensing. NOAO-NSO 80 Newsletter Wavefront Sensor (CWFS) mounted at one of the telescope’s Bent Cassegrain Foci, it is possible to measure the form As we collected data to populate the lookup tables it quickly of the wavefront delivered by the telescope, and then to became apparent that astigmatism, by far the largest residual calculate the optimal set of forces to apply to each actuator to aberration, had strong and unexpected dependencies on minimize the departures from the perfect form. This works elevation, azimuth, and especially temperature. While very well indeed, allowing the shape of the primary mirror the azimuth and elevation dependence have proven to be to be adjusted, at a given position and moment in time, to straightforward to model and include in the lookup tables, deliver images limited by the prevailing seeing. the temperature dependence has not.

continued

December 2004 25 NOAO-NSO Newsletter 80 26 the telescope to be used as originally intended. However, intended. originally as used be to allowing telescope problem, the this fix should that develop links and lateral active design to contractors outside with working is team SOAR the Consequently, structure. of telescope the distortions temperature-dependent to and response position- in tiny it warping and mirror the which over-constrain links, lateral the are problem this of cause root the that shows hindsight, 20/20 by aided analysis, Subsequent SOAR Update continued combination of course work and hands-on experience. a experience. hands-on in work and of course combination endeavors curricular their in professors UNC by led are students The setting. classroom a normal in impossible be would that a in manner passion their “live” and research to time students of group small a grant Seminars Research Field Burch The interest. of field specific a into delve and campus from away semester a spend to required resources the of vision the with to is quite simple: students provide Burch program The abroad. study to with opportunities students unique undergraduate UNC provide to continues A takes starting basis on a part-time operations science shared-risk measurement will begin to possible be should efficiency it calibration like, would we than observing lower be the Each while Thus, minutes. 5–10 changing. temperature the is fast how on depending thereafter, hour per once about and target, science new each for this do to image good maintain quality, but to we order expect that in in the worst case it measurements will be take to CWFS necessary necessary is it often how determining still are We the on tracks. rely telescope the as solution then the adjust to tables target, lookup science each a to using AOS close the star tuning bright by observe to possible now is it result, a As astigmatism. the of dependence elevation and azimuth the correct to largely be used can they where point the to tables lookup the refined have we meantime, the In away. 129 to months still likely is solution definitive this of implementation the CTIO December 2004 December Carolina (UNC) alumnus Lucius E. Burch III III Burch North E. which Program, Fellows of Burch the funded Lucius initially University alumnus ago, (UNC) decade Carolina a over little The UNC Burch Program Brings Astronomy Carrie Sweet & Bryan Zandt (University of North Carolina) of North (University Zandt &Bryan Sweet Carrie Students to LaSerena

mode by SOAR staff, with the exact schedule depending on depending schedule exact the with staff, SOAR by mode service in from executed be will response programs These community. the gratifying a with met and round, 2005A NOAO proposal the in “Early included was shared-risk SOAR at for time Science” proposals for call a Consequently, of 2005B. middle by the available be the prepare to will a instrument CCDs for science butthis continues use, that we expect using work August camera; late CCD in run provisional engineering first had also successful a Spectrograph Goodman measuring The and them performance. their characterizing of process the in are we and telescope, the on are (OSIRIS) Imager/Spectrometer Infrared State Ohio the and (SOI) Imager Optical SOAR the the for SOAR science. instrumentation As of November, both preparing in progress we have considerable made parallel, In links. and lateral active new the test install to ready are we until continuing and 2005A, in student, and two UNC professors—Wayne Christiansen and and professors—Wayne Christiansen UNC two and student, graduate one students, undergraduate 11 spring, this Early of town Observatory. Tololo Inter-American seaside Cerro the to beautiful proximity close its of because the Chile, Serena, La Chile,” special headquarters of its This Skies as Southern chose the culture. “SOARing Spanish titled and program, astronomy both in interests satisfying perfectly, of study course their integrated Program Burch one UNC, at students few a For in Bangkok. filmmaking role documentary and cultural France, Dijon, the in food Beijing, of in Mandarin study to world the around students taken have Seminars Research Field Burch be also can SOARWeb on the at site found information Up-to-date staff. SOAR the with the refine of details technical to their program accordingly, in consultation opportunity the have will and observation, of on time to the closer instruments and information telescope of the status the latest the with provided be Successful will applicants work. commissioning ongoing of progress the www.soartelescope.or continued g .

CTIO

The UNC Burch Program continued

Gerald Cecil—began their extraordinary journey to Chile. “Not only is this the first year for this particular Burch program, but this is the first science study abroad program from UNC,” says Christiansen. “We’re trying to offer a solid science-based program along with the cultural aspects of living in a society different from the United States. We’re very excited about it.”

The goal of this program is to provide the students with the chance to dive into the fascinating world of pure, unadulterated astronomical observation, including both the early science of SOAR and the initial phases of the configuration of the PROMPT project. PROMPT, or Panchromatic Robotic Optical Monitoring and Polarimetry Telescopes, will consist of an array of six telescopes used in conjunction with NASA’s SWIFT satellite and SOAR for quick detection and the study of gamma-ray bursts. “PROMPT is UNC’s effort to leverage our part in SOAR in a very special way, by chasing gamma ray bursts,” explains Christiansen. “We know that SOAR can’t be on line all the time for gamma ray bursts, so PROMPT is able to act quickly to identify them and then interrupt SOAR for a ‘target of opportunity observation,’ if it is needed. The pot of gold at the end of the rainbow in SOAR and PROMPT is finding gamma ray bursts at very large distances, with redshifts on the order of 10.”

The Burch students are taking three courses to supplement their research in Chile. One physics class focuses on the current oil-supported economy and the forms of nonrenewable/renewable resources in our society that One of the PROMPT domes with SOAR and Gemini South in we may be forced to develop in order to sustain an ever- background. Photo credit: Gerald Cecil. increasing population when world oil reserves run dry. The program focuses on astronomical studies through two classes, one focusing on cosmic evolution, and the other Student Anjni Patel comments, “This program has given me geared toward observational astronomy. The observational a unique opportunity to immerse myself in Chilean culture astronomy course introduced and led students through the and explore the country. From mountains to oceans, process of how astronomers collect and process data, in deserts to glaciers, Chile could not offer more natural preparation for their use of the data they will gather with beauty.” Professors Christiansen and Cecil hope to extend PROMPT and SOAR. the program into the future, as PROMPT construction completes and will offer a whole new range of possibilities Besides course work and spending time on Cerro Tololo and for students. “I couldn’t think of a better place to spend a Cerro Pachón, the Burch participants have traveled to other semester abroad,” says student Adam Robert. “The skies of important astronomical sites, such as the twin Magellan Chile are unparalleled in the world of astronomy.” NOAO-NSO 80 Newsletter Telescopes on Las Campanas and the VLT/VLTI on Cerro Paranal, on a trip through the Atacama Desert to San Pedro. The Burch program will conclude with a field trip in early The students are grateful to VLT and Las Campanas site December to the Patagonian region of southern Argentina, directors Drs. Gilmozzi and Phillips for their support of these before the students return to the United States. visits. They received superb technical briefings by Dr. Seifert (VLT) and Mike Fischer (VLTI), as well as an excellent lunch at the amazing residencia.

December 2004 27 KPNO/KITTPEAK NATIONAL OBSERVATORY

WIYN’s Major Advances in Upgrades and New Instrumentation

Richard Green & Patricia Knezek

he last year has seen a significant ramp-up in technical (STScI). She won support there for a project to build a near-infrared efforts devoted to WIYN instrumentation and telescope camera specifically for the WIYN tip-tilt module. Margaret is performance. This has led to the best image quality seen leading the instrument design effort to provide a 2K × 2K HgCdTe Tat WIYN. Typical rms wavefront errors delivered to the sensor are detector with a scale of 0.09 arcsec per pixel. As demonstrated under 100 nanometers, leading to regular imaging performance by her traveling camera NIRIM, WIYN can frequently produce with 0.3–0.4 arcsec FWHM. near-diffraction-limited images in the near-infrared, which will be reasonably matched to the adopted scale. KPNO will provide a A part of the improvement in image quality was the re- Monsoon controller for compatibility with the mountain forward aluminization of all three mirrors during the month-long summer look. The WIYN High-resolution IR Camera (WHIRC) team, led shutdown for the new Hydra positioner installation (see below). by principal investigator Ed Churchwell (University of Wisconsin), The tight schedule forced the issue of completing some long- and co-investigators Margaret Meixner and Don Figer (fSTScI), and needed improvements to the mirror-handling cart, including new Patricia Knezek (WIYN), is also submitting an ATI proposal to the drive screws with higher precision control that made the jacking National Science Foundation for the remaining funds. This project motion much smoother. The entire operation went smoothly and is off to a vigorous start, with a goal of two years to deployment. with much less stress than in previous removals. Site Engineer Charles Corson also completed maintenance of the mirror support Major progress was made in advancing the technology to produce system that included identifying and replacing some misbehaving wide-field CCD cameras with zonal fast guiding on-chip. George components. He then did a superb job of realigning the telescope Jacoby leads WIYN in a collaboration with John Tonry and optics, putting the finishing touches on the process of significantly the PanSTARRS group at the University of Hawaii to develop improving the telescope performance.

During the past two years, a dedicated team led by Patricia Knezek has done an outstanding job on the design, fabrication, and integration of a replacement for the Hydra fiber positioner (see figure 1). Some key components of the original positioner could no longer be replaced, leading to the risk of catastrophic failure. In addition, several improvements made to the design when implementing Hydra II for CTIO were also desirable upgrades for WIYN performance. During the full month of WIYN shutdown in August, the old positioner was removed, its gripper mechanism was transferred to the new system, and the new positioner was installed with a precision realignment scheme on the telescope. In the course of testing and commissioning this new positioner, several aspects of the long-frozen software control were brought to full working order. The first scheduled shared-risk science run was a definite operational success. A few further improvements planned for fiscal year 2005 will increase performance beyond its Figure 1. The WIYN Hydra team. Standing from left to right predecessor, while providing a maintainable system for a further are George Jacoby, Gene McDougall, Dave Sawyer, Rich ten years of active use. Gomez, Gary Muller, and Behzad Abareshi. Kneeling from left to right are Phil Massey, Charles Corson, and Dave Dryden. Good news for WIYN came in the form of a successful proposal Missing from the photo are Di Harmer and Patricia Knezek. for nearly $400,000 by Margaret Meixner to the Director’s continued Discretionary Research Fund at Space Telescope Science Institute

28 December 2004 KPNO

WIYN’s Major Advances continued orthogonal transfer array (OTA) CCDs. These 4K × 4K image with its full format. The STA foundry devices will devices allow fast readout of individual ~500 × 500 pixel enter the testing phase before the end of 2004. The NSF ATI cells; the centroided position of a guide star can then be fed program granted WIYN the money to produce QUOTA, an back to clock adjacent cells and move charge vertically or 8K × 8K camera with OTA CCDs, planned for first light in horizontally in either direction to achieve local fast guiding. 2006. All these steps are critical successes along the way to WIYN is working with Dick Bredthauer of the commercial the production of a One-Degree Imager (32K × 32K) of OTA firm STA in close collaboration with PanSTARRS source CCDs, planned for science operations in 2009. At its meeting Barry Burke at MIT Lincoln Laboratory (MITLL). Both in October, the WIYN Board reiterated its support for ODI groups staged initial foundry runs that were largely development, and committed resources from the partner successful. The MITLL OTA has been demonstrated to institutions for a strong effort in the current fiscal year.

Figure 2. A comparison of the 2MASS (left) and WIYN/NIRIM (right) Ks images of the massive star- forming region G192.2.

First-Light Run for IRMOS a Major Success

Richard Green & John MacKenty

The long-time partnership of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), and Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO) was rewarded in September with a highly successful ﬁrst-light run of the Infrared Multi-Object Spectrograph (IRMOS) on the Kitt Peak 2.1-meter telescope. This instrument uses a cold micromirror array as a programmable multislit mask. Principal investigator John MacKenty and his commissioning team were on the sky on the ﬁrst night. The initial run

allowed data acquisition to test throughput in all the bands NOAO-NSO 80 Newsletter with images and spectra (it is hot in z as well as K!), to map the geometry of the projection optics, and to test some designer slit conﬁgurations.

The GSFC team went above and beyond to produce a state-of-the-art instrument. Ray Ohl has served as the technical team lead, pulling the project successfully IRMOS on its ﬁrst-light run. Left to right: Knute Ray, through several challenging situations. Savoring the Ray Ohl, Tim Madison, Richard Green, John MacKenty success of the development through participating in the (principal investigator).

continued

December 2004 29 NOAO-NSO Newsletter 80 30 program at GSFC. at GSFC. (JWST) program Telescope Space Webb James development the of interests technology the in IRMOS co- project supporting the is investigator, project Knute Greenhouse Matt and and Sparr. Madison, Leroy Tim Connelly manager person Joe support engineers technical Ray, were run ﬁrst-light First-Light Run for continued IRMOS At the 2.1-meter telescope, each micromirror in the the then image, in infrared an take to the able on be micromirror will arcsec Observers 0.4 sky. each approximately subtends array telescope, 600 × 848 2.1-meter the At handling. for careful Facilities Central of support the for and equipment, vacuum of some critical loan for group the Major Instrumentation the and 2.1-meter Schmitt of Paul to cadre grateful We’realso new operators. telescope a arrival. create on to team managed and Halbedel facility instrument Hal rig the ﬂex receive the to sure ready made was also Bill assembly. during instrument the on work to GSFC to trip Ditsler special a Bill made had Joyce and months, Dick for interference scientist, running been instrument had our As very was alignment straightforward. and setup, Maintenance, support, Electronic pre-observing Lane, Mountain the Steve of Hutchinson, McCollam Jim Bill and and crew; facilities Hawes, Mike the Binkert, and Bill Andree, Skip Kitt Engineering; in Peak Bulau Scott and lead), (project Goble Will Ghawad, prepto workcareful Thanks byAbdel- Khairy Tony Abraham, KPNO array are visible in this undithered image. undithered inthis visible are array micromirror the of artifacts Some Orion. of composite JHK December 2004 December

pcrm a R10; hs s snl rw rm o a of frame raw single a exposure. 100-second is this (central) The R~1000; has arcsec. 5.3 spectrum = of pixels 15 of width slits outer central and the with 2.7= arcsec, pixels 7 of galaxy, slits flanking 1.1= arcsec, pixels 3 the of profile light changing the for compensate to varied were widths slit The is nucleus The in visible signal is the central in slit; present galaxy all slits. M31. of spectra H-band multislit Custom call for shared-risk proposals could come for 2005B. come could proposals for shared-risk call the pace, thecurrent at continue progress Should software. 2.1-meter user-interface and in improvements major and background, 4-meter of the on in telescopes November. runs Future work include will reduction engineering and testing additional for scheduled been has instrument The exceeded ratio contrast the expectations. of measurement initial The 3000. and 1000, 300, approximately of resolutions offering gratings of choice a with covered is bands K and H, J, the of Each spectra. object multiple taking begin immediately and image, the from mask a slit custom design interactively

KPNO

KPNO and the University of Maryland— An Effective Partnership

Richard Green & Lee Mundy

As reported in the March 2002 NOAO-NSO Newsletter, Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO) solicited partnerships to maintain a vital flow of new instrumentation for the 4-meter telescope. After a series of reviews, a partnership was established between KPNO and the Astronomy Department at the University of Maryland. The department brought established expertise in astronomical software, particularly through their technical support of BIMA and CARMA, along with financial resources for critical instrument hardware purchases. In exchange for providing skilled personnel and much-needed financing, the department’s 19 professorial faculty, some 40 research faculty, and large graduate student population were allocated 20 percent of the 4-meter nights scheduled for scientific observations. At the recommendation of the review panel, some of those nights can be exchanged for time on WIYN or the 2.1-meter telescope. Dedicated Maryland observing time began in Semester 2003B.

The initial focus of the partnership has been on the production of the NOAO Extremely Wide-Field Infrared Imager (NEWFIRM) as a scientific system. The NEWFIRM program will produce the camera hardware, the data acquisition hardware and software, and the data pipeline to go from raw data to calibrated images. Maryland resources have supported the purchases of large optics for the camera and augmentation of fabrication efforts, and will allow the acquisition of a suite of narrowband filters that were not in the baseline budget. Maryland personnel Rob Swaters and Instrument shop supervisor Roger Repp with the NEWFIRM Brian Thomas are fully integrated into the NOAO pipeline dewar shell delivered by the vendor. development team; their participation has made the critical difference for meeting the delivery schedule. Sylvain Veilleux Stacy McGaugh of Maryland, and John Glaspey, Richard was the lead on the department’s proposal, and provides Green, and Dick Shaw of NOAO. The Board reviews and oversight of Maryland personnel as well as coordination of approves each year’s operation plan and has developed a set the Maryland Time Allocation Committee (TAC) process. of metrics to gauge the success of partnership efforts. The Sylvain also serves on the NEWFIRM science advisory department has goals of enhanced scientific visibility and committee, advancing a full intellectual partnership. excellence in graduate training. KPNO must demonstrate valuable return to observers in terms of new capability.

Oversight of the partnership is provided by the Committee Given the burgeoning number of observational thesis NOAO-NSO 80 Newsletter on Maryland and NOAO Development (COMAND). Three projects and the demonstrable progress on the NEWFIRM members of this Board are provided by each institution. The pipeline, the Board members are conﬁdent that the success current COMANDos are Lee Mundy, Sylvain Veilleux, and criteria will be well met.

December 2004 31 NATIONALSOLAROBSERVATORY TUCSON, ARIZONA • SAC PEAK, NEW MEXICO

From the NSO Director’s Office

Steve Keil

t has been an exciting quarter at the NSO. The Advanced programs at the McMath-Pierce (Kitt Peak) and the Evans Technology Solar Telescope (ATST) construction proposal (Sacramento Peak) facilities, and the final instrument, the Full review at the National Science Foundation (NSF) went very Disk Patrol, will soon be ready to join the VSM and ISS on Kitt Iwell, with both the review panel and the write-in reviewers giving Peak. The project looks forward to having a new postdoc on board the proposal excellent marks in all areas. In addition to the science, by the time this is published. technical, and management aspects of the proposal, the broader ≠ impacts of the ATST, namely education and outreach to such other disciplines as plasma physics, space weather, and terrestrial In October, an NSO workshop on “Large-Scale Structures climate, were also well received. The panel recommended that the and their Role in Solar Activity” brought together more than NSF pursue construction of the ATST as soon as possible. The 50 scientists from 15 different countries at Sacramento Peak for next steps are to present the project to the NSF Major Research lively discussions about large structures on the Sun. Topics ranged Equipment Facilities Construction (MREFC) prescreening panel, from coronal holes—how they are defined, what their physical and then to the National Science Board for inclusion in the MREFC properties are, and how they link to measurements at 1 astronomical funding line. unit and beyond—to how coronal fields can be measured in both ≠ the infrared and radio, new results on meridional flow and the solar dynamo, linking interior measurements with coronal observations The ATST Science Working Group met in October and, after showing a rush to the poles, and the formation of filament channels reviewing the final report of the Site Survey Working Group and filaments. Some of the workshop highlights are described in (SSWG), recommended that we pursue Haleakala, Hawaii, as a following article. the best site for building the ATST. Although all three of the ≠ final candidate sites (Haleakala; Big Bear Lake, California; and La Palma, Canary Islands, Spain) fared well in the final year of NSO welcomes some new members to its scientific staff. William testing, Haleakala stood out in terms of the number of hours of (Bill) Sherry, a recent PhD from the State University of New York, outstanding seeing and its coronal skies. The SSWG final report will be working as a postdoc with Mark Giampapa on the evolution can be found on the ATST Web site at atst.nso.edu/site. The of activity and irradiance variability in solar-type stars through a project is now assessing other factors such as cost drivers, and joint University of Arizona/NOAO Astrobiology grant. Aleksandr environmental and cultural impacts of building on Haleakala. Serebryanskiy (Ulugh Beg Astronomical Institute) and Sushant ≠ Tripathy (Udaipur Solar Observatory) are new GONGsters, as noted in the GONG section that follows. We are also pleased to SOLIS is gearing up for full operations! The Vector be hosting Sumner Davis, Professor of Physics, Emeritus from the Spectromagnetograph (VSM) is producing synoptic magnetic University of California at Berkeley, as a long-term visitor. Sumner, maps and will soon be publishing full-disk vector magnetograms. who is doing research on diatomic molecular spectra, has been a The Integrated Sunlight Spectrometer (ISS) is now installed on Kitt co-investigator on the NSF/Chemistry program that supports the Peak and will be intercalibrated with the Ca K-line monitoring McMath-Pierce FTS facility.

Good Science Usually Means a Good Mystery

Dave Dooling

“I sure would like to know what will happen behind that curtain, for only the last half-century, and the best data, including satellite Cycle 24, and behind that curtain, Cycle 17 and earlier, before we imagery, only for the last decade. had magnetograms,” said Matthew Penn of the National Solar Observatory (NSO). Penn was one of the organizers of “Large-Scale Structures and their Role in Solar Activity,” the 22nd annual international science The questions spoke to the relatively short data sets available for workshop in Sunspot, New Mexico, 18–22 October 2004. The studying the Sun. Sunspot drawings go back almost 400 years, but modern, objective data — such as magnetograms — are available continued

32 December 2004 NSO

Good Science Usually Means a Good Mystery continued

conference was cosponsored by the NSO, the National Science Foundation, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the US Air Force Oﬃce of Scientiﬁc Research. More than 50 scientists from the United States, Great Britain, Angola, Switzerland, India, Russia, Serbia and Montenegro, Uzbekistan, the Czech Republic, and France attended.

“By large, we mean anything from the size of a sunspot—about the size of Jupiter—upward,” said NSO’s K. S. (Sankar) Sankarasubramanian, Attendees at the NSO’s 22nd annual international workshop at Sunspot gather chair of the conference. “And the outside the visitor center during a break. More than 50 scientists from around the seven major topics started from the world attended the week-long workshop. inside of the Sun and work outward.”

“I thought this topic would be a good idea because it has always match. “When the results from studies using local never been discussed before,” said NSO’s Alexei Pevtsov. correlation tracking and helioseismology are compared, “These large-scale structures are an important part of solar we see some agreement but some predictions disagree.” activity in general.” Similar themes were found throughout the workshop, with each session highlighting differing observations of—and explanations for—the same solar phenomena. Data for The Jovian-scale theme of this year’s workshop complements the answers, he said, will come from higher-resolution the thrust of the NSO’s efforts to develop a 4-meter observations extending into the infrared as well as visible Advanced Technology Solar Telescope (ATST) that will see portion of the spectrum. structures on the scale of cities on the surface of the Sun, since small-scale structures ultimately make up the larger “Global magnetic field patterns clearly depend on small ones, and because the two extremes influence each other. magnetic fields,” Penn said. “We want to know the structure of the magnetic field lines. The thought that we will measure “If you look at a filament in high resolution,” Sankar said, magnetic fields on the solar surface and in the solar atmosphere referring to immense ribbons of cool gas that stand above with high resolution using the ATST a decade from now is the solar surface, “you see that it has a lot of small-scale very exciting.” structures present. How do these small flows in filaments affect whole filaments?” Other issues covered at this workshop included Sankar and Pevtsov said that a comprehensive understanding • What is the role of large-scale structures in solar of the physics of the large-scale solar activity is necessary to activity? understanding the 11-year sunspot cycle, variations in solar • What is the physical relationship between patterns irradiance, and solar control of space weather. Thus, Penn observed in different layers of solar atmosphere? and other scientists wish they had more data from solar • How are photospheric and coronal structures NOAO-NSO 80 Newsletter cycles that preceded modern instrumentation, so they could related to the underlying dynamo or circulation in come closer to predicting what future cycles might do. the convective zone?

“Overall it is really exciting that we have some ability to Proceedings from the conference will be published in 2005 by predict amplitudes and the timing of cycles,” Penn said the Astronomical Society of the Paciﬁc in the ASP Conference during the wrap-up session. But diﬀerent techniques don’t Proceedings Series.

December 2004 33 NOAO-NSO Newsletter 80 34 e ln o none h piay ie eeto b mid- by selection site primary the announce to plan ATST.We the building for site best the as Hawaii, Haleakala, T of them. The subsystems include: subsystems The of them. each for specifications detailed developing and subsystems these defining on focused meet has project will The specifications. performance imaging ATST’s the ensure that “Wavefront includes several subsystems critical correction” ATST Wavefront Correction enclosure. the and Assembly M1 the of control thermal including systems, optical the of designs the developing in progress considerable made also teams We quarter. have last the in progress Software have significant made and Controls High-level and Wavefront The Correction systems. The aspects supporting design and telescope various the 2005. of the March address to in continues Review project moving Design also Systems are We toward August. late in (NSF) Science Foundation National the the at held to proposal phase the of responded construction review face-to-face and positive a from received resulting input have We December. NSO December 2004 December (e) Blending. Information from different wavefront wavefront different from Information Blending. (e) the keeping for concept current The Alignment. (d) to is task main The system. (aO) optics active (c)An and Nasmyth the Both trackers. Correlation (b) This system. (AO) optics adaptive high-order A (a) to review the Site Survey Working Group’s final final Group’s Working (see report Survey Site the review to October in met Group Working Science ATST he (e.g., low-pass filter) and combined by the the elements. by corrector combined the drives then which and system, control wavefront filter) low-pass conditioned be (e.g., will aO) and AO (e.g., sensors field of view. extended the within points several at measurements wavefront requires aligned system optical ATST’soff-axis deformations. thermal and gravitational from slowlycorrect that changing aberrations may arise rate. afast at tip-tilt compensation with equipped motion image provide to used be can that be sensors will stations coudé mirror. tip-tilt fast a and (DM) mirror deformable 1,313-actuator a has design baseline The 2 kilohertz. than rates greater at seeing atmospheric corrects subsystem atst.nso.edu/site ATST Project Developments Thomas Rimmele, Jeremy Jeremy & the ATST Rimmele, Wagner Thomas Team ), and has recommended recommended has ), and

to understand the cooling needs and parameters; and 2) to to 2) and analysis parameters; and needs thermomechanical cooling twofold: the and was understand to thermal work a this perform of to objective 1) The design analysis. thermal and deformable-mirror subscale with a for contracted Xinetics project ATST The temperature. ambient around range temperature narrow be a to controlled mirror thermally deformable the that requires mirror deformable (M5) — Mirror Deformable DM. of the control thermal particular in control, thermal to related concerns of number a are there However of reflections. number way, beam. efficient aminimum i.e.,an with AO-corrected in goal an this achieves position current its DMin the with Locating The instrumentation all feed lab easily train. to coudé ability optical the is telescope approach this of the advantage into integrated is AO eod ih temn otu. o iiae hs ik we risk, this mitigate To output. streaming with per second frames 2,000 than greater rates frame and pixels 800 × 800 than larger detector a including commercially, available currently not are that requirements unique has camera WFS AO The Xinetics. with contract the through addressed was risk factors for wavefront correction. The DMriskmitigation highest the were considered camera (WFS) sensor wavefront — Mitigation Risk with expectations changes. design our limited to close come can they that feels PI with 244-millimeter- requirements, our of short EOST/Keck fall specifications a bandwidth and range tilt the using for While mirror. (SiC) ours, carbide silicon diameter platform to similar tip-tilt requirements a developed — (M6) Mirror Tip-Tilt ATST that requires. spacing actuator the with implemented be can scheme thermal high adequate very an that a confidence of level has Xinetics approaches. cooling various the provisions for while providing cooling. illustrates The figure spacing actuator 5.1-millimeter a of practicality the address Cooling approaches for the ATST deformable mirror. ATST the deformable for approaches Cooling The deformable mirror and the AO the and mirror deformable The Physik Instrumente (PI) recently recently (PI) Instrumente Physik The solar heat load solar on The ATSTthe continued

NSO

ATST Project Developments continued

contacted several vendors, and after extensive conversations by the telescope control and instrument control systems with each group, concluded that these requirements are in fact during construction and commissioning. Implementation achievable, and the technology is currently being developed. of this design is layered on top of support provided by Therefore, a potentially costly camera design study is being the common services and data handling systems. The postponed while we monitor technology development. top-level OCS design effort is underway, and work on the definition and alpha design of ATST Experiments—the key component in representing laboratory-style operations of Wavefront Correction Tasks — Much progress has been made the ATST—is nearing completion. regarding the number and location of wavefront sensors needed for the wavefront control tasks described above. M1 Assembly The preliminary plan calls for the following at Nasmyth: Since the Conceptual Design Review (CoDR) in August (a) multiple-field aO sensor for telescope alignment and 2003, several changes have been made to the design of the M1 figure; and (b) a correlation tracker (CTK) for disk and M1 Assembly. These include an increase in the number limb observations. The preliminary plan for the coudé lab of lateral support actuators to improve the optical figure includes (a) a multiple-field aO sensor for telescope alignment performance at high zenith angles and reduce the amount and M1 figure; (b) a correlation tracker for disk and limb of active force correction needed in these orientations, and observations; and (c) an AO wavefront sensor for correcting refinements to the M1 thermal control system to improve residual optical aberrations (not corrected by aO), as well as our ability to maintain the optical surface temperature self-induced and atmospheric seeing. within the desired range of 0º/-2ºC of ambient. Work still continues in the thermal control area; analysis and The AO and aO systems will provide Zernike terms to the design studies have been performed to consider reducing wavefront control system that in turn provides signals to the the thickness of the M1 substrate from 100 millimeters mount control system, mirror controllers, tip-tilt mirror, and to around 75 millimeters and utilizing conductive cold- the deformable (AO) mirror. The aO wavefront sensors will plate cooling on the rear of the M1 substrate in lieu of provide “static” wavefront measurements for multiple fields the baseline air-jet cooling. A reduction in M1 substrate of view averaged over the fast-changing seeing, which is thickness significantly reduces the thermal response time needed for alignment and M1 figure control. of the mirror, and discussions with blank fabricators and polishers indicates that there is no significant cost, schedule Software or performance impact in going to a 75-millimeter As described in detail in the September 2004 NOAO-NSO thickness. Newsletter, the principal design effort for the software group continues to be the ATST Common Services, a set An M1 Assembly workshop was held in early November of communications libraries and protocols used to send to provide a comprehensive review of changes that have messages between the ATST computer systems. occurred since CoDR, bringing the design to a point where it can be transferred to industry for final design Additional software design work has begun on several of the and construction. ATST telescope subsystems, including the mount, enclosure, acquisition, and wavefront control systems. Each of these Enclosure Thermal System packages has undergone a basic design requirements review, Work continues on the enclosure cooling system and a preliminary design for each has been developed. The development. M3 Engineering of Tucson is wrapping up the mount and enclosure control systems requirements are thermal system preliminary design work initiated early this typical of current nighttime telescopes, and their associated year. Credible schemes for cooling the carousel, shutters, designs do not vary from this standard. The wavefront control and lower enclosure have been developed that include system has been designed to meet the ATST requirements for equipment and operating cost estimates. M3 has also NOAO-NSO 80 Newsletter adaptive and active optics, guiding, and system alignment. developed an “active ventilation” system that uses propeller The acquisition system has been designed to meet our wide- fans to flush the interior of the enclosure when outside wind field viewing requirements. speeds are low. continued The observatory control system (OCS) is following a phased design that initially concentrates on the features needed first

December 2004 35 NOAO-NSO Newsletter 80 36 of the shutters. shutters. of the surfaces outer the to attached are that shields “plate-coil” through flowing water-glycol chilled by cooled are shutters The exterior. dome the from heat remove to of carousel walls the the within circulates units these from air Chilled floor of enclosure. the observing the underneath suspended near ambient via temperature) an units ofarray air-handing (maintained cooled is surface outer carousel enclosure The ATST Project Developments continued are the major source of observed observed in its the instrument new home. of source shows figure The changes. wavelength major the are pressure barometric of variations that shown haveTucson, from Internet the which are done by remote operation over laboratory emission sources. line Tests, various using stability for tested being is it instrument, that the into sunlight fibers feed optical the of installation Pending vibrations. is minimize to table optical instrument air-supported an in on The mounted drift spectrograph. high-resolution minimize the with observations to stabilized and humidity temperature is room The instrument. SOLIS the one beneath room floor a in installed was ISS The VSM data. the of users community from reports and positive operations, camera several FDP of resumption system, processing data and (SAN) Network Area Storage first the VSMto the from directly flow data (VSM), Vector and closed-loop (FDP) Spectromagnetograph Patrol Disk first the for Full used guider Peak, the of operation room Kitt on its in (ISS) environmentally-controlled Spectrometer Sunlight Integrated the of installation the were T NSO December 2004 December project. The main highlights highlights main The project. SOLIS the for was productive very 2004 of quarter third he defective controller card allowed first first allowed card controller a of defective replacement when quarter the of disk. end the at removed was 134-gigabyte restriction This a to observations day’s each record to requirement a by restricted was program observing The availability. personnel and permitted weather as by VSM Peak Kitt SOLIS on continued the with Observations instrument via optical fibers. Shown here with the ISS are (from left) Ed Stover Ed left) (from are (NSO/SOLIS) (NOAO). Mike Hawes and ISS the with here Shown fibers. optical via instrument the into light feed that lamps and electronics control contains left the at rack The in Peak room Towerthe SOLIS Kitt (KPST). in a now installed temperature-stabilized is (ISS) Spectrometer Sunlight Integrated double-pass length, focal two-meter The Jack Harvey & the SOLIS Team &the Harvey Jack SOLIS for the latest information. latest for the it periodically visit to interested anyone encourage and site Web our update to continue We proposal. construction have the We 2005. of review peer August March the from received input to late responded for scheduled review design systems the for preparing and areas risk identified mitigate to designs developing on focused be to continue efforts Our Milestones Upcoming a 0.5 percent level) were implemented. implemented. were level) percent 0.5 a at talk unstable cross electronic and (an level dark artifacts camera significant VSM most the for Corrections made. were pipeline reduction data the to be improvements Several hours. to than rather minutes of observations matter a in reduced enabled system. data This SAN our of operation continued NSO

SOLIS continued

A new algorithm for reducing Lockheed Martin uses VSM data when coronal model).” See also the science chromospheric magnetograms made the flow of similar data from the SOHO highlight by Harrison Jones earlier with the Ca II 854.2-nanometer line spacecraft is interrupted. At least two in this Newsletter, which includes a was developed and successfully tested. other heliospheric models regularly use full-disk 1083-nanometer image A way of dealing with sensor fringing VSM data. Neil Sheeley and Yi-Ming from the VSM. that affects He I 1083-nanometer Wang of the Naval Research Laboratory observations was developed. These have developed a widely-used model The FDP cameras were restored to algorithm developments will be applied that extrapolates the surface magnetic health, allowing resumption of work to to previous observations that have been field distribution outward from the Sun. complete FDP assembly. The FDP is used archived to tape. To do this efficiently, They used their model with VSM input as a test bed for the SOLIS limb guider. a small Linux cluster has been set up in data to map the locations at a height This guider is unique and is designed Tucson that duplicates the capabilities of 2.5 solar radii where the magnetic for use in both the VSM and FDP. It of the larger and faster data reduction field direction changes from outward employs linear CCD arrays placed in system on Kitt Peak. to inward. These maps were compared the same focal plane as the entrance slit with observations using the Large of the VSM spectrograph slit. While VSM calibration activities continued Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph this design avoided a complicated and a few special observations (LASCO), and Sheeley and Wang report folding of the VSM telescope focal plane were made at the request of outside that, “The fit between the simulated and has the advantage of guiding on users. In addition, regular synoptic and observed coronal meanderings exactly the same image being observed, measurements are being used more was about as perfect as one could ever the development of the guider has widely in the community. For example, imagine. This seems to be a spectacular proven to be difficult. Thus, achieving a solar and heliospheric weather triumph for the SOLIS [magnetic] closed-loop guiding with the FDP was a forecasting model developed by fields [measurements] (as well as the happy event.

Solar MHD: Theory and Observations— A High Spatial Resolution Perspective

The 2005 NSO Summer Workshop to Honor Bob Stein 18–21 July 2005, Sunspot, New Mexico

With theory being pushed by exciting new observational results, and great new facilities soon to appear on the scene, it seems like a ﬁne time to get together at Sac Peak to confront theory with those observations, and to use the occasion to celebrate Bob Stein’s contributions to the ﬁeld on the eve of his retirement.

The “Sac Peak Summer Workshop” hasn’t been held in the summer in recent years, and we thought that we NOAO-NSO 80 Newsletter would try to avoid academic year responsibilities and to involve the ﬂood of summer students, plus July is a great time to enjoy the pine forest at 3,000 meters!

For more information, see nso.edu/general/workshops/2005, or contact John Leibacher ([email protected]) or Han Uitenbroek ([email protected]).

December 2004 37 GLOBALOSCILLATIONNETWORKGROUP

EL TEIDE • UDAIPUR • LEARMONTH • MAUNA LOA • BIG BEAR • CERRO TOLOLO

GONG

John Leibacher & the GONG Team

he local helioseismology science pipeline, which we the February 2006 launch of the STEREO mission, which will highlighted with the first six solar rotations worth of flow observe coronal mass ejections in three dimensions. While these maps in the last issue of this Newsletter, has really started to improvements will bring the performance to the design goals and Tflow, with 20 rotations now and we anticipate that there should be enable studies of the large-scale structure of the solar atmosphere, 37 continuous solar rotations of science products available by the we are already getting exciting new results on significant flare time that you read this! (That’s 1,000 earth rotations!) In addition, related changes in the magnetic field (see figure 2). a second—lower-resolution, but more deeply penetrating—pipeline has come on line, with 25 solar rotations of data already analyzed (see figure 1). For the truly impatient, who can’t wait to see what is going to be rotating around the limb of the Sun in a week or two, we should shortly have near-real-time images of the farside of the Sun available on line. And, there is additional new helioseismic science coming, and well-calibrated magnetograms as well.

Figure 2. Six examples of the abrupt and persistent changes in the longitudinal magnetic field during X-class solar flares Figure 1. The evolution of meridional circulation at a depth observed by GONG. Magnetic field strength is plotted in of 28 Mm during a two-year period, January 2002–December 100 gauss increments along the vertical axis. Time is plotted 2003, derived from large-aperture ring diagram analysis in 30-minute increments along the horizontal axis. The of the GONG continuous data. The contours range from dashed vertical lines in each plot denote the start, the peak, approximately -40 m/s to 40 m/s (dashed lines correspond and the end of the flare according to the GOES soft X-ray to negative values). Countercells in the northern and flux measurements. southern hemisphere can be seen coinciding with maximum values of the B solar angle, the angle of the solar rotation 0 The production of near-real-time farside images of the Sun from axis toward Earth. GONG’s network is right around the corner. Currently, the engineering site at Tucson and the remote sites at Big Bear and The heart of the new magnetograms—the new polarization Tenerife are capturing and transferring the 200 × 200 images back modulator circuitry—has delivered a factor of ten decrease in the to Tucson, where farside maps are being produced and delivered uncertainty of the magnetogram zero point, which exceeds what on line. The remaining sites will be added over the next month we need to make real measurements of large-scale photospheric and the resultant farside maps will be available via our Web site; field changes that could affect the structure of the coronal. A team stay tuned! has been identified and a design review is forthcoming. The goal is to have the upgrade operational for the entire network well before continued

38 December 2004 GONG

GONG continued

The GONG Program welcomes a new staff member, Sites, Instruments, and Engineering Sushant Tripathy, who has joined us from the Udaipur Solar Operations events of the third quarter of 2004 centered on Observatory. Sushant is working on short-term temporal the preventive maintenance (PM) trip to El Teide (Tenerife, variations in the frequencies and changes in ring properties Spain) and the discoveries made during that visit. The trip across the disk, as part of the NASA SOHO/MDI guest took place during the second half of August and included investigator program. Sushant has been in Tucson as a the installation of earthquake protection hardware on GONG visitor on several occasions, and we are happy to have the optical table, a new UPS unit, and upgraded camera him and his family back on a full-time basis. power supplies, amplifier chassis, and filter/interferometer assembly. The Program also has another new face: Aleksandr (Sasha) Serebryanskiy. Sasha is from the Ulugh Beg Astronomical The work progressed well, but along the way a number of Institute in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, and he has joined us for anomalies were found. The first involved an issue with a year under a NATO/NSF postdoctoral fellowship. Sasha’s the filter-oven temperature, which had been noted at the primary field of study is local helioseismology. previous PM and was already on the to-do list for this visit. Measurements indicated the oven temperature had Annie Malanushenko, from the University of St. Petersburg, changed such that the filter transmission was starting to worked with GONG as a summer intern on the development be affected, however attempts to adjust the temperature and production of the farside images. Annie has since did not improve the filter transmission and in the end no returned to Russia to continue her course work, but continues change was effected. to collaborate with local staff and our partners at Northwest Research Associates (Charlie Lindsey and Doug Braun). A second anomaly was discovered after the installation of a new camera power supply: an unusual artifact was After the GONG 2004 Meeting at Yale University in July, introduced into dark images, which appeared to vary with GONG hosted several visitors who spent considerable time time at an unacceptable level. The modification to the power in Tucson working with our staff: Hannah Schunker from supply causing the problem was identified and undone. This Monash University, Olga Burtseva from Tashkent, and Ashok discovery is the source of some concern because similarly Ambastha from Udaipur, India, who left well equipped with modified power supplies have already been installed at GONG data. other sites. The good news is that significant work was done on site to make and test various modifications to determine On the departure side, Chirag Shroff, who has worked as which configuration minimized the artifacts and remained GONG’s real-time programmer, supporting the real-time stable over time. At present, an acceptable solution is being instrument control and data acquisition systems for GONG’s tested at Tucson, and we expect to be able to implement it network of instruments, left for the commercial world in San during the upcoming PM trips. Diego. We wish you the best! Another discovery of note was that the resistance measurements on the turret motors and cabling indicated that there is some breakdown in the insulation between the turret motor power and ground. Although the equipment continues to run, it is felt that this is an indication of a worsening condition, which might be further aggravated by the upcoming winter weather. In order to prevent a full-blown failure, which could result in damage to the motors and possibly other electronics, as well as untold instrument downtime, the turret will be replaced in short order. Fortunately, a refurbished and upgraded turret has NOAO-NSO 80 Newsletter been tested and is available for deployment. The plan is to revisit El Teide in November to replace the turret and filter oven and perform the required modifications to the camera power supplies. The calibration lens slide, which seems prone to emitting an uncomfortable squeal, will also be replaced. Chirag Shroff (left) with Ron Kroll. continued

December 2004 39 NOAO-NSO Newsletter 80 40 in progress. in related and issue, it in is a addressed being PM to visit Udaipur a be could which problem, tracking Wea have now problem. pitch the fixed that and board, not command faulty a would uncovered motor pitch weeks, several for turret continued which Troubleshooting, enable. the attempts operate, when to but made conditions, were monsoon days the seasonal of to most down due shut was instrument Udaipur The GONG continued hardware plan to address GONG’s expanded science and and science expanded GONG’s address to plan hardware computing long-term our of implementation the began We include. to science and information new of lot a and updates, revisions, many have still We pushing! for all to site—thanks efficient and attractive more a creating were GONGsters cajoled into the over switching to the teeth, new NSO Web pulling template, like felt have must what After ( Web site our at look new a sporting is GONG frequencies. of the delivery and collection data between will delay the and of reduction pipeline, further production allow the of part become will AIR and which be will acceptance, by finished the end image of December, automated verification After the way. cumulative under now of is module (AIR) the rejection Installation maintaining days. 139 is at backlog team reduction data The available. now are 2004) February 12 (ending 89 through 87 in gigabytes to 442 for 21 response GONG Mode months frequencies requests. distributed GONG the quarter, last the In rotations! of 37 consecutive for atotal maps flow have should we this read you 20 time the By way. under is of processing ring analysis and merged been has rotations 17 additional diagram ring completed 16rotations, of which Carrington are Data consecutive. for an now have We Analysis and Processing Data GONG December 2004 December gong.nso.edu ). ). “GONG the Tapestry” graces the walls of the newly remodeled of the the newly walls remodeled graces “GONG the Tapestry” artist Molly Dodd (left) and her proud mom. proud her and (left) Dodd Molly artist quilt by Center, Analysis framed and Management Data GONG help of much-appreciated outside funding support. funding outside of much-appreciated help has group processing the data with grown has group analysis and science the shrunk, the While windows). a with and area, even bullpen (some offices 16single-person into room, large conference a space, offices, office eight our transforming doubled reaching nearly have is We building DMAC completion. the of refurbishment The systems. new of the advantage take to module decomposition harmonic the spherical on rewriting begun Work has installed. being are and and arrived have server one workstations Linux new Five requirements. service EDUCATIONALOUTREACH PUBLIC AFFAIRS AND EDUCATIONAL OUTREACH

NOAO-Trained Teachers to Observe with Spitzer

Douglas Isbell & Stephen Pompea

NOAO has teamed with the Spitzer Science Center (SSC) to oﬀer a dozen graduates from NOAO’s advanced teacher professional development program a unique chance to make research-quality observations with NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope.

Known as the “NASA Spitzer Space Telescope Observing Program for Students and Teachers,” the project was germinated in a series of informal discussions that began in earnest at the January 2004 AAS meeting in Atlanta. Applications were solicited in September using the RBSE/TLRBSE list-serve, and twelve teachers from the NOAO Research Based Science Education (RBSE) and its successor, Teacher Leaders in Research Based Science Education (TLRBSE), were selected from 37 highly qualiﬁed applicants. Just a few weeks after their selection, the teachers got started with a kick-oﬀ workshop in Tucson from November 18–20.

“The Spitzer outreach team was interested because they know that Spitzer observing opportunities are a valuable resource, and they wanted to make the most out of the director’s discretionary time reserved for educational outreach,” says Stephen Pompea, an astronomer and the manager of science education at NOAO. “We saw a chance to oﬀer another exciting and challenging research experience to our RBSE/TLBSE community, including the chance to work closely with some of the best infrared astronomers in the world.”

Key staff members involved with the NOAO side of the program include Pompea, Steven Croft, Connie Walker from the NOAO educational outreach group; Don McCarthy of the University of Arizona; and Steve Howell, Jeremy Mould, and Steve Strom from the NOAO scientific staff, with more astronomers likely to be added. Doris Daou of the SSC outreach staff is managing the SSC side of the program, in coordination with SSC Director Thomas Soifer. SSC science staff will be involved as sponsors for each team of teachers. The SSC Observer Support Team will help the teachers in understanding the telescope and instrument capabilities, as well as in their observation planning stage.

“We wanted to bring the Spitzer Space Telescope mission to the classroom, and give this great opportunity to teachers and students from all over the country,” Soifer said. “This eﬀort is another example of how NASA and its projects help prepare the next generation of American scientists, and space scientists in particular.”

Further teacher training and science observations planning sessions will occur at the January 2005 AAS meeting in San Diego, where the teachers will attend a planning workshop given by the SSC Observer Support Team. They also will be given the opportunity to meet with Spitzer scientists to learn more about the telescope, its diﬀerent instruments, and possible science observation ideas. Once the observations are taken, the teachers will visit the SSC in Pasadena, California, to meet again with the Spitzer scientists and start working on the data. During this visit, they each will be accompanied by two students.

The RBSE/TLRBSE teachers selected for the Spitzer project are:

Jeﬀ Adkins Deer Valley High School Antioch, CA Howard Chun Cranston High School East Cranston, RI Lauren Chapple Traverse City East Junior High School Traverse City, MI Harlan Devore Cape Fear High School Fayetteville, NC Anthony Maranto Phillips Exeter Academy Exeter , NH Steve Rapp Linwood Holton Governor’s School Abingdon, VA Theresa Roelofsen Bassick High School Bridgeport, CT Babs Sepulveda Lincoln High School Stockton, CA Linda Stefaniak Allentown High School Allentown, NJ Timothy Spuck Oil City Area Sr. High School Oil City, PA Beth Thomas East Middle School Great Falls, MT Cynthia Weehler Luther Burbank High School San Antonio, TX

Watch the TLRBSE Web page (www.noao.edu/outreach/tlrbse) for more program news.

December 2004 41 NOAO-NSO Newsletter 80 42 t h Uiest o Aioa U) I faue 70 featured teachers 33 It including attendees), 66 (UA).(with registrants Arizona of University the at T visits this past year, with well over 150 active active 150 over well with year, partnerships. astronomer-teacher past this visits classroom ASTRO by 6,400 impacted directly were than students More classrooms. science into activities astronomy-oriented hands-on, bring to the methods best in ASTRO-Tucson astronomers Project by and trained teachers been have 360 than more date, To over my instruction.” into carrying [previously] were misunderstandings these and universe, greater and system solar the about and fun was I howhad astronomer many misconceptions I realized interesting. our with conjunction in intimidating presented were be they way the but moon) to the of (phases potential the had activities “The invaluable was workshop the at enriching. and every spent that felt I literally minute I training. worthwhile and put-together well a such in involved been never have I educators. for information presented and together put Tucson times many have and cetra, et in seminars, training workshop workshops, many to been an have I “As the 1990, since educator evaluation. from written one said back ﬂabbergasted!” came “I the on damper a group’s enthusiasm. put less-than-ideal not even could but conditions viewing evening, cloudy mostly of a harbinger a was Peak Kitt at sunset Levy. David spectacular by A wonders its and system solar the on talk inspirational an and Boulder, in Institute Science Space the of Zawaski Mike by led activity astronomy” “kinesthetic a Astronomy Team, Research Education Conceptual Physics and UA the of Bailey Janelle by techniques and styles learning group diﬀerent on talk a scale-model mall, UA student the on demonstration a system solar included workshop the of Highlights program. ASTRO national of the history the in largest largest- the perhaps and the workshop Tucson it ever making astronomer-partners, 37 and Public Affairs December 2004 December 2004, again located in a handy meeting room room meeting handy a in located again 2004, 17–18September on held was ASTRO-Tucson Project for workshop training annual ninth he ASTRO-Tucson Fall Workshop 2004 Largest Yet Douglas Isbell & Connie Walker &Connie Isbell Douglas

leads a workshop activity on lunar phases, inside the pier of the the of pier Telescope. 4-Meter Mayall the inside phases, lunar on activity workshop a leads ASTRO-Tucson Connie coordinator project Walker (second from right) the SARA telescope. SARA the to sun, next setting of the location and appearance the record and observe workshop ASTRO-Tucson Project 2004 fall the at Attendees Public Affairs

The 2005 REU Program at the Kitt Peak National Observatory

Kenneth Mighell

ach summer a group of and a field trip to New Mexico to visit the National Solar talented college students Observatory at Sacramento Peak and the Very Large Array come to Tucson to in Socorro. At the end of the summer, the students share their Eparticipate in astronomical results with the Tucson astronomical community through research at Kitt Peak National a series of oral presentations. In addition, as part of their Observatory (KPNO) under internship experience, all six of our 2004 REU participants the sponsorship of the will be presenting posters about their astronomical research National Science Foundation projects at the January 2005 AAS meeting in San Diego. (NSF) Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) We anticipate being able to support six REU positions during Program. The KPNO REU program provides an the summer of 2005. As required by the NSF, student partic- exceptional opportunity for undergraduates considering a ipants must be citizens or permanent residents of the United career in science to engage in substantive research activities States. The KPNO REU positions are full-time for 10 to 12 with scientists working in the forefront of contemporary weeks between June and September, with a preferred starting astrophysics. date of early June. The salary is $455 per week and additional funds are provided to cover travel to and from Tucson at the Each REU student is hired as a full-time research assistant beginning and end of the summer. to work with one or more KPNO staff members on specific aspects of major on-going research projects at NOAO. As Further information about the KPNO REU 2005 program, part of their research activities, these undergraduates gain including the online application form, can be found at www. observational experience with KPNO telescopes, and they noao.edu/kpno/reu. Completed applications (including offi- develop expertise in astronomical data reduction and cial transcripts, and two or three letters of recommendation) analysis. They also take part in a weekly lecture series must be submitted to KPNO no later than 21 January 2005. NOAO-NSO 80 Newsletter

December 2004 43 NOAO-NSO Newsletter 80 44 Public Affairs December 2004 December 1,500-year intervals. These convulsions created dust shells that each contain as much much as contain each that shells dust created convulsions These intervals. 1,500-year Observations suggest that the central star in the nebula ejected its mass in a series of pulses at sky. the onto projected seen bubble spherical a of edge the actually is “ring” Each star. central the around shells, or rings, concentric more or eleven of pattern eye bull’s the about details striking reveals image The release. press Heritage Hubble 2004 September 9 ofa subject the was Telescope Space Hubble the on Surveys for Camera Advanced the 6543)(NGC from Nebula Eye Cat’s the of image This Image credit: ESA, NASA, HEIC and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA). HEICHeritage ESA,NASA, Hubble the and credit: Image more much are exception. the than rather rule the be rings may indeed and thought, such previously than common that suggests study The Observatory. Inter-American Tololo of by Hugo ofCerro aSchwarz including study team a Thisrecent was as image taken part system. solar inour planets of the all as mass “Nebulosa Del Ojo De Gato”