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Newsletter63 September2000 Operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA), Inc. under cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation NationalOpticalAstronomyObservatoryNOAO 3 InThisIssue OntheCover ExpandingtheRangeofResolution ObservingProposalsDue andFieldofView 10 The September issue details instrument capabili- ties at facilities available through NOAO. With Gemini North coming on-line, US Procedures for application and instrument capa- astronomers have an expanded range of bility tables are in Observational Programs [Page 19]. imaging capability available through NOAO. Description of instrument upgrades and status can 13 be found in CTIO Operations [Page 23], KPNO Articles in this issue describe new capabilities Operations [Page 30], and US Gemini Program. with three instruments in different areas of the [Page 38] resolution–field of view–wavelength domain. Counter-clockwise from upper right: • 0.13” resolution with the Hokupa’a/ 23 0.13”ResolutioninM32 QUIRC adaptive optics camera at Gemini North. [Page 3] Astronomers used the Hokupa’a/QUIRC adaptive • 7.3’-square field with the four-color IR optics camera on Gemini North to obtain superbly camera SQIID at Kitt Peak. [Page 36] sharp near-IR images of the elliptical galaxy M32. • 0.8 × 1 degree field with the optical 30 The central 19”, resolved at 0.13” FWHM, now has the appearance of a star cluster. [Page 3] CCD camera Mosaic at Kitt Peak. [Page 33] ImplementingtheDecadalSurvey 38 NOAO is sponsoring community workshops to TheNOAO–NSONewsletterispublished quarterlybytheNationalOpticalAstronomy determine how best to implement the “observing Observatory,P.O.Box26732,Tucson,AZ85726. system” paradigm recommended by the AASC Decadal Survey and to define requirements for BruceBohannan,Editor 57 GSMT and LSST, two major facilities recom- mended by the AASC. [Page 11] SectionEditors BruceBohannan KPNO ToddBoroson ObservationalPrograms SuzanneJacoby EducationalOutreach TodR.Lauer Highlights JohnLeibacher NSO&GONG NationalSolarObservatory KnutOlsen CTIO PriscillaPiano NSO&GONG N SO CatyPilachowski USGP 43 Progress on the Advanced Technology Solar Tele- BobSchommer USGP scope accelerates. SOLIS moves towards opera- tional status in 2001. [Page 46] ProductionStaff SallyAdamsPeterMarenfeld DianeBrouilletteJamesRees 54 Peak fitting up through month 46 suggests that MarkHannaPhilSharpley the temporally evolving component of the sound speed is purely a surface phenomenon. GONG+ cameras are on schedule for deployment by year’s end. [Page 54] NOAONewsletter63 September2000 2 NOAO Highlights M32—AGalaxyBecomesaStarCluster Tod R. Lauer im Davidge (National Research Council of the evolved stellar population of M32. The nucleus TCanada), François Rigaut (Gemini), Wolfgang of M32 itself is extremely dense, exceeding densities of 107 M /pc3 in stars alone. Brandner, and Dan Potter (Hawaii) used the ¤ Hokupa’a/QUIRC adaptive optics camera on the Gemini North 8-m reflector to obtain superbly HST in the I-band has ~30% better resolution than sharp near-IR images of the center of the Local the K-band Hokupa’a image. The Hokupa’a image, Group galaxy M32. The images, obtained in the H however, has over two times finer sampling; it has and K bands, have 0.13˝ FWHM resolution, which thus been rotated and binned to match the HST exceeds the resolving power of the Hubble Space image in the figure below. The Hokupa’a data Telescope at these wavelengths. comprises sixteen 30s exposures, while the HST data is the sum of four 26s WFPC2 exposures. The region The most luminous stars appear to start to be shown for both images is a 19.2 × 19.2˝ square field resolved outside the central 2˝ of the nucleus. offset slightly from the M32 nucleus. Both have been Already in the HST I-band image, the granular deconvolved and are displayed with a logarithmic texture shows that surface brightness fluctuations stretch spanning a factor of one thousand in surface (point-to-point random variation in the number of brightness. The M32 data were obtained in engi- stars contributing to any pixel) are the dominant neering time in support of early observations being noise source. Comparison of the Hokupa’a H and conducted with Gemini, and will be released publicly K images is likely to reveal new information about this month. Thestarcluster-likeappearanceofthecoreofM32intheHokupa’aK-bandimage(leftabove)illustrates thepotentialthatthisinstrumentoffersforcrowded-fieldphotometry.ComparisonwithanHSTI-band (F814W)image(right)showstheincreasingcontributionintheK-bandoflightfromgiantstars,causingthe dramaticchangeinappearanceofthegalaxyasonemovesfurtheroutintothenear-IR. NOAONewsletter63 September2000 3 NOAO Highlights GoingfortheFlow Based on a Solicited Contribution from Mike Hudson We are terribly saddened by the tragic accident that claimed the life of Jeff Willick on June 18. Jeff had recently used NOAO facilities as part of the “Shellflow” collaboration, and was the leader of the survey described below. His passion for illuminating the dark corners of the Universe will be sorely missed. Jeff Willick (Stanford) began a large survey program ground, particularly the spatial scale over which this using NOAO facilities to understand the mass motion is generated. A number of recent studies distribution of the Universe on scales of hundreds of seem to indicate that large-scale bulk flows of galaxies megaparsecs. The approach is to use the peculiar are largely generated within 6000 km s-1 of us (using velocities of a full-sky sample of galaxy clusters—that recession velocity as a proxy for distance), and are is, their detectable deviations from an ideal uniform not seen on larger scales. At the same time, a few Hubble expansion—as a gravitational signature of the other programs suggest that coherent bulk flows true underlying mass distribution of the Universe. continue to exist at far larger scales. This conflict is Work of this sort was the central theme of Jeff’s difficult to resolve with current data; because the research. The “shellflow” survey that Jeff started surveys have different sky coverage and depths, there continues through the team he established, which is insufficient overlap of common clusters, and there includes Mike Hudson (Waterloo, present PI); Roger may be uncorrected systematic effects arising from Davies, John Lucey, Stephen Quinney, Steve Moore the wide range of instrumentation used by different (Durham); David Schade (CADC/HIA); Russell groups. Smith (Católica de Chile); Nick Suntzeff (NOAO); and Gary Wegner (Dartmouth). The shellflow survey, which uses observations from both KPNO and CTIO, seeks to measure bulk flows A basic problem of large-scale structure has been through a deep, homogeneous, all-sky spectroscopic understanding the origin of our own drift of 600 -1 km s with respect to the cosmic microwave back- continued Thedistributionofshellflowsurvey clustersontheskyinequatorialcoor- dinates.TheGalacticPlane(|b|<15) isindicatedbythedashedline.Clusters inthesurveyareindicatedbydots. Clusterswithexistingdata(for ≥10 galaxies)areindicatedbyopencircles (fundamentalplanedata)ortriangles (Tully-Fisherdata). NOAONewsletter63 September2000 4 NOAO Highlights and photometric study of 100 X-ray selected clusters thus minimizing a potentially important source of within 200 h-1 Mpc (FP200). The fundamental plane systematic errors. distance indicator will be used to make an independent determination of the large-scale flow All calibrated photometric and spectroscopic data will of clusters of galaxies with respect to the cosmic be available via the WWW. In addition to peculiar microwave background frame. With 4,000 early-type velocity applications, the resulting photometric and galaxies (a factor of four increase over current spectroscopic database will be a unique and valuable fundamental plane surveys), the expected combined resource to the community for studies of galaxy random and systematic errors should be < 120 morphology, stellar populations, and galaxy evolution km s-1 for each component of the bulk flow vector. in the cluster environment. More information is The long-term time allocation of the NOAO survey available at http://astro.uwaterloo.ca/~mjhudson/fp200. program allows use of the same instrumental configuration for all northern and southern runs, NSOAdaptiveOpticsOperatingSuccessfullyatthe DunnSolarTelescopeandtheGermanVTT Michael Sigwarth, Thomas Rimmele, Kit Richards, Richard Radick, Klaus Hartkorn, Kai Langhans, and Wolfgang Schmidt ignificant progress continues to be made with the very small magnetic field concentrations in the Sthe NSO low-order adaptive optics (AO) solar photosphere. By using the NSO Universal system; there have been several successful scientific Birefringent Filter and a fast Speckle camera system observing runs at the Dunn Solar Telescope (DST) from KIS, Hartkorn and Langhans were able to since the first “closed-loop” run in September observe structures at the diffraction limit of the DST 1998 (see NOAO Newsletter, No. 56). Examples of in the blue spectral range (G-Band 430 nm) of 0.13", observing runs in 1999 and early 2000 can be found corresponding to a physical scale of 100 km. at http://www.noao.edu/noao/staff/keller/aopds/ index.html and http://www.sunspot.noao.edu/ Each data set of the spectrometer observations consists PPAGES/sigwarth/results/2daospec.html. of 18 filtergrams and continuum images, each with 1.5 sec integration time (30 sec to complete a line Klaus Hartkorn and Kai Langhans of the scan). The AO system allowed