No. 8, September 2004 T HE I SAAC N EWTON G ROUP OF T ELESCOPES Science Prospects with OASIS OASIS R-band images of a close binary (Vmag~ 9+10) in 0.5" natural seeing (“open loop”) and with NAOMI correcting the PSF (“closed loop”) to 0.2" FWHM. Spatially binned SAURON (left map) velocity field of NGC 4382 (Emsellem, E., et al., 2004, MNRAS, 352, 721) showing the outline of the OASIS field (right map) as obtained at CHFT (see article by Richard McDermid et al. on page 3). Message from the Director Dear Reader, In some aspects the last several months at the for the project will take on a literal meaning observatory, since the previous issue of this when some two years from now the projection of Newsletter, have been similar to previous years, green laser light will become a regular feature and in other aspects there has been major above the telescope. The scientific potential of change. To start with the latter, I refer to the having the full sky available to adaptive optics very welcome news that the long-sought exploitation rather than only about 1% as in the development of a laser beacon for adaptive optics case of 'classical' adaptive optics, is excellent. at the William Herschel Telescope has been Now it is our task to build a working system, and NEWSLETTER approved. Coincidentally, receiving 'green-light' then to scientifically exploit it. An introductory 1 No. 8, September 2004 THE ING NEWSLETTER (Continued from front cover) THE ISAAC NEWTON article on this exciting new project can object mode. There was PLANETPOL GROUP OF TELESCOPES be found on the following pages. I would from Hertfordshire, measuring polarisation very much welcome ideas and with remarkable acuracy in an attempt The Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes (ING) consists of the suggestions from the user community to detect planets around stars. And there 4.2m William Herschel Telescope towards this project. was S-CAM2, deploying the second- (WHT), the 2.5m Isaac Newton generation of super-conducting tunnel Telescope (INT) and the 1.0m Coming back to the first sentence of this junction detector technology for a range Jacobus Kapteyn Telescope (JKT), introduction, activities at the observatory of science programmes. So yes, work at and is located 2350 m above sea have been as intense as ever. The last ING has gone on as normal and hasn't level at the Roque de Los several months have once again seen a been boring for a single moment. Muchachos Observatory on the island of La Palma, Canary Islands, range of visiting instruments. Three of Spain. The WHT is the largest them were first-time visitors, each with Enjoy this issue of the Newsletter, and telescope of its kind in Western their own very significant technical and note that the editorial team would love Europe. astronomical challenges. There was to receive contributions from our readers! CIRPASS, the near IR spectrograph The construction, operation, and from Cambridge operating in multi- René G. M. Rutten development of the ING Telescopes is the result of a collaboration between the United Kingdom and The ING Board the Netherlands. The site is The ING Newsletter provided by Spain, and in return The ING Board oversees the operation, Spanish astronomers receive 20 per maintenance and development of the Isaac ISSN 1575–8958 (printed version) cent of the observing time on the Newton Group of Telescopes, and fosters ISSN 1575–9849 (electronic version) telescopes. The operation of the site collaboration between the international Legal License: TF–1959/99 is overseen by an International partners. It approves annual budgets and Scientific Committee, or Comité determines the arrangements for the Published in Spain by THE ISAAC allocation of observing time on the Científico Internacional (CCI). NEWTON GROUP OF TELESCOPES (ING). telescopes. ING Board members are: Apartado 321; E-38700 Santa Cruz de A further 75 per cent of the Prof J. Drew, Chairperson – ICL La Palma; Canary Islands; Spain. observing time is shared by the Prof T. van der Hulst, Vice Chairperson – Telephone: +34 922 425400 United Kingdom, the Netherlands University of Groningen Fax: +34 922 425401 and the Instituto de Astrofísica de Dr P. Crowther – University of Sheffield URL: http://www.ing.iac.es/ Canarias (IAC). The remaining 5 Dr G. Dalton – University of Oxford per cent is reserved for large Dr R. García López – IAC Editorial team: Javier Méndez, René scientific projects to promote Dr R. Stark – NWO Rutten and Danny Lennon. international collaboration between Dr C. Vincent – PPARC Consultant: Johan Knapen. institutions of the CCI member Dr S. Berry, Secretary – PPARC Designer: Javier Méndez. countries. Preprinting: Gráficas El Time. The ING Director’s Printing: Gráficas Sabater. The ING operates the telescopes on Advisory Group The ING Newsletter is primarily published behalf of the Particle Physics and on-line at http://www.ing.iac.es/PR/ Astronomy Research Council The Director’s Advisory Group (DAG) /newsletter/ in HTML and PDF (PPARC) of the United Kingdom, assists the observatory in defining the format. Notification of every new issue the Nederlandse Organisatie voor strategic direction for operation and is given by e-mail using the [INGNEWS] Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO) development of the telescopes. It also mailing list. More information on of the Netherlands and the IAC in provides an international perspective and [INGNEWS] can be found on page 23. Spain. The Roque de Los Muchachos act as an independent contact point for the Requests for one-off printed copies Observatory, which is the principal community to present its ideas. DAG can be emailed to Javier Méndez European Northern hemisphere members are: (jma@ ing.iac.es). observatory, is operated by the IAC. Dr M. McCaughrean, Chairperson – The ING Newsletter is published twice a Astrophysikalisches Institut Potsdam year in March and September. If you Dr M. Balcells – IAC wish to submit a contribution, please Dr P. A. James – Liverpool John Moores Univ. contact Javier Méndez ([email protected]). Dr N. Tanvir – Univ. of Hertfordshire Submission deadlines are 15 July and Dr E. Tolstoy – Univ. of Groningen 15 January. 2 THE ING NEWSLETTER No. 8, September 2004 SCIENCE Under the Microscope: Galaxy Centres with OASIS R. McDermid1, R. Bacon2, G. Adam2, C. Benn3, E. Emsellem2, M. Cappellari1, H. Kuntschner 4, M. Bureau5, Y. Copin6, R. L. Davies5, J. Falcon-Barroso1, P. Ferruit 2, D. Krajnovic 5, R. F. Peletier 7, K. Shapiro 8, P. T. de Zeeuw1 1: Leiden Observatory; 2: CRAL-Observatoire, Lyon; 3: ING; 4: STECF-ESO; 5: Dept. of Astrophysics, University of Oxford; 6: Institut de Physique Nucleaire de Lyon; 7: Kapteyn Institute; 8: UC Berkeley arly-type galaxies are thought The SAURON survey has a spatial degree of rotational support, isophotal to be among the oldest known sampling of 0.94″×0.94″ per lenslet, shape, and stellar populations. It is E stellar systems, and as such therefore often undersampling the therefore crucial to fill the gap between have experienced the full diversity of median seeing at La Palma (0.7″ the medium (few 100s of pc) to large- evolutionary mechanisms at work in FWHM). Towards the galaxy nucleus, scale (few kpc) structures probed with the universe. They are crucial however, there are often sharp, SAURON and the inner (<200pc) laboratories for understanding how localised features in the kinematics, components probed by HST. We have galaxies form and evolve from early such as decoupled cores or central thus begun a complementary study epochs until the present day. A key disks, as well as distinct stellar on a subset of the SAURON sample aspect of unlocking their fossil evidence populations and ionised-gas using the OASIS spectrograph, during is by studying the dynamics of stars distributions. Such features may only its former life mounted on the Canada- and gas, and characterising the stellar be partially resolved in the SAURON France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT), populations. To this end, the SAURON data, or perhaps not visible at all. Hawaii. This follow-up survey is being survey (de Zeeuw et al., 2000, Peletier continued with OASIS at the WHT, et al., 2001, de Zeeuw et al., 2002) has Additionally, at Hubble Space with the aim of completing all E/S0s undertaken a study of 72 representative Telescope (HST) resolution, elliptical of the SAURON survey by spring 2005. nearby early-type galaxies and spiral galaxies exhibit power-law central Here we give an overview of this bulges using the SAURON integral luminosity profiles. The slope of this follow-up survey, and future prospects field spectrograph at the WHT (Bacon power-law shows clear trends with for using OASIS in this field. et al., 2001). certain global properties, such as the The OASIS Spectrograph The OASIS integral-field spectrograph, mounted behind the NAOMI Adaptive Optics (AO) system (Benn et al., 2002, 2003) in the GRACE Nasmyth enclosure of the WHT (Talbot et al., 2003), was offered to the ING community in semester 2004B, and was awarded time during 15 nights for a variety of science projects. OASIS is based on the TIGER lens-array concept (Bacon et al., 1995) and is designed for high-spatial resolution observations, specifically with the assistance of AO. There is a selection of gratings and filters available, giving low and medium spectral resolution modes within the 0.43µm to 1µm wavelength range. Via the use of Figure 1. Spectral configurations of OASIS. Blue lines indicate the low-resolution (LR) different enlargers, there is also a modes (R∼1000); green lines indicate medium-resolution (MR) modes (1000< R<2000); range of spatial samplings which can and red lines indicate high-resolution (HR) modes (R>2000). The dichroics are required be adapted to suit the available PSF.