AURA/NOAO ANNUAL PROJECT REPORT FY 2004 Submitted to the National Science Foundation via FastLane November 1, 2004 Three-color composite image of spiral galaxy NGC4402 taken at the WIYN 3.5-meter telescope on Kitt Peak using the WIYN Tip-Tilt module, an adaptive optics device that uses a movable mirror to provide first-order compensation for the jittery motion of the incoming image caused by variable atmospheric conditions and telescope vibrations. NGC4402 is interacting with the intergalactic medium of the Virgo Cluster. Photo Courtesy: H. Crowl (Yale University) and WIYN/NOAO/AURA/NSF NATIONAL OPTICAL ASTRONOMY OBSERVATORY TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY .........................................................................................................iii 1 SCIENTIFIC ACTIVITIES AND FINDINGS....................................................................1 1.1 NOAO Gemini Science Center, 1 A Luminous Lyman-α Emitting Galaxy at Redshift z=6.535, 1 Accretion Signatures in Massive Star Formation, 1 1.2 Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO), 3 The Halo of Our Galaxy: Structured, Not Smooth, 3 Science with ISPI at the Blanco, 3 1.3 Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO), 4 2 THE NATIONAL GROUND-BASED O/IR OBSERVING SYSTEM ..............................6 2.1 The Gemini Telescopes, 6 Support of U.S. Gemini Users and Proposers, 6 Providing U.S. Scientific Input to Gemini, 7 U.S. Gemini Instrumentation Program, 7 2.2 CTIO Telescopes, 8 Blanco 4-Meter Telescope, 8 SOAR 4-m Telescope, 9 Blanco Instrumentation, 9 SOAR Instrumentation, 10 SMARTS Consortium and Other Small Telescopes, 10 2.3 KPNO Telescopes, 11 Performance Upgrades at WIYN, 11 New Instrument and Upgrades, 12 New Major Tenant for KPNO, 12 Site Protection, 13 2.4 Enhanced Community Access to the Independent Observatories, 13 MMT Observatory and the Hobby-Eberly Telescope, 13 W. M. Keck Observatory and the Magellan Telescopes, 14 2.5 Joint NOAO-NASA Time Allocation, 14 2.6 NOAO Survey Programs, 14 2.7 NOAO Data Products Program, 15 3 MAJOR INSTRUMENTATION PROGRAM ....................................................................16 3.1 Gemini Instruments, 16 Gemini Near-InfraRed Spectrograph (GNIRS), 16 Gemini Next-Generation Instrument Design and Feasibility Studies, 16 3.2 NOAO Instruments, 17 NOAO Extremely Wide-Field IR Imager (NEWFIRM), 17 3.3 SOAR Adaptive Optics Module (SAM), 17 SOAR Optical Imager, 18 Monsoon Detector Controller, 18 i NOAO ANNUAL PROJECT REPORT FY 2004 4 IMPLEMENTING THE DECADAL SURVEY .................................................................19 4.1 Site Characterization for New, Large Facilities, 19 4.2 AURA New Initiatives Office, 20 4.3 Large-aperture Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), 24 4.4 National Virtual Observatory (NVO), 26 4.5 Telescope System Instrumentation Program (TSIP), 26 4.6 Adaptive Optics Development Program (AODP), 27 5 PUBLIC AFFAIRS AND EDUCATION OUTREACH .....................................................29 5.1 Educational Outreach (EO), 29 Teacher Leaders in Research-Based Science Education, 29 Project ASTRO-Tucson, 30 Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU), 31 Astronomy Education Review (AER), 31 Other Educational Outreach Highlights, 32 5.2 Public Outreach, 33 Kitt Peak Visitor Center, 33 Other Public Outreach, 34 Coordination with the External Community, 34 5.3 Media and Public Information, 34 Press Releases and Image Releases, 34 Special Information Products, 36 Web-based Outreach, 36 Image and information Requests, 37 5.4 Education and Public Outreach at NOAO South .............................................................. 37 REU Site Program at CTIO, 37 Support of Local K-12 Science Education, 37 ASTRO in Chile, 38 Video Lectures to U.S. Teachers, 38 Observatory Tours, 38 Ongoing Efforts to Control Light Pollution, 38 6 COMPUTER INFRASTRUCTURE AND NETWORK SERVICES .................................40 6.1 Tucson, 40 6.2 Kitt Peak, 40 6.3 NOAO South – La Serena, 41 6.4 NOAO South – Cerro Tololo and Cerro Pachón (SOAR and Gemini Support), 43 APPENDICES A Key Management and Scientific Personnel Changes B New Organizational Partners in FY04 C NOAO Scientific Staff D Scientific Staff Publications FY04 E Observing Programs and Investigators F Publications Based on Data from NOAO Telescopes G Activities Encouraging Diversity within NOAO H Site Safety Report: 4th Quarter 2004: Tucson and Kitt Peak ii EXECUTIVE SUMMARY FY 2004 was the year in which the Gemini Observatory became the main attraction for astronomers proposing to observe at NOAO facilities. In semester 2004A, for the first time, observing proposals to the NOAO Gemini Science Center (131) exceeded those for Kitt Peak National Observatory, and for semester 2005A, NOAO received more proposals for Gemini (217) than KPNO and Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory combined. This marks yet another milestone in the progress of Gemini from NOAO concept, through construction and instrumentation, to productive science. NGSC has begun its re-organization to cater to our new users, so that Gemini will progress to the next stages of discovery, publication, and leadership in the international and national 8-meter telescope arena. Deputy Director Verne Smith and Assistant Astronomer Tom Matheson, joined the NGSC scientific staff in 2004. GNIRS, the facility infrared spectrograph built by NOAO, was commissioned in 2004. U.S. science verification programs involved: candidate young brown dwarfs; SDSS Type II quasar candidates; the reddest quasars; dust and ice chemistry in quiescent molecular clouds; η Carinae; T Tauri binaries; VV and S CrA and their planet-forming disks; ice and hydrocarbons in NGC 4418; the central black hole of Centaurus A; molecular emission from accretion disks; LMC obscured stars; excitation conditions in Herbig-Haro objects; and Pre Main Sequence Binaries. The availability of an integral field unit on GNIRS in 2005 will increase the instrument’s versatility still further. Design studies for the second generation of Gemini instruments commenced in 2004. The SOAR 4.2-meter telescope was dedicated in April 2004. SOAR is the Southern Observatory for Astrophysical Research, and a collaboration of NOAO with University of North Carolina, Michigan State University, and LNA Brazil. Like WIYN, SOAR is a successful public- private partnership, and both WIYN and SOAR serve as models for the public-private partnership envisioned for the Giant Segmented Mirror Telescope (GSMT). The Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) project established its headquarters in Pasadena, California in 2004. The partners for the design and development phase are Caltech, the University of California, ACURA, and AURA. (Similar in concept to AURA, ACURA is the Association of Canadian Universities for Research in Astronomy.) Also in 2004, AURA submitted proposals to the NSF for design and development work for both GSMT (including an alternate design) and LSST, the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope. Such is the confluence on the NSF of proposals for implementing projects from the 2001–2010 decadal survey, that the astronomy division has requested assistance from NOAO in road-mapping future OIR facilities. This is to be done in 2004/5 by a Long Range Planning Committee chaired by past-President of the AAS, Caty Pilachowski. NOAO public affairs and educational outreach (PAEO) accomplishments reached new heights in 2004 with facility-like oversubscription of the exemplary Teacher Leaders in Research Based Science Education (TLRBSE) program. Also, 12 TLRBSE graduates will receive observing time jointly from Kitt Peak and the Spitzer Science Center. New educational materials were a further popular highlight of our nationally prominent PAEO program in the year past. iii 1 SCIENTIFIC ACTIVITIES AND FINDINGS 1.1 NOAO GEMINI SCIENCE CENTER A Luminous Lyman-α Emitting Galaxy at Redshift z=6.535 A team of U.S. astronomers led by J. Rhoads (STSci) reported the discovery of extremely high rates of star formation in one of the most distant known galaxies in the Universe (2004, ApJ, 611, 59). LALA J142442.24+353400.2 lies at a redshift of 6.535, which puts it 12.8 billion light-years away. Thus, we are seeing this galaxy as it looked about 850 million years after the Big Bang. This faint, distant galaxy has a star formation rate of more than 11 solar masses per year, a very high rate among galaxies at this distance and epoch in the early Universe. Rhoads and collaborators traced the galaxy’s starburst activity by measuring emission in the Lyman-α emission line, using deep multi-object spectroscopy conducted at Gemini Observatory with GMOS-North (see Figure 1). The galaxy was first identified in the Large Area Lyman Alpha (“LALA”) survey, a deep imaging survey conducted at the Kitt Peak National Observatory using the CCD Mosaic Imager at the 4-m Mayall Telescope. LALA is one of the largest surveys to search for very distant galaxies via their Lyman-α emission lines, the signpost of hydrogen that is ionized by hot, young stars in these galaxies. Such emission-line galaxies are identified by comparing their images in narrow bandpass filters from the LALA survey to broad-band filter images from both LALA and the NOAO Deep Wide-Field Survey. The properties of the Lyman-α line can be used to study the reionization of the Universe because neutral intergalactic hydrogen should FIGURE 1 Spectrum of LALA J142442.24+353400.2, scatter Lyman-α light. The authors explore obtained with the GMOS spectrograph on Gemini North. whether unusual effects in the gas within or The solid histogram shows