Major ground based observing in astructures for Astronomy ...€¦ · Major ground-based infrastructures: optical and infrared. M. R. Zapatero Osorio La Astronomía y los desarrollos

Major ground-based observing in"astructures for Astronomy and Astrophysics: optical and in"ared wavelengths

María Rosa Zapatero Osorio (CAB, INTA-CSIC)

La Astronomía y los desarrollos tecnológicos, Univ. Politécnica de Cartagena, Julio 2012

Thursday, July 26, 2012








With some exceptions (indicated), all pictures have been taken by the speaker or any of her collaborators during observing runs through the last 5 years.

Presentation focuses on the major facilities to which astronomers in Spanish-based institutions and research centers have (and will have) access.

Paranal ObservatoryLa Silla Observatory

Calar Alto ObservatoryRoque de los Muchachos ObservatoryEuropean Extremely Large Telescope

Daybreak on Roque de los Muchachos, La Palma


La Astronomía y los desarrollos tecnológicos, Univ. Politécnica de Cartagena, Julio 2012Major ground-based infrastructures: optical and infrared. M. R. Zapatero Osorio

Geographical location

Roque de los Muchachos

Calar Alto

Paranal

La Silla

Excellent sky coverage of northern and southern astronomical objects.


Cerro Paranal (Chile), 2635 m, operated by European Southern Observatory (ESO), inauguration 1996.Four 8.2-m telescopes (UTs), four 1.8-m auxiliary telescopes (ATs), one 4-m imaging telescope (VISTA)


Paranal Observatory: Very Large Telescope (VLT)

ESO



Paranal Observatory

Atacama Desert is commonly known as the driest place in the world, especially at about 100 km south of Antofagasta city (Chile). Average rainfall: 1 mm/yr. Atacama soil has been compared to that of Mars.The desert has rich deposits of copper and the world’s largest natural supply of sodium nitrate.

Sodium nitrate may be used as a constituent of fertilizers, pyrotechnics and smoke bombs, glass and pottery enamels, as a food preservative and a solid rocket propellant. It has been mined extensively for these purposes.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fertilizer

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fertilizer

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrotechnics

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrotechnics

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoke_bomb

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoke_bomb

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pottery

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pottery

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitreous_enamel

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitreous_enamel

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_preservative

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_preservative

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_propellant

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_propellant


Paranal Observatory

UT1Antú (Sun)

UT2Kueyén (Moon)

UT3Melipal

(South Cross)

UT4Yepún (Venus)

Monolithic mirrors.



Paranal ObservatoryAuxiliary Units (ATs) are dedicated to interferometry. The transporter section runs on

tracks, so the ATs can be moved to 30 different observing locations.



Paranal ObservatoryAuxiliary Units (ATs) are dedicated to interferometry. The transporter section runs on

tracks, so the ATs can be moved to 30 different observing locations.

ESO



Paranal Observatory: VLT

Each UT provides on Cassegrain and two Nasmyth focus stations for instruments. One Nasmyth focus is available for visitor instruments. In addition, each UT is equipped with a Coudé focus station from

which the incoming light can be combined in the interferometric focus.Today there are 11 instruments operating at optical and/or infrared wavelengths for science

observations.

ESO


KMOS on UT1: NIR IFU spectrograph (R=1800-4200), star and galaxy formation at both high and low redshift. Commissioning in November 2012. PI: Ray Sharples (Durham Univ., UK).

MUSE: adaptive optics IFU spectrograph operating at visible wavelength range. PI: R. Bacon (Lyon, France). Star and galaxy formation, solar system. Expected first light: 2012.

SPHERE: PI J.-L. Beuzit (France). Discovery and study of new extrasolar giant planets orbiting nearby stars by direct imaging of their circumstellar environment. The challenge consists in the very large contrast between the host star and the planet, larger than 12.5 magnitudes of 105 in flux ratio) at very small angular separations. Observing modes: imaging, dual-band imaging, polarimetric imaging, long-slit spectroscopy.


Paranal Observatory: VLTPlans for future state-of-the-art instrumentation.

KMOS consortium


X-SHOOTER is the first of the second generation instruments at VLT. It is mounted on the Cassegrain focus of UT2, and is one of the most demanded instruments in the astronomical community.

X-SHOOTER provides a large wavelength spectroscopic coverage (0.3-2.5 µm) in one single shot.

It was built by a Consortium of Institutes in Denmark, France, Italy and The Netherlands together with ESO.


Paranal Observatory: X-Shooter at VLT

ESO

ESO



Paranal Observatory: ESPRESSO

ESPRESSO consortium

ESPRESSO (Echelle SPectrograph for Rocky Exoplanets and Stable Spectroscopic Observations) will deliver radial velocities with a precision of 10 cm/s. For this, a laser frequency comb is envisaged for wavelength calibration across the visible wavelengths. The first operational laser comb was recently tested on the 3.6-m telescope (La Silla) using HARPS.

1.5 m

1.51 m 4.1 m



Paranal Observatory: residence for astronomers and ESO staff

It is built half into the mountain with the concrete colored to blend into the landscape. Located 200 m below the VLT and at a distance of 3 km.



Paranal Observatory: residence for astronomers and ESO staff

Contrasting with the natural landscape, the interior of the “residencia” contains two gardens and a swimming pool. They help maintain humidity inside the building.


La Silla, also in Atacama desert (Chile), 2400 m, partly operated by (ESO), inauguration 1969.Among many telescopes, there are the ESO 3.6 m and NTT.


La Silla Observatory


La Silla, also in Atacama desert (Chile), 2400 m, partly operated by (ESO), inauguration 1969.Among many telescopes, there are the ESO 3.6 m and NTT.




HARPS, the High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher, operates on the 3.6 m teles. of La Silla Observatory. It is a fiber-fed echelle spectrograph that has a long record of planet discoveries (Swiss team).



Geneva Univ. Geneva Univ.

3.6-m telescope



Calar Alto Observatory

Sierra de los Filabres (Almería, Spain), 2168 m, operated jointly by the Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie (MPIA) in Heidelberg, Germany, and the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (CSIC) in

Granada/Spain. Three telescopes with apertures of 1.23m, 2.2m and 3.5m. A 1.5 m-telescope is operated under the control of the Observatory of Madrid. Inaugurated in 1975.



Calar Alto Observatory

CARMENES (Calar Alto high-Resolution search for M dwarfs with Exoearths with Near-infrared and optical Échelle Spectrographs), is a next-generation instrument to be built for the 3.5 m telescope by a consortium of German and Spanish institutions. Two separated spectrographs: 0.5 to 1.0 µm and 1.0 to 1.7 µm, spectral resolutions R = 82,000. The spectrographs will be fed by fibres from the Cassegrain focus of the telescope, housed in a temperature-stabilised environment in vacuum tanks, calibrated using simultaneous emission lamps, and optimised for exoearth searches around M dwarfs.

3.5 m Calar Alto



Roque de los Muchachos Observatory

La Palma Island (Spain), 2396 m, operated by European partners, inauguration 1985.The two largest optical and infrared facilities are the 10.4-m Gran Telescopio de Canarias (GTC) and

the 4.2-m William Herschel Telescope (WHT).




TNG GTC

New state-of-the-art instrumentation is arriving to these two telescopes.HARPS-North (planet hunter) is starting operations on the Telescope Nazionale Galileo (TNG).

OSIRIS and Canaricam are available on the GTC.


Imaging and spectroscopic instrumentation: ACAM, LIRIS, Naomi/Ingrid, ISIS, Autofib2/WYFFOS.


Roque de los Muchachos Observatory: WHT



Roque de los Muchachos Observatory: GTC

Inaugurated in 2009. Partners: Spain, IA-UAM and INAOE of Mexico, and University of Florida (USA).


http://www.gtc.iac.es/pages/multimedia/webcams-en-el-orm.php#http://www.gtc.iac.es/pages/multimedia/panoramictour.php



Sky over GTC (webcam).


http://www.gtc.iac.es/pages/multimedia/webcams-en-el-orm.php#

http://www.gtc.iac.es/pages/multimedia/webcams-en-el-orm.php#

http://www.gtc.iac.es/pages/multimedia/panoramictour.php

http://www.gtc.iac.es/pages/multimedia/panoramictour.php



Segmented mirror telescope: 36 hexagonal pieces.




Acquisition and guiding camera


OSIRIS is an imager and spectrograph for the optical wavelength range, located in the Nasmyth-B focus of GTC. It covers the wavelength range from 0.365 to 1.05 µm with a field of view of 7.8 x 7.8 arcmin2 (unvignetted, imaging), and 8 x 5.2 arcmin2 (spectroscopy).



IAC




CanariCam is a mid-infrared (7.5-25 µm) imager with spectroscopic, coronographic, and polarimetric capabilities, which is mounted at one of the Nasmyth foci of the GTC. The cryostat is cooled down to 28 K (-265º C) using a He cryo-cooler system. Temperature control of the detector ensures that its optimum operating temperature (9 K, -264 K) is stable in the mK range.

Univ. Florida


The Infrared Multi-Object Spectrograph (EMIR) is taking shape (construction phase). This instrument will operate in the wavelength interval 0.9-2.5 µm.

EMIR cryostat put together for the first time (November 2011)



IAC




Minutes before sunrise. Teide volcano (Tenerife island) silhouette is clearly seen. Picture taken from the Nordic Optical Telescope.


Since 2005 ESO has been working together with its user community of European astronomers to define the new giant telescope needed by the middles of the next decade. Mirror size: 39.3 m, the world’s biggest eye on the sky.

Science goals: high redshift galaxies, star formation, exoplanets and protoplanetary systems.


European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT)

Primary mirror: >800 segments of 1.4 m wide, but only 50 mm thick.

The optical design calls for an immense secondary mirror 4.2 m in diameter.

Current design of the dome. ESO


E-ELT two first-light instruments have been identified:

MICADO, a diffraction-limited near-infrared imager, a

HARMONI, a single-field near-infrared wide-band integral field spectrograph operating at visible and near-infrared wavelengths.

It will go to Cerro Armazones (Atacama desert, Chile), 3064 m, 350 cloudless nights a year.






ESO


Thank you very much!¡Muchas gracias!



Documents

Major ground based observing in astructures for Astronomy ...€¦ · Major ground-based infrastructures: optical and infrared. M. R. Zapatero Osorio La Astronomía y los desarrollos