Astronomical instrumentation

Research group

Research theme

Sub department

About

The 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey: spectral types and luminosity functions

MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 308:2 (1999) 459-472

Authors:

S Folkes, S Ronen, I Price, O Lahav, M Colless, S Maddox, K Deeley, K Glazebrook, J Bland-Hawthorn, R Cannon, S Cole, C Collins, W Couch, SP Driver, G Dalton, G Efstathiou, RS Ellis, CS Frenk, N Kaiser, I Lewis, S Lumsden, J Peacock, BA Peterson, W Sutherland, K Taylor

The galactic disk distribution of dust emission features in planetary nebulae

IAU SYMP (1999) 517-522

Authors:

S Casassus, PF Roche

Abstract:

The properties of the carbon and oxygen chemical balance in planetary nebulae (PNe) are analysed through mid infrared spectroscopy of warm dust emission features in a sample of 72 objects. The adoption of a statistical distance scale shows that the galactic disk distribution of warm dust types in PNe is rather homogeneous with height over the galactic plane, and that there is a trend for the proportion of PNe with O rich dust signatures to decrease with galactocentric radius. Models of the galactic distribution of PNe compositions require a minimum progenitor mass of 1.2 M., although the observational constraints suffer from the smallness of the sample. This initial investigation is however an incentive to pursue the use of warm dust emission in PNe to study their progenitor population in various galactic environments.

The peculiar motions of early-type galaxies in two distant regions -: V.: The Mg-蟽 relation, age and metallicity

MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 303:4 (1999) 813-825

Authors:

M Colless, D Burstein, RL Davies, RK McMahan, RP Saglia, G Wegner

The peculiar motions of early-type galaxies in two distant regions - II. The spectroscopic data

MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 305:2 (1999) 259-296

Authors:

C Wegner, M Colless, RP Saglia, RK McMahan, RL Davies, D Burstein, G Baggley

The GEMINI multiobject spectrographs

Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering 3355 (1998) 188-195

Authors:

R Murowinski, T Bond, D Crampton, T Davidge, JM Fletcher, B Leckie, C Morbey, S Roberts, L Saddlemyer, J Sebesta, J Stilburn, K Szeto, JR Allington-Smith, R Content, RL Davies, G Dodsworth, R Haynes, D Robinson, D Robertson, J Webster, D Lee, S Beard, C Dickson, D Kelly, R Bennet, M Ellis, P Hastings, P Williams

Abstract:

As the only two optical instruments appearing in its first fleet of instrumentation, the GEMINI MultiObject Spectrograph (GMOS) are indeed being developed as workhorse instruments. One GMOS will be located at each of the GEMINI telescopes to perform: a) exquisite direct imaging, b) 5.5 arcminute longslit spectroscopy, c) up to 600 object multislit spectroscopy, and d) about 2000 element integral field spectroscopy. The GMOSs are the only GEMINI instrumentation duplicated at both telescopes. The UK and Canadian GMOS team successfully completed their critical design review in February 1997. They are now well into the fabrication phase, and will soon approach integration of the first instrument. The first GMOS is scheduled to be delivered to Mauna Kea in the fall of'99 and the second to Cerro Pachon one year later. In this paper, we will look at how a few of the more interesting details of the final GMOS design help meet its demanding scientific requirements. These include its transmissive optical design and mask handling mechanisms. We will also discuss our plans for the mask handling process in GEMINI'S queue scheduled environment, from the taking of direct images through to the use of masks on the telescope. Finally, we present the status of fabrication and integration work to date.