Hintze Centre for Astrophysical Surveys

Abstract:

A few binary systems display High Energy (100 MeV-100 GeV) and/or Very High Energy (≳ 100 GeV) gamma-ray emission. These systems also display non-thermal radio emission+that can be resolved with long-baseline radio interferometers, revealing the presence of outflows. It is expected that at very low frequencies the synchrotron radio emission covers larger angular scales than has been reported up to now. Here we present preliminary results of the first deep radio observations of the gamma-ray binary LS I +61 303 with LOFAR, which is sensitive to extended structures on arcsecond to arcminute scales. © 2012 American Institute of Physics.

Abstract:

KMOS is a multi-object near-infrared integral field spectrograph being built by a consortium of UK and German institutes. We report on the final integration and test phases of KMOS, and its performance verification, prior to commissioning on the ESO VLT later this year. © 2012 SPIE.

Abstract:

HARMONI is a visible and near-IR integral field spectrograph, providing the E-ELT's spectroscopic capability at first light. It obtains simultaneous spectra of 32000 spaxels, at a range of resolving powers from R∼4000 to R∼20000, covering the wavelength range from 0.47 to 2.45 ìm. The 256 ? 128 spaxel field of view has four different plate scales, with the coarsest scale (40 mas) providing a 5? ? 10? FoV, while the finest scale is a factor of 10 finer (4mas). We describe the opto-mechanical design of HARMONI, prior to the start of preliminary design, including the main subsystems - namely the image de-rotator, the scale-changing optics, the splitting and slicing optics, and the spectrographs. We also present the secondary guiding system, the pupil imaging optics, the field and pupil stops, the natural guide star wavefront sensor, and the calibration unit. © 2012 SPIE.