Cassiopeia Newsletter – Winter solstice 2014
- reneehlozek
- Dec 18, 2014
- 25 min read
Updated: Aug 22, 2025
Date: December 21, 2014
In this Issue:
President’s report
Celebrating John Galt: workshop and telescope dedication
ALMA Update
Arctic Update
Astrosat News
CSA Update
Gemini News
Herschel-HIFI News
NRC Herzberg News
A Final Dispatch from the JCMT
Thèse: Modèle d’évolution de galaxies pour simulations cosmologiques à grande échelle (résumé de thèse doctorale)
Editor: Magdalen Normandeau & Joanne Rosvick
Cassiopeia is CASCA’s quarterly Newsletter, published on or near the solstices and equinoxes (March 21, June 21, September 21 and December 21).
To submit a contribution please email cassiopeia.editors@gmail.com. All submissions must be received by the due date (usually 2 weeks in advance of publication) to be published in the next edition. I accept plain text and Word documents. Note that the formatting of your document will not be preserved. Please include any images as attachments in your email, not embedded in the text. Please include URLs in parentheses next to the word or phrase that you wish to act as link anchors.
President’s report
By Chris Wilson, CASCA president (Cassiopeia – Winter 2014)
Hi, everyone,
This has been a busy fall for CASCA, ACURA, and the Coalition for Canadian Astronomy, with major lobbying efforts on behalf of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT). The three Coalition co-chairs (Don Brooks representing ACURA, Guy Nelson representing industry, and myself representing CASCA) traveled to Ottawa on October 20 to meet with staff members in the offices of the Minister of Industry, the Minister of Finance, and the Privy Council Office. We will be going back to Ottawa for additional meetings reaching out to different branches of the government on December 16. In November, Guy Nelson joined a Canadian trade mission to China, which gave him additional opportunities to raise the need for TMT funding with politicians involved in that visit. The individual co-chairs have also been busy writing letters to provide updates on the TMT project to other high-level politicians and their staff. In parallel, individual astronomers have had considerable success meeting with their university presidents and raising the TMT issue with them.
Several of the key university presidents are now engaged with the TMT issue and are working to make this project a reality. The rules and application deadlines for the first round of the Canada First Research Excellence Fund (CFREF) were published in early December, which has been very helpful in clarifying the structure of this new funding program. While it may be that some part of the TMT funding can ultimately flow from CFREF, it seems clear that CFREF funding is unlikely to be the sole or even a major source of funds for the TMT construction project.
You might be wondering whether, with all the work we have been doing, we have been given any hints as to the likely success of obtaining TMT construction funding. The reality is that we will only learn whether or not we have been successful on the day that the 2015 federal budget is announced. The secrecy surrounding the federal budget is not new; indeed, we were in a similar situation in 2003 when we needed additional funding for ALMA. I remain cautiously hopeful that we will be successful in obtaining funding for the TMT.
Another important focus of our community this year is the Mid-Term Review (MTR) of the 2010 Long Range Plan, which is now well under way. There have been a very good number of white papers submitted to the MTR panel, with just a few late ones expected as I write this. The white papers are available in the MTR area of the CASCA web site and I urge you to have a look at the ones the overlap with your particular interests.
The MTR panel will be holding three town hall meetings in late March: in Montreal on Tuesday, March 24; in Toronto on Wednesday, March 25; and in Victoria on Thursday, March 26. Please try to attend one of these town hall meetings if you can; they are an important opportunity for you to raise issues with the MTR panel and for the panel to hear about the concerns and priorities of our wider community.
The CASCA Board has been hard at work for you this fall. We sent out a call to Canadian astronomers who were not yet members of the International Astronomical Union inviting them to apply for membership in advance of the 2015 IAU General Assembly, and over 40 people responded positively. We committed some of the surplus that had built up in the Westar fund to supporting the “Discover the Universe” initiative for the next three years, providing some much needed continuity as they wait to hear the results of the next round of NSERC PromoScience grants. We are also working with the EPO committee to decide how to rejuvenate the Westar public lecture series. We are continuing to work on completing the translation of key pages for the French version of the website and trying to do a better job keeping the English and French websites synchronized, for example by posting English-language press releases and job advertisements on both websites. We have completed the renewal of the members of the various CASCA committees and are starting to explore possible areas for collaboration with the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada (RASC).
I also want to draw your attention to the 2015 CASCA annual meeting, which will be hosted by McMaster University. The dates of the meeting are May 24-27, with an MTR session held for part of the day on May 28. You can expect to hear more information about the meeting in February via the email exploder. The 2016 AGM will be hosted by the University of Manitoba and Brandon University in Winnipeg.
Finally, congratulations to Sara Ellison, who in October was awarded the Rutherford Medal in Physics from the Royal Society of Canada.
Celebrating John Galt: a workshop and a telescope dedication
By Tim Robishaw and Sean Dougherty (DRAO) (Cassiopeia – Winter 2014)
A workshop was held at Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory (DRAO) Sep 22 and 23 to celebrate the career of John A. Galt (1925-2012) and to dedicate the 26-meter telescope in his honour. John was the first employee of the observatory in 1957 and was its director from 1962 to 1981. Many former DRAO staff returned for the dedication ceremony to watch the Director General of NRC-Herzberg, Greg Fahlman, and John’s wife, Rena Galt, unveil a new sign on the tower of the 26-meter showing its new name, the “John A. Galt Telescope”. The new sign had been hidden behind a white sheet, held in place by a truly Galtian contraption of twine and paper clips. Plaques describing John’s accomplishments were mounted nearby.
A number of distinguished visitors travelled to Penticton to provide an overview of the work that was done by John during his career as well as current work that has followed in the areas of John’s observational research. Topics covered included Zeeman splitting of the 21-cm line, the Dominion A catalog of 20-cm sources, protection of the radio spectrum, pulsars, fast radio bursts, long baseline scintillometry, radio observations of comets, diffuse polarized Galactic emission, and the CHIME telescope. Some of the first-time visitors to the observatory have suggested novel projects for the telescopes on site, including the new John A. Galt Telescope, with one researcher even planning to publish a paper using John’s extensive hydroxyl observations of Comet Halley using the 26-meter.
A website has been created collecting photos and presentations from the workshop, a historical timeline of John’s career, and a video interview with John.
ALMA Update
By Chris Wilson, Canadian ALMA Project Scientist (with material from the NRAO newsletters and the ALMA web site) (Cassiopeia – Winter 2014)
ALMA Current Status
ALMA construction is essentially finished. The Extension and Optimization of Capabilities (EOC) team continues to test and implement new capabilities for ALMA, including most recently high frequency (Bands 8-10) observing and long baseline observations. An important milestone was the acceptance of Total Power capabilities in November. Total power (or “single dish”) observations are important for getting information in extended sources on all spatial scales. In addition, the ALMA Pipeline is now in regular use for calibration and has also been released to the broader scientific community to use. The pipeline is part of a special CASA release 4.2.2 and is currently supported for Red Hat Linux and Mac OSX 10.8.
The 3 month dedicated Long Baseline Campaign from September through November has exceeded our expectations and produced some very exciting scientific results. One of these results, the extended protoplanetary disk HL Tau showing gaps produced by some combination of unseen planets and resonances, was the subject of a press release on November 5, 2014. The full press release is available. The other targets observed in this campaign were: a lensed galaxy at z~3, SDP.81; the evolved star Mira; the quasar 3C138 in linear polarization; and the asteroid Juno. All these Science Verification data will be released to the community for scientific exploitation; the target date for data release is January 31, 2015 (+/ 7 days).
“Revolution in Astronomy with ALMA: The Third Year”
A major ALMA meeting was held in Tokyo, December 8-11, 2014. With 295 participants from 21 countries, this was a large and exciting meeting. We heard talks on everything from measuring the atmospheric properties of Mars and Io to observations of Milky-Way analog galaxies in the [CII] line and dust at redshifts of 5-7. Speaking as someone who has been involved in ALMA for over 15 years, it was extremely exciting to see such a wide range of exciting science results. I got to give the conference summary talk and it was a difficult job deciding what results to include! There was also an extremely high rate of participation by students, postdocs, and young faculty members, which bodes well for ALMA’s continuing success and scientific productivity. A conference proceedings is planned, so those who were not able to attend should be able to enjoy some of the results next year. In the meantime, many of the results are already or soon to be published, so search under ALMA using ADS or check the list of ALMA papers available via the NRAO library which lists 201 papers as of December 14, 2014.
ALMA Cycle 2 progress
Cycle 2 observing resumed December 1, 2014 after a 3 month hiatus to carry out the long baseline commissioning campaign (see above). An ALMA Cycle 2 status report is available. The report summarizes the status of Cycle 2 Early Science observations, including “Cycle 1 Transfer” projects, as of October 2014. It includes a summary of observing progress, the 12-m Array configuration schedule for the rest of Cycle 2 and a summary of the number of unfinished “high priority” observations by Band, LST and requested angular resolution. At the time the report was written, 369 hr of 12 m array observations had been obtained, with 1670 hr of A+B+Cycle 1 carryover observations remaining to be completed on the 12 m array. The median time between the data being taken and the data being delivered to the PI is about 60 days. The acceptance of the ALMA Pipeline (see above) may speed up this process.
PIs and Co-Investigators can consult the Project Tracker for information on the execution of an accepted project. PIs can also modify their user profile at the Science Portal to receive e-mail notifications whenever a component of a project is first observed, fully observed, or successfully processed.
ALMA Cycle 3 pre-announcement
The expected capabilities and timing for ALMA Cycle 3 were released last week. All 7 receiver bands will be available as well as long baselines (up to 2 km for Bands 8-10, up to 5 km for band 7, up to 10 km for Bands 3-6). Please consult the announcement for further details. The key dates for Cycle 3 are:
24 March 2015: Call for Proposals for ALMA Early Science Cycle 3, release of Observing Tool, and opening of the Archive for proposal submission.
23 April 2015: Proposal Deadline.
August 2015: Result of the proposal review process sent to PIs.
October 2015: Start of ALMA Cycle 3 observations.
September 2016: End of ALMA Cycle 3 observations.
Further Information
This will be my last regular ALMA update for E-Cass as Canadian Project scientist, so it is especially important to point out that a good source for monthly updates on the ALMA project is the electronic NRAO newsletter. And don’t forget the ALMA observatory web site which contains wide range of information about the observatory, including details about science and technology, infrastructure, geographical location. The ALMA Observatory web site has an especially good list of press releases that you can use to keep up to date on the latest hot results or to find information and images suitable for public talks.
Arctic Update
By Eric Steinbring (NRC) (Cassiopeia – Winter 2014)
A bunch of publications related to astronomy from the High Arctic have appeared in recent months, with a few follow-on news stories, which I will list here for the interested reader. Together they range along the spectrum from the submillimetre through the optical. Apart from each requiring particular innovations to make them possible (and Canadian connections) these all seem to follow a common theme. Many were presented at the SPIE “Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation” meeting at Montreal last summer.
Two of those reports provide descriptions of 350 GHz to 1.4 THz prototype receivers for the Greenland Telescope (GLT) [1], an ASIAA/Harvard/SAO-collaboration, and their plans for deployment and operation at Summit, near the peak of the icecap [2]. This is among the driest, lowest opacity (and most isolated) astronomical sites on Earth. When installed and completed the GLT will combine with ALMA to form the northernmost leg of the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) for very-long-baseline interferometry; there was a nice NewsHour piece on this [3]. The truly Earth-spanning scale of EHT is necessary for an ambitious goal to directly image the gravitational “shadow” of a supermassive black hole in M87 [4].
Several papers delivered at Montreal cover developments at Eureka: the wealth of experience gained by observers from UdeSherbrooke and UQAM, within the Canadian Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Change (CANDAC), operating precise star-photometer telescopes from sea level for many years [5]; new Arctic Wide-Field Camera survey results [6] and its evolution to the “Evryscope” [7]; campaign Slope Detection and Ranging (SloDAR) turbulence profile measurements obtained at the Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Laboratory (PEARL) [8]; and a detailed description of the UofT Dunlap Institute SloDAR instrument itself [9]. Arctic-hardened designs can yield excellent photometry with reduced scintillation due to the cold, highly-stratified atmosphere. An article in the latest SkyNews points to some of these findings [10].
Finally, a concept for a cluster of small optical telescopes allowing autonomous time-domain surveys from PEARL was presented at the “Adapting to the Atmosphere” conference in September at Durham, UK [11]. The unit telescopes, each with a swappable off-the-shelf sealed-tube assembly, were given the nickname “Ukaliq” which is Inuktitut for “Arctic Hare.” There is value in duplication. Other science could profit from this approach, but one particularly good fit for Ukaliq might be a quasar lensing study employing adaptive optics; best seeing is preserved by a compact design originally intended for site testing. Again, success can come by learning to take advantage of local conditions, highlighted in a recent Universe Today post [12].
References
[1] Grimes, P.K., Asada, K., Blundell, R., et al. 2014, Instrumentation for single-dish observations with the Greenland Telescope, Proc. SPIE, 9153
[2] Raffin, P., Algaba-Marcosa, J.C., Asada, K., et al. 2014, The Greenland Telescope (GLT): antenna status and future plans, Proc. SPIE, 9145
[3] Public Broadcasting System NewsHour, How a global network of telescopes may give us first glimpse of a black hole, 25 November 2014
[4] Lu, R.-S., Broderick, A.E., Baron, F., Monnier, J.D., Fish, V.L., Doeleman, S.S., & Pankratius, V. 2014, Imaging the Supermassive Black Hole Shadow and Jet Base of M87 with the Event Horizon Telescope, ApJ, 788, 120
[5] Ivanescu, L., Baibakov, K., O’Neill, N.T., Blanchet, J.-P., Blanchard, Y., Saha, A., Rietze, M., & Schulz, K.-H. 2014, Challenges in operating an Arctic telescope, Proc. SPIE, 9145
[6] Law, N.M., Carlberg, R., Fors, O., Steinbring, E., Ngan, W., Wulfken, P., Maire, J., & Sivanandam, S., 2014, New results from the first exoplanet survey in the Canadian High Arctic, SPIE Conf. Series, 9145
[7] Law, N.M., Fors, O., Wulfken, P., Ratzloff, J., & Kavanaugh, D. 2014, The Evryscope: the first full-sky gigapixel-scale telescope, SPIE Conf. Series, 9145
[8] Maire, J., Mieda, E., Steinbring, E., Murowinski, R., Graham, J.R., Carlberg, R., Wright, S.A., Law, N.M., Sivanandam, S. 2014, Optical turbulence profiling with SloDAR in the Canadian High Arctic, Proc. SPIE, 91453
[9] Mieda, E., Maire, J., Graham, J.R., Wright, S.A., & Moon, D.-S. 2014, SloDAR instrument for characterizing an Arctic site: overview of the experimental method, design, and performance, Proc. SPIE, 9145
[10] Semeniuk, I. Arctic Telescope, SkyNews, November/December 2014
[11] Steinbring, E., Leckie, B., & Murowinski, R. 2014, Ukaliq: Seeing Long-Term with Small, Precise Arctic Telescopes, IoPCS “Adapting to the Atmosphere”, Durham UK
[12] Majaess, D. Searching for Alien Worlds and Gravitational Lenses from the Arctic, Universe Today, 24 November 2014
Astrosat News
By John Hutchings (NRC) (Cassiopeia – Winter 2014)
The Astrosat observatory is a step closer to operations, with the delivery to ISRO of the qualified and calibrated UVIT telescopes. Integration of the five instruments into the spacecraft, and testing of their combined operations is beginning. This process will take at least 6 months before Astrosat is ready for launch. Operations and data processing pipeline software are in test, and early observations (commissioning and baseline science) are in planning. The UVIT delivery follows months of intense work by CSA, ComDev, IIA, and the instrument team, that included working visits to India by CSA’s Jason Rooney, detector expert Joe Postma, and myself.
On this schedule, early science will begin after commissioning in late 2015, and proposal time will begin six months later. The instrument teams are making detailed plans for guaranteed time observations, some of which are simultaneous monitoring at all wavelengths from hard X-ray to visible. The Astrosat website gives an overview of its capabilities. If you have ideas for early science, let me know, as it may be possible to work them into the UVIT observing plans.
Update from the Canadian Space Agency
By Denis Laurin, Program Scientist, Space astronomy (CSA/ASC) (Cassiopeia – Winter 2014)
CSA President
At the end of October, the Canadian government announced the nomination of Ret. General Walter Natynczyk as Deputy Minister of Veterans Affairs. Since Aug 2013, Natynczyk has been President of the CSA. Even within this short time frame, he contributed significantly to implementing the recommendations from the Aerospace Review. This included the announcement of the Canadian Space Policy Framework, described in the March Cassiopeia issue, but worth repeating here since this policy sets guiding principles for future space projects, including space astronomy. On November 3, 2014, Luc Brûlé was named Interim President of the CSA. He has been Vice-President since April 2014.
Space Advisory Board
On November 19, the Canadian government announced the creation of the Space Advisory Board, which will provide expert advice to the government on Canada’s role and future in space. The board consists of experts from across the country, namely: Ret. General Walt Natynczyk, Dr. Mamdouh Shoukri, Terry Malley, Dr. Arlene Ponting, Lorne Trottier, Fred George, John Keating and Colonel Chris Hadfield.
Missions
WFIRST (Concept)
CSA will be studying possible contributions to NASA’s foremost Dark Energy (DE) mission WFIRST. A Canadian participation is aligned with the CASCA LRP priority in this area. In early December CSA awarded two contracts for concepts studies to evaluate possible Canadian hardware contributions to the WFIRST payloads. One study, led by COMDEV (Ottawa), concentrates on contributions to the Wide Filed Instrument; while the second study, led by ABB (Quebec), concentrates on contributions to the Coronagraph instrument. The studies have gathered excellent teams of engineers and scientists. In parallel, CSA issued a call for information (RFI) to form a pool of scientific experts and will invite an independent panel to help in the reviews of the results of the concept studies. CSA also continues to support Canadian participation to WFIRST Science Definition Team with Prof. Mike Hudson (University of Waterloo).
JWST (FGS and NIRISS instruments)
CSA is committed to the completion Phase D and support to end of commissioning. Successful testing of FGS and NIRISS was undertaken from June to Oct 2014 on the ISIM (CV2 or cryogenic test campaign 2). In the time between CV2 and CV3 tests (Dec – Jan) will allow some component change over (as planned) including the FGS and NIRISS detectors, grisms, NIRISS dual-wheel motors and an electronic board. This will fix previously identified issues with those components. CV3 test campaign is expected for summer fall 2015. Launch remains as scheduled Oct 2018.
SPICA (SAFARI instrument)
As mentioned in the March issue of Cassiopeia, the CSA supported studies at ABB and the University of Lethbridge continue, with projected completion in mid 2015. JAXA and ESA continue to evaluate their commitment to support the SPICA mission; science definition continues and instrument definition and a review of the concepts. SAFARI remains the key instrument and likely to be lead by SRON in future consideration in the Cosmic Vision M5 program, with projected launch near 2028.
MOST
The MOST satellite ceased operation on 9 September 2014. After almost 11 years of operations, MOST has produced over one hundred science publications and provided new insights into the behaviour of stars and exo-planets. Originally planned as a one-year project, MOST was extended annually due to the telescope’s continued successes. In the fall of 2013, the CSA conducted a mission extension review in cooperation with members of Canada’s astronomy community. The evaluation weighed the mission’s ongoing operational costs against its objectives and alternatives. The review led to the recommendation that this CSA mission be terminated, considering that MOST had already surpassed its objectives. The MOST contractor MSCI (Toronto) have taken ownership of the satellite and may still offer science investigation opportunities.
As described in the Cassiopeia of March 2014, CSA is supporting the development of the Advanced Science Archive for MOST data, lead by Vinothini Sangaralingam, Visiting Fellow (CSA / NSERC). This archive will make the MOST data “user friendly” and easily accessible by the scientific community. In collaboration with NRC CADC, UBC and the Université de Montréal, the work is progressing well and expected to be functional within another year.
ASTRO-H (CAMS)
Canada’s contribution is the Canadian ASTRO-H Metrology System (CAMS). Neptec Design Group (Ottawa) is the prime contractor. The CAMS units consist of two main components: a laser transmitter and optics (CAMS-LD) and the retro-reflective target (CAMS-T), to monitor the translation and rotation of the Hard X-ray telescope (HXT) extendable boom.
Although there have been issued in meeting original position measurement precision due to thermal effects, the effects can be calibrated and will be part of the position solution. On a very tight schedule, the flight units are to be delivered at the end of Dec 2014. Launch of ASTRO-H is planned for late 2015.
NEOSSat
The NEOSSat project is in Phase E (commissioning, early operations) since April 1st 2014 (launched in Feb 2013). It is a joint project between CSA and Defense Research and Development Canada (DRDC). The mission has demonstrated High Earth Orbit Surveillance Survey (for DRDC) mission feasibility and tracked GEO and MEO satellites. Demonstrating requirements for asteroid search is in progress: NEOSSat demonstrated commanded pointing, arcsec stability, long exposures (up to 100 sec) and imaging tests with known asteroids. Image noise (fixed, interference, hot pixels) reduction is required and will be solved by a combination of onboard and ground processing. Promising results are currently obtained to meet the asteroid search objective at low solar elongation. Considerable efforts have been provided by CSA Sat Ops, University of Calgary (the Science Processing Operations Center for the asteroid mission), DRDC and MSCI.
Herschel (post ops)
CSA continues to support the post-operations (data reduction, scientific support) of HIFI (U. of Waterloo) to March 2016 and SPIRE (U. of Lethbridge, Blue Sky Spectroscopy) until March 2016.
Planck (post ops)
Support continues for the science team HFI (U. of Toronto), LFI, (UBC) until Aug 2015 data pipeline and analysis for the full mission maps and eventual first release of CMB polarization maps.
Meetings and events
JCSA (Joint CSA and CASCA consultation committee)
The JCSA met at the CASCA AGM in Quebec City and again in early December (by telecom). The next meeting is planned for the CASCA AGM in Hamilton. The current membership is: Brian McNamara (Chair, U. of Waterloo), JJ Kavelaars (NRC Herzberg), Peter Martin (U. of Toronto), Andrew Cumming (McGill U.), Gary Hinshaw (UBC) and Marcin Sawicki (St-Mary’s U.).
LRP MTR town hall
The CSA is supportive of the activities of the LRP Mid-Term Review. The priorities set in the LRP are critical for consideration and inclusion in the CSA space astronomy roadmap. CSA engages to participate and to contribute to the planned (Montreal) town hall discussions and exchange information in the spirit of effective coordination.
Technology Development
Under the STDP program, CSA continues to support the development of:
Work on assessment of large UV-enhanced CMOS arrays for wide field missions (e.g. CASTOR), COMDEV, expecting final report summer 2015.
Development for enhancement of EMCCD camera for space application is just completed, Nuvu Camera, Dec 2014.
Other
Recently the CSA established a collaborative agreement with the University of Western Ontario (UWO) to enable the installation of an all-sky meteor monitoring camera. The camera is now operational and adds to the UWO existing All-Sky Camera Network.
Wishing everyone a happy Holiday Season.
Gemini News
By Stéphanie Côté, Tim Davidge and John Blakeslee
(Cassiopeia – Winter 2014)
Fast Turnaround Program starting soon
A problem with the conventional semester-driven time allocation process is that there can be a substantial delay between having a good idea for an observing program and getting the observations executed on the telescope. The FTP is designed to reduce the time between the birth of an idea and acquiring the data. . It is expected that the first call for proposals will be in early January 2015, with a deadline of the end of that month. Accepted programs will be active during March-May 2015. About three nights per month will be dedicated to the FP programs.
An obvious logistical problem is having a TAC that is willing to review proposals on a timely basis on a month-by-month schedule. A novel aspect of the FTP is that the proposals will be peer-reviewed by those that apply for this time on any given month. The CGO has been leading this effort by developing the necessary scripts, and a trial run was conducted in April 2014 with Canadian PIs/Cos refereeing each others proposals. The ranking of the proposals obtained through this process correlated well with the rankings from the regular CanTAC. This first trial received extremely favorable feedback from the Canadian users. The FTP will enable Canadian PIs to access targets of interest before the competition.
New Hamamatsu CCDs
New Red-Sensitive CCDs manufactured by Hamamatsu Photonics were installed in the GMOS-South instrument in June 2014. These detectors have greatly enhanced sensitivity as compared to the previous ones, especially at the red end. The orientation of the CCDs has not changed, and GMOS-S continues to support both IFU observations and Nod+Shuffle observing mode. The fringing is greatly reduced for the new CCDs, but the cosmic ray hit rate is higher. As of this writing, data taken with the new Hamamatsu CCDs must be processed with a special “patch” release of the Gemini IRAF package, which should not be used for GMOS-N data or GMOS-S data taken with the previous CCDs. For more information, see: http://www.gemini.edu/?q=node/12227
News on future capabilities
This past September Gemini launched the Gemini Instrumentation Feasibility Study (`GIFS’) to develop ideas for the next facility instrument. The intent of this process is to foster teams of astronomers and engineers that will generate scientifically-driven capabilities that can be realized within the cost limitations of the instrumentation budget. The competition has a rapid time line – the Request for Proposals was issued on September 19 and proposals are due on December 15. Contracts will likely be assigned to multiple teams in an effort to explore different concepts. The selection of teams will be made by January, and study reports are due in September 2015.
High resolution spectroscopy at visible wavelengths is a capability of interest to Canadian astronomers that has been missing from Gemini. However, both sites will soon have high resolution spectrographic capabilities. On Gemini North a fiber feed has been installed that links Gemini with the ESPaDOnS spectrograph at CFHT. The Gemini Remote Access to CFHT ESPaDOnS Spectrograph (`GRACES’) was developed at HIA Herzberg in Victoria, and had a successful commissioning run earlier this year. On-sky tests reveal total system throughput longward of 5000 Angstroms that is competitive with high resolution spectrographs on other 8 – 10 meter telescopes. It is hoped that this capability will be made available for general use in 2015.
Work is also progressing on the Gemini High resolution Optical specTrograph (`GHOST’). This is the next new instrument, and plans are for it to be delivered to Gemini in 2017. Much of the work on GHOST is being done at NRC Herzberg in Victoria. At the October 2014 meeting of the Science and Technology Advisory Committee (SRAC) it was decided that this instrument will go to Gemini South.
Gemini Science and Users Meeting 2015
Registration is now open for the triennial Gemini Science and Users’ Meeting, to be held in Toronto, 14-18 June 2015. The theme of the meeting is “The Future & Science of Gemini Observatory.” The Abstract and Early Registration (reduced fee) deadlines are both March 4, 2015. For further information on the program, registration, abstract submission, and the venue, please see: http://www.gemini.edu/fsg15
Herschel-HIFI News
Submitted by Sylvie Beaulieu, Herschel-HIFI Instrument Support Scientist (Cassiopeia – Winter 2014)
Feature story – Detection of an Anomalous Hot Gas Component in a Low Mass Star-Forming Region
By Andy Pon (2014 Plaskett medal recipient; Leeds University)
Using HIFI on Herschel, the CO (5-4) and CO (6-5) transitions were observed towards the centre of Perseus B1-E5, a starless condensation in the Perseus molecular cloud, which is a nearby low mass star-forming region. HIFI obtained strong detections of two separate velocity components in both transitions.
Photodissociation region (PDR) models from the Kaufman et al. (1996), KOSMA-tau, and Meudon codes were compared to a spectral energy diagram composed of the HIFI data and archival data of lower J CO lines. The PDR models were able to account for the emission in the CO (1-0), (3-2) and (5-4) lines, but every model that fit these lower lines significantly underpredicted the integrated intensity of the (6-5) line. This inabilityof the PDR models to consistently account for the CO (6-5) emission implies that there is a warm gas component within B1-E5 that is not included in standard PDR models.
Given the lack of any protostars or protostellar outflows in the vicinity of B1-E5, the most plausible source of this warm gas is the dissipation of turbulence in low velocity shocks. The observed emission is consistent with the turbulent energy dissipating on a timescale a factor of three larger than the turbulent crossing time. Only 0.15% of the gas within B1-E5 would need to be shock heated by 3 km/s shocks to explain the observed CO (6-5) integrated intensities.
This work is described in more detail in Pon et al. (2014, MNRAS, 445, 1508).
The lines show the best fitting KOSMA-tau models to the observed integrated intensityratios for the two detected components. Note that the models fail to reproduce the largeCO (6-5) intensities.
Herschel Interactive Processing Environment (HIPE)
HIPE 12.1 is the current released version. Please visit ‘What’s New in HIPE‘ for the latest changes in this release. Additional information can be found in the ‘HIFI Instrument and Calibration‘ webpage.
Note that HIPE 13 is currently being tested and will be available in the Spring.
Conferences, workshops and webinars related to Herschel
ALMA/Herschel Archival Workshop
ESO-Garching, Germany, 15-17 April 2015
From interstellar clouds to star-forming galaxies: Universal processes?
IAU Symposium 315, Honolulu, HI, USA, 3-7 August 2015
A Final Dispatch from the JCMT
By Gary Davis, Director JCMT (Cassiopeia – Winter 2014)
Momentous changes are upon us: before the next Cassiopeia is issued, the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope will change hands. The good news is that the JCMT will continue to operate under new East Asian management, potentially for many years, and will continue to deliver the innovative and high-impact science that has been its hallmark to date. Given the decision of the historical UK-Canada-Netherlands partnership to withdraw its support for the observatory, this is the best outcome that could possibly have been achieved.
The dissolution of the partnership began with the withdrawal of the Dutch agency NWO in March 2013. NRC Canada then withdrew on 30th September 2014, and I would like to record here my thanks to NRC and the Canadian community for their financial, technical, scientific and personnel contributions to the JCMT over more than 27 years. The JCMT has unquestionably been a stronger and more successful telescope over this period because of Canada’s participation. It is extremely gratifying to observe that Canada is now a partner of choice in submillimetre astronomy missions and experiments – Herschel, ALMA, BLAST and ACT to name a few, and potentially CCAT and SPICA in the future – and this is a direct consequence of the experience gained with the JCMT.
Confronted with these decisions from the Netherlands and Canada, the UK funding agency STFC decided in May 2012 that it could no longer support the operation of the JCMT beyond the date of Canadian withdrawal. It is a tautology to say that this was a profoundly disappointing decision for everyone associated with the observatory. In retrospect, however, it is a clear consequence of the funding pressures occasioned by mega-projects: although the details in the two cases are different, the withdrawals of both the Netherlands and Canada were driven by their commitments to ALMA.
My mission since then has been to find a new entity to take over the operation of the telescope. In previous issues of Cassiopeia I reported that an Announcement of Opportunity had been issued in June 2013, and that four Expressions of Interest had been received: one each from the UK and Canadian communities, one from Purple Mountain Observatory, and one from the East Asian Core Observatories Association (EACOA), an umbrella organisation representing astronomy research institutes in Taiwan, China, South Korea and Japan. It is particularly gratifying to me, as Director of the observatory, to note that the user communities in the UK and Canada are determined to retain their access to the JCMT: in Canada, this effort is being led by Christine Wilson. Following a workshop in Vancouver in December 2013, these interests were eventually consolidated into a single proposal, which was accepted by the University of Hawaii (UH) in June 2014. The actual transfer is now firmly scheduled to take place at midnight on 31st January 2015: the legal ownership of the facility will transfer from STFC to UH, and the telescope will be operated by EAO in partnership with the UK and Canadian communities. EAO is the East Asian Observatory, a non-profit corporation set up by EACOA in the State of Hawaii. All of the legal arrangements for this transaction are now being put in place. The transfer of the UK’s two world-leading telescopes (UKIRT and JCMT) to new management is, as far as I am aware, unprecedented in the history of observational astronomy.
In parallel with the legal arrangements, we have been working with EAO to ensure as far as possible a seamless transition of observatory operations. For example, the Canadian Astronomy Data Centre (CADC) will continue to host the JCMT Science Archive for data taken under the historical partnership, and it is expected that they will also provide this service for data taken under the new management, at least in the short term. The observatory’s science support and scientific computing teams will be retained intact by EAO and will continue to be available to provide support to users, for both old and new observations.
From October 2012 to September 2014, Dr Doug Johnstone was seconded to the JCMT from NRC Herzberg and served as Associate Director. I am extremely grateful to Doug for agreeing to take on this challenging but vital position for two years, and for splitting his time between Hilo and his permanent residence in Victoria. His primary responsibilities were to oversee the JCMT Legacy Survey and the JCMT Science Archive, both of which he fulfilled admirably and with his usual infectious enthusiasm, and I think he even enjoyed the experience! Doug has now returned to his position as a staff scientist in the Radio Astronomy Programme at NRC Herzberg.
This is my last column for Cassiopeia after more than 12 years as Director of the JCMT. Following the transfer of the telescope at the end of January 2015, I will be moving to the UK to take up a new position as Director of Operations Planning for the SKA project. It is a challenge to which I look forward with enormous enthusiasm, not only because it will take me back to England, where I spent several happy years as a student and postdoc, but also because it will be a huge change of outlook to be involved at the early stages of an ambitious project rather than continually being on the defensive. I look back on my time at the JCMT with pride at what has been accomplished: three new instruments working extremely well (ACSIS, HARP and SCUBA-2), two more ready to be commissioned (POL-2 and FTS-2), a vibrant legacy survey programme producing frontier science across a wide range of astrophysics, a full-featured science archive in collaboration with CADC, and most recently of course a secure future for the observatory and its staff. It has been a labour of love.
Dissertation: Galaxy evolution model for large-scale cosmological simulations
By Benoît Côté
Thesis defended on December 18th 2014
Département de physique, université Laval
Directeurs de thèse/thesis advisors: Hugo Martel & Laurent Drissen (U. Laval)
Abstract
We present a semi-analytical model (SAM) designed to be used in a large-scale hydrodynamical simulation as a sub-grid treatment in order to generate the evolution of galaxies in a cosmolog- ical context. The ultimate goal of this project is to study the chemical enrichment history of the intergalactic medium (IGM) and the interactions between galaxies and their surrounding. Presently, the SAM takes into account all the ingredients needed to compute the evolution of low- and intermediate-mass galaxies. This includes the accretion of the galactic halo and the IGM, radiative cooling, star formation, chemical enrichment, and the production of galactic outflows driven by the mechanical energy and the radiation of massive stars, but excludes the effect of an active galactic nucleus which is only important for more massive galaxies. The physics of interstellar bubbles is applied to every stellar population which forms in the model in order to link the stellar activity to the production of outflows driven by mechanical energy. We use up-to-date stellar models to generate the evolution of each stellar population as a function of their mass, metallicity, and age. This enables us to include, in the enrichment process, the stellar winds from massive stars, Type II, Ib, and Ic supernovae, hypernovae, the stellar winds from low- and intermediate-mass stars in the asymptotic giant branch, and Type Ia supernovae. With these ingredients, our model can reproduce the abundances of C, N, O, Na, Mg, Al, Si, S, Ca, Cr, Mn, Ni, Cu, and Zn observed in the stars located in the solar neigh- borhood. More generally, our SAM reproduces the current stellar-to-dark-halo mass relation observed in galaxies. It can also reproduce the metallicity, the hydrogen mass fraction, and the specific star formation rate observed in galaxies as a function of their stellar mass. Our model is also consistent with observations which suggest that low-mass galaxies are more affected by stellar feedback than higher-mass galaxies. Moreover, the model can reproduce the periodic and the stable behaviors observed in the star formation rate of galaxies. All these results show that our SAM is sufficiently qualified to treat the evolution of low- and intermediate-mass galaxies inside a large-scale cosmological simulation.
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