NOAO Home Page Image Archive
The last 5 images that have appeared on the NOAO Home Page.
April 16, 2012
Left: C. Smith, S. Points, the MCELS Team & NOAO/AURA/NSF. Right: P. Massey & NOAO LGGS Survey
The Lives of Stars, or Astronomers as Paparazzi
Using NOAO facilities, astronomers from Lowell Observatory have acted as “stellar paparazzi”, managing to identify hundreds of rare yellow supergiants and their more long-lived descendants, the red supergiants, in two neighboring galaxies. These newly identified stellar populations provide an important constraint on the theoretical models which describe how these stars change from blue, to yellow and then to red. The behavior of the models in this phase can influence theoretical predictions, including what types of stars explode as supernova.
March 04, 2012
Tim Abbott, NOAO/AURA/NSF
March 2012
NOAO Newsletter
The March 2012 NOAO Newsletter is online and ready to download. This issue includes information pertaining to the 2012B Call for Proposals, which are due March 29th.
On the Cover
The Dark Energy Camera (DECam) is a liquid nitrogen cooled, 520-megapixel digital camera that is housed inside a high-vacuum Dewar; here, it poses in front of the CTIO Blanco 4-m telescope on which it will be mounted.
February 09, 2012
Initial Summary of the Ground-based O/IR System Roadmap Committee’s Survey of the Community Now Available
The image above is from the Ground-based System Roadmap Committee’s summary of the results from their November 2011 survey of the community’s use of the U.S. System of O/IR facilities. Shown are the US telescopes used by more than 3% of the approximate 1000 U.S. based survey respondents. The size of each ellipse represents the number of users, while the thickness of the lines between telescopes is proportional to the number of common users. Further details about this figure and the entire survey may be found on the System Roadmap Committee page.
January 12, 2012
National Science Foundation Director Visits NOAO South
On January 9 and 10, the director of the National Science Foundation (NSF), Dr. Subra Suresh visited NSF optical astronomy facilities in Northern Chile. The NSF group included Dr. Ed Seidel (head of Mathematical and Physical Sciences Directorate) and Dr. Anne-Marie Schmoltner who is a program manager in the NSF International Science and Engineering Office.
January 06, 2012
T. Abbot & CTIO/NOAO/AURA/NSF
DECam Arrives!
Greg Derylo (Fermilab) confirms that the 72-CCD focal plane of the Dark Energy Camera suffered no mechanical trauma during its recent journey from Chicago to Tololo.
Link to all previous images [246].
