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 Image of a 'Perfect Galaxy' Captured by New Instrument(October 2, 2002, Victoria, BC) -- A remarkable first light image has been obtained with a new state-of the-art instrument at the Gemini North Telescope on Hawaii's Mauna Kea. The image of the large galaxy in Pisces named NGC 628, which has been called the "Perfect Spiral Galaxy", was obtained soon after the new instrument was mounted on the telescope. The instrument that took the image, GMOS or Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph, is the result of seven years of design and construction by teams in Canada and the UK. The Canadian team from the National Research Council's (NRC) Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics (HIA) led the development of the instrument. HIA's Rick Murowinski served as Project Manager and Systems Engineer for this ambitious project from its inception in 1994. Murowinski said "It's been a long project with selfless effort by many people, but to be able to see this instrument finally come together at the telescope, to see it work properly and immediately, is really wonderful!! The Canadian and British team who conceived, designed and built this instrument is justifiably very proud of what we've accomplished together!" "This instrument took world-class data on its first night on the sky performing perfectly, right out of the box, or at least the 24 crates that brought the 2-ton instrument to Hawaii from Canada and the UK," said Gemini Observatory Director Dr. Matt Mountain. "This is a considerable testament to the professionalism, planning and teamwork of the multi-national group of astronomers and engineers from the Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics in Canada, the Astronomy Technology Center and Durham University in the UK who were able to build this instrument and commission it with our staff so successfully here on Mauna Kea. This type of multi-disciplined, multi-national effort represents a new and powerful way to do world-class observational astrophysics," continued Dr. Mountain. As the dramatic new image of NGC 628 demonstrates, GMOS has the ability to focus beautiful astronomical images on its vast detector of more than 28 Megapixels. The instrument's first light image of the galaxy clearly shows many features in the galaxy such as star clusters, gas clouds and dust lanes. Some of these objects are similar to what we can see in our own Milky Way with the naked eye or small telescope on a clear moonless night. "To be able to routinely see fine details like this in a galaxy more than 30 million light years away is quite remarkable and helps to give some perspective of what our own galaxy might look like if there were another Gemini sized telescope looking back at us!" says Gemini North's Associate Director Dr. Jean-Rene Roy. It is estimated that NGC 628 is home to about 100 billion stars making it slightly smaller than our Milky Way. Dr. Bob Abraham from the University of Toronto is looking ahead eagerly to using GMOS on the Gemini North telescope. Abraham said, "To properly study distant galaxies, an instrument like GMOS needs to be mounted on an efficient large telescope that delivers exquisite image quality. Gemini is the first large telescope designed from the ground up to deliver on these requirements. GMOS is a dream instrument on a dream telescope." GMOS is capable of simultaneously observing hundreds of exceedingly faint stars, galaxies or quasars with unprecedented precision. It can also obtain thousands of spectra of individual parts of extended objects such as galaxies or nebulae. Many of the innovative features incorporated in GMOS are derived from previous instruments built by NRC/HIA for the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope and for telescopes in Victoria. For example, special coatings devised at HIA substantially improve the light gathering power of GMOS. An extremely precise guiding system, also developed by HIA, not only sharpens the images but also ensures the instrument captures most of the light from distant targets. Dr. David Crampton of NRC/HIA is the leader of Canada's GMOS team. During commissioning, he used GMOS to obtain observations of distant quasars, some of the most luminous objects known, allowing them to be used as probes of the very distant, and hence very old, regions of the Universe. According to Crampton, "Seeing the images and spectra coming out of GMOS was one of the more exciting moments in my career, especially knowing how much skill and dedication was required from such a large multinational team over several years to achieve this superb instrument" GMOS will begin full scientific operations later this year when astronomers from the 7-country Gemini partnership begin using the instrument for a wide variety of scientific studies. Crampton added, "As news that GMOS is now ready for use spreads around the world, requests for information on how best to exploit its capabilities are already pouring in. Among the more imaginative suggestions are projects to explore the enigmatic dark matter that apparently pervades the Universe, and surveys to probe the evolution of galaxies to unprecedented depths. Exciting times!" For high resolution images see: here. B-Roll footage, animations and high-resolution still images of Gemini are also available by contacting the media contacts below.  The National Research Council of Canada is the federal government's most powerful instrument for supporting scientific research, development and innovation in every region of Canada. NRC has Canada's best S&T; knowledge and information infrastructure, the Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information (CISTI). NRC's labs, facilities and offices are found in most of Canada's major centres and in over 90 locations across Canada through Industrial Research Assistance Program (IRAP) representatives. For further information, please contact:
Dr. Jacques Vallée
Dr. David Crampton
Dr. Dennis Crabtree |
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