The European Southern Observatorys (ESOs) Very Large Telescope (VLT) has been equipped with a new eye to study the Universe.
Munich, Aug 24 : The European Southern Observatory's (ESO's) Very Large Telescope (VLT) has been equipped with a new 'eye' to study the Universe.
Working in the near-infrared, the new instrument - named HAWK-I - covers about 1/10th the area of the Full Moon in a single exposure.
According to Catherine Cesarsky, ESO's Director General, HAWK-I's uniqueness makes it adequately suitable for the discovery and study of faint objects, such as distant galaxies or small stars and planets.
She said the first images obtained on the night of July 31 to August 1, 2007 impressively demonstrate its potential.
"HAWK-I is a credit to the instrument team at ESO who designed, built and commissioned it. No doubt, HAWK-I will allow rapid progress in very diverse areas of modern astronomy by filling a niche of wide-field, well-sampled near-infrared imagers on 8-m class telescopes," said Cesarsky.
"It's wonderful; the instrument's performance has been terrific. We could not have hoped for a better start, and look forward to scientifically exciting and beautiful images in the years to come," added Jeff Pirard, HAWK-I Project Manager.
Pirard said during the first commissioning period, all instrument functions were checked, confirming that the instrument performance was at the level expected.
Different astronomical objects were then observed to test different characteristics of the instrument, he said.
During one period of good atmospheric stability, images were taken towards the central bulge of our Galaxy. Many thousands of stars were visible over the field and allowed the astronomers to obtain stellar images only 3.4 pixels (0.34 arcsecond) wide, uniformly over the whole field of view, confirming the excellent optical quality of HAWK-I, he added.
According to an ESO statement, HAWK-I takes images in the 0.9 to 2.5 micron domain over a large field-of-view of 7.5 x 7.5 arcminutes. This is nine times larger than that of ISAAC, another near-infrared imager on the VLT that went into operation in late 1998.
The researchers said ISAAC has shown how deep near-infrared images can contribute uniquely to the discovery and study of large, distant galaxies, and to the study of discs around stars or even very low mass objects, down to a few Jupiter masses.
HAWK-I will build on this experience by being able to study much larger areas with an excellent image quality, they said.
HAWK-I has four 2k x 2k array detectors, i.e. a total of 16 million 0.1 arcsecond pixels, the statement said.
"Until the availability of the James Webb Space Telescope in the next decade, it is clear that 8-m class telescopes will provide the best sensitivity achievable in the near-infrared below 3 microns," said Mark Casali, the ESO scientist responsible for HAWK-I
"Given the wide field, fine sampling and the high sensitivity of HAWK-I, the deepest scientific impact is expected in the areas of faint sources. With its special filter set, HAWK-I will allow us to peer into the most distant Universe," said Markus Kissler-Patig, the Instrument Scientist.
"In particular, with HAWK-I, we will scrutinise the very first objects that formed in the Universe," he said.
The ESO scientists said HAWK-I would also be very well suited for the search for the most massive stars and for the least massive objects in our Galaxy, such as hot Jupiters.
It will also be a perfect instrument for the study of outer Solar System bodies, such as distant, icy asteroids and comets, they said.
ANI