Bibcode
Santander-García, M.; Rodríguez-Gil, P.; Tulloch, S.; Rutten, R. G. M.
Referencia bibliográfica
Highlights of Spanish Astrophysics V, Astrophysics and Space Science Proceedings. ISBN 978-3-642-11249-2. Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg, 2010, p. 539
Fecha de publicación:
0
2010
Número de citas
0
Número de citas referidas
0
Descripción
Present and future key instruments at the Isaac Newton Group of
Telescopes (ING) are introduced, and their corresponding latest
scientific highlights are presented. GLAS (Ground-layer Laser Adaptive
optics System): The recently installed 515 nm laser, mounted on the WHT
(William Herschel Telescope), produces a bright artificial star at a
height of 15 km. This enables almost full-sky access to Adaptive Optics
observations. Recent commissioning observations with the NAOMI+GLAS
system showed that very significant improvement in image quality can be
obtained, e.g. down to 0.16 arcsec in the H band. QUCAM2 and QUCAM3: Two
Low Light Level (L3) CCD cameras for fast or faint-object spectroscopy
with the twin-armed ISIS spectrograph at the WHT. Their use opens a new
window of high time-frequency observations, as well as access to fainter
objects. They are powerful instruments for research on compact objects
such as white dwarfs, neutron stars or black holes, stellar pulsations,
and compact binaries.HARPS-NEF (High-Accuracy Radial-velocity Planet
Searcher of the New Earths Facility): An extremely stable,
high-resolution (R ˜ 120, 000) spectrograph for the WHT which is
being constructed for commissioning in 2009-2010. Its radial velocity
stability of < 1 m s- 1 may in the future be even
further improved by using a Fabry-Perot laser-comb, a wavelength
calibration unit capable of achieving an accuracy of 1 cm s-
1. This instrument will effectively allow to search for earth-like
exoplanets.