The first image from a new instrument at the Gemini North Telescope on Hawaii's Mauna Kea provides a picture-perfect view of a galaxy known as the Perfect Spiral Galaxy.
The galaxy, officially called M74 (or NGC 628) is considered to have a classic spiral structure common to many galaxies, including our own Milky Way. While the image is not expected to provide any astronomical breakthroughs, researchers from the observatory were pleased at the performance of the new instrument, called GMOS, or the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph.
The instrument is primarily designed for spectroscopic studies, in which several hundred simultaneous spectra, or sets of data about the various wavelengths of light coming from an object, are required. The technique is useful for observing distant clusters of stars or galaxies.
The new picture shows many features of M74, such as star clusters, gas clouds and dust lanes. Some of these objects are similar to objects seen in our own galaxy with the naked eye or a small telescope.
"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," said Gemini North's Associate Director Jean-Rene Roy.
It is estimated that M74 is home to about 100 billion stars making it slightly smaller than our Milky Way.
"The first spectra produced by GMOS were brilliant," said Isobel Hook, a British researcher who helped obtain the first image. "When you combine GMOS with Gemini's resolution and great light gathering power we are able to study details that would otherwise be lost.
"One area where I think this instrument will excel is in the study of supernova, or exploding stars in very distant galaxies. Once we can obtain spectra from these stars we will be able to better understanding the apparent acceleration of the universe."
Other data has been collected -- the light from individual galaxies in a distant, massive swarm of galaxies -- and will be released to astronomers soon.
"We were able to observe these galaxies as easily as if they were our close neighbors," said Roger Davies from Durham University in England. "Now we'll use this superb spectroscopic data to determine their mass, size and composition and look back in time to see how they have changed through cosmic history."
The Gemini Observatory is an international collaboration that has built two identical 8-meter telescopes. The telescopes are located at Mauna Kea, Hawaii (Gemini North) and Cerro Pachón in central Chile (Gemini South), and hence provide full coverage of both hemispheres of the sky. Both telescopes incorporate new technologies that allow large, relatively thin mirrors under active control to collect and focus both optical and infrared radiation from space.
The new instrument captures light on an array of nearly 24 million ultra-sensitive pixels. It was built by a partnership between Gemini, Canada and the United Kingdom at a cost of about $5 million. Separately, the U.S. National Optical Astronomy Observatory provided the detector subsystem and related software.
advertisement
