University
of Hawaii
Institute
for Astronomy
Annual
Report
2002–2003
This report covers the period from 1 October 2002 through 30 September
2003, and was compiled in October 2003.
1 INTRODUCTION
The Institute
for Astronomy
(IfA) is
the astronomical
research
organization
of the University
of Hawaii
(UH). Its
headquarters
is located
in Honolulu
on the island
of Oahu near
the University
of Hawaii
at Manoa,
the main
UH campus.
It also maintains
offices in
Waiakoa on
the island
of Maui,
and in Hilo
on the island
of Hawaii.
The IfA is
responsible
for administering
and maintaining
the infrastructure
for the Haleakala
High Altitude
Observatory
Site on Maui
and for Mauna
Kea Observatories
(MKO) on
Hawaii.
More information
is available
at the
Institute's
World Wide
Web site: www.ifa.hawaii.edu.
2 STAFF
The scientific
staff
during this report
period
consisted
of Joshua
E. Barnes,
Ann M.
Boesgaard,
Fabio
Bresolin, Schelte
J. Bus,
Kenneth
C.
Chambers,
Mark R. Chun, Paul
H. Coleman,
Antoinette
Songaila
Cowie,
Lennox
L. Cowie,
Harald
Ebeling,
Christ
Ftaclas,
Donald
N. B. Hall, James N. Heasley, J. Patrick Henry,
George H.
Herbig (emeritus), Klaus-Werner Hodapp, Esther M. Hu, Robert Jedicke, David C.
Jewitt,
Robert D. Joseph, Nick Kaiser, Rolf-Peter Kudritzki (director), Jeffrey R. Kuhn,
Barry J.
LaBonte, Jing Li, Haosheng Lin, Michael Liu, Gerard A. Luppino, Eugene A. Magnier,
Eduardo
L. Martín, Robert A. McLaren, Karen J. Meech, Roberto H. Méndez, Donald L.
Mickey,
Tobias C. Owen, Andrew J. Pickles, John T. Rayner, Bo Reipurth, David B. Sanders,
Theodore
Simon, Alan Stockton, István
Szapudi, David J.
Tholen, Alan T. Tokunaga,
Eric V. Tollestrup,
John L. Tonry, R.
Brent Tully, Richard
J. Wainscoat, Jonathan
P.
Williams,
and Gareth Wynn-Williams.
Postdoctoral
fellows
included
Hervé Aussel,
Fabrizio
Bernardi,
Crystal Brogan
(James Clerk
Maxwell Fellow),
Gayoung Chon,
Yanga R.
Fernández
(SIRTF Fellow),
Pablo Fosalba,
Michael Liu
(Parrent
Fellow),
Andisheh
Mahdavi (Chandra
Fellow),
Jun Pan,
Jana Pittichová,
Paul Price,
Norbert
Przybilla,
and Luca
Rizzi.
In June,
Aussel's
term as
James
Clerk Maxwell
Fellow
ended,
and he
began
working
for the
Pan-STARRS
project.
In September,
Liu completed
his term
as Parrent
Fellow
and
was hired
as an assistant
astronomer.
James
Bauer and
Daniel
Potter
completed
requirements
for
the Ph.D. degree.
The other graduate
students
during
the report
period
were
Sean Andrews,
James Armstrong,
Elizabeth Barrett,
Brian Barris,
Sandrine Bottinelli,
Peter Capak,
Li Hsin Chien,
Michael Connelley,
Michael Cushing,
Scott Dahm,
David Donovan,
Luke Dundon,
Hai Fu,
David Harrington,
Henry Hsieh,
Catherine Ishida,
Yuko Kakazu,
Jeyhan Kartaltepe,
Dale Kocevski,
Elizabeth McGrath,
Nicholas Moskovitz,
Megan Novicki,
Maria Pereira,
Mark Pitts,
Steve Rodney,
Barry Rothberg,
Scott Sheppard,
Brian Stalder,
Wei-Hao Wang,
Kathryn Whitman, and
Mark Willman.
For more information
about the graduate
program,
see www.ifa.hawaii.edu/gradprog.
Visiting colleagues included
Amy Barger (University
of Wisconsin-Madison),
Akiva Bar Nun (Tel Aviv
University, Israel),
Troelz Dencer (Danish
Technical University),
Miwa Goto (Subaru Telescope),
Tim Kendall (Observatorio
Astronomico de Lisboa,
Portugal), and Andreas
Siefahrt and Alexander
Szameit
(from Germany).
2.1 New Faculty
Robert Jedicke joined
the faculty in March
to help guide the search
for near-Earth asteroids
as part of the Pan-STARRS
project. Eric Tollestrup
became IRTF deputy division
chief
(Hilo) in
June.
2.2 Honors
and Awards Received
Henry received a Humboldt
Research Award for Senior
U.S. Scientists from
the Alexander von Humboldt
Foundation.
The publishers of Science Citation Index named four IfA scientists, L. Cowie,
Henry,
Sanders, and Tully, "highly cited authors." The ISIHighlyCited.com Web site lists
them
among 249 of the world's most cited and influential researchers in the space
sciences, the
top one-half of one percent of all publishing researchers in this field.
Sheppard was selected
as the 2003 Helen Jones
Farrar Achievement Rewards
for College Scientists
(ARCS Scholar). Rothberg
and Kocevski received
NASA fellowships.
3 MAUNA KEA OBSERVATORIES
The telescopes in
operation during the
report period
were the UH 2.2-m and
0.6-m telescopes; the
3-m NASA Infrared Telescope
Facility (IRTF), operated
by the UH under a cooperative
agreement with NASA;
the 3.6-m Canada-France-Hawaii
Telescope (CFHT), operated
by the Canada-France-Hawaii
Telescope Corporation
on behalf of the National
Research Council of Canada,
the Centre National de
la Recherche Scientifique
of France, and UH; the
3.8-m United Kingdom
Infrared Telescope (UKIRT),
operated in Hawaii by
the Joint Astronomy Centre
(JAC) based in Hilo on
behalf of the Particle
Physics and Astronomy
Research Council of the
United Kingdom; the 15-m
James Clerk Maxwell Telescope
(JCMT), a submillimeter
telescope operated by
the JAC on behalf of
the United Kingdom, Canada,
and the Netherlands;
the 10.4-m Caltech Submillimeter
Observatory (CSO), operated
by the California Institute
of Technology for the
National Science Foundation
(NSF); the Hawaii antenna
of the Very Long Baseline
Array (VLBA), operated
by the National Radio
Astronomy Observatory
(NRAO); the 10-m Keck
I and Keck II telescopes
of the W. M. Keck Observatory,
which is operated by
the California Association
for Research in Astronomy
for the use of astronomers
from the California Institute
of Technology, the University
of California system,
NASA, and UH; the 8.3-m
Subaru Telescope, operated
by the National Astronomical
Observatory of Japan
(NAOJ); and the 8.1-m
Frederick C. Gillett
Gemini Telescope (Gemini
North), built by an international
partnership and managed
by the Association of
Universities for Research
in Astronomy.
At the Submillimeter Array (SMA), installation and
commissioning of the eight 6-m antennas were close to
completion. The official dedication of the facility
will be on November 22, 2003. The SMA is a collaborative
project of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and the Institute of
Astronomy and Astrophysics of the Academia Sinica of Taiwan.
4 HALEAKALA
OBSERVATORIES
4.1 Mees Solar Observatory
Mees Solar Observatory
supports IfA solar scientists
in data acquisition by
running diverse observational
programs with its telescope
cluster. The observatory
regularly co-observes
with the satellites Solar
and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO ), Transition
Region and Coronal Explorer ( TRACE ),
and Reuven Ramaty
High Energy Solar Spectroscopic
Imager (RHESSI ).
It also participates
in special satellite
and ground-based observatory
campaigns. The observatory's
complement of instruments
includes the Imaging
Vector Magnetograph (IVM),
Haleakala Stokes Polarimeter,
Mees CCD Imaging Spectrograph
(MCCD), Mees White Light
Telescope, and Coronal
Limb Imagers.
4.2 SOLARC
The SOLARC (Scatter Free Observatory for Limb Active Regions and Coronae) instrument is a 0.5-m off-axis coronagraphic reflecting
telescope adjacent to the Mees Solar Observatory. This instrument (1) allows coronal
observations that
have not been
realized, even
from
space,
(2) develops technology
that IfA scientists
believe will be
used for future
satellite
observations, and
(3) supports several
long-term coronal
observing platforms
that extend intermittent
coronal space observations.
Unlike most telescopes,
light strikes
the SOLARC
mirrors off axis, at
an angle to their
surfaces. No light
is blocked, reflected,
scattered,
or diffracted by the
mirrors or their
support structure
aside from the
superpolished
optical surfaces.
Two new infrared spectrometers
were implemented in 2003.
The first is
a 1-5 mm high-background differential
spectrograph designed
primarily for use in
the thermal infrared,
and the second is a multifiber
spectrograph that is
designed for the 1-2.2 mm regime. Both spectrographs
will be used for measuring
coronal magnetic fields.
4.3 LURE
Observatory
LURE is a satellite laser
ranging (SLR) observatory.
LURE utilizes a high-powered
pulsed laser to obtain
distance measurements
to satellites in Earth
orbit. LURE is funded
by the Space Geodesy
Networks and Sensor Calibration
Office of NASA Goddard
Space Flight Center.
The missions of the target
satellites include monitoring
of Earth resources and
climate parameters, measurements
of ocean levels and temperatures,
plate tectonics, and
the improvement of the
Global Positioning System
(GPS), as well as special
missions related to the
physics of tethered satellite
systems. LURE is capable
of providing data 21
hours per day, 7 days
per week. It routinely
ranks in the top 5 of
the 39 ILRS (International
Laser Ranging Service)
satellite ranging stations
in both quality and quantity
of data. See koa.ifa.hawaii.edu/Lure/.
Haleakala Observatories
is under contract to
the Air Force Research
Laboratories to conduct
a research program known
as the AEOS Haleakala
Atmospheric Characterization
(AHAC). This program
supports the U.S. Air
Force Advanced Electro-Optical
System (AEOS) Telescope
on Haleakala by providing
comprehensive atmospheric
characterization and
timely prediction of
inclement weather conditions
at the observatory site.
The instrument suite
that supports these site
measurements includes
a daytime/nighttime optical
seeing monitor and a
network of remote meteorological
systems linked by radio
modems. The optical seeing
monitor captures star
image data at high frame
rates and uses a differential
image motion technique
to allow the computation
of seeing statistics
over intervals of a few
seconds. Data from the
remote meteorology stations
are processed using an
artificial intelligence
program to generate locally
specific predictions
of adverse weather events
on a time horizon of
30 minutes. For more
information, see the
Web site at banana.ifa.hawaii.edu/.
4.5 MAGNUM Telescope Project
The 2-m Multicolor Active
Galactic Nuclei Monitoring
(MAGNUM) Telescope is
dedicated to studying
the variation of light
from active galactic
nuclei (AGNs). The project
is a collaboration between
the University of Tokyo
and UH. The main scientific
objective of MAGNUM is
to measure distances
to AGNs and quasars up
to z=1. The telescope
is designed to be operated
remotely and to conduct
observations autonomously.
For more information,
see merope.mtk.nao.ac.jp/ ~ yuki/mage.html.
4.6 Faulkes Telescope
First light occurred
on the night of August
7-8, 2003. For more information
about this project, see
the Outreach section
of this
report.
4.7 HiVIS
Spectrograph
The HiVIS visible and
infrared high-resolution
spectrograph was commissioned
for use on the AEOS telescope.
This facility instrument
operates from a wavelength
of 0.39 mm out to 2.2 mm with spectral resolution
of between 10,000 and
40,000. It is the highest
resolution widest wavelength
coverage spectrograph
on a 4-m-class telescope
anywhere in the world.
It is being routinely
used for high-resolution
stellar spectroscopy.
4.8 Kermit
Infrared Imager
A 2048 ×
2048 pixel 1-2.5 mm infrared imaging camera
system has been commissioned
for use on Haleakala.
This fast readout, low-scattered
light camera is designed
to be used with the AEOS
telescope and other infrared
instrumentation at the
summit of Haleakala.
5 INSTRUMENTATION
Work continued
on the 85-actuator
curvature-sensing
adaptive optics
system Hokupa‘a-85,
which
will be installed on
the Gemini South telescope.
The electronics are completely
integrated, the optics
have been installed and
aligned, and all mechanisms,
aside from the deformable
mirror, have been installed
and tested. A change
in the
deformable mirror material
and a new electrode design
have resulted in a slight
delay, but the final
deformable mirror is
in hand and is currently
being wired up. The new
mirror
material can be coated
directly, avoiding the
need for replication
of the mirror surface
on the PZT material.
The predicted Strehl
ratio for the entire
system, assuming 0.75
arcsec seeing conditions,
is ~0.6 in the H band and ~0.7 in the K band.
The Orthogonal Parallel
Transfer Imaging Camera
(OPTIC) was fully commissioned
and used throughout the
spring semester by UH
observers, and it has
traveled to WIYN Observatory
twice as a visitor instrument.
It offers some features
beyond the standard
4096×4096 imager,
such as image motion
compensation, the ability
to track moving objects,
and point-spread function
(PSF) shaping for planet
detection. Howell et
al. (2003, PASP, 115,
1340) describe some of
these unusual capabilities.
The ULBCam was completed and set up at the UH 2.2-m telescope in time for its inaugural
run in early September. With four working 2048×2048 arrays, this 16 megapixel
camera, the world's largest format infrared imager, worked well from the outset and
produced a large amount of data. It is quite heavily scheduled throughout the rest of the
semester. Apart from some minor tweaking for ground-based observing, the
construction phase has now been successfully completed.
6 PAN-STARRS
The Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) project will
create a wide-field imaging system with an innovative design. It is supported by
a grant from the Air Force Research Laboratories. Kaiser is the principal
investigator.
Pan-STARRS will be composed
of four 1.8-m telescopes
observing the same region
of sky simultaneously.
Each telescope will have
a 3° field of view
and be equipped with
a CCD focal plane mosaic
with 109 pixels.
The spatial sampling
of the sky will be about
0.3 arcsec. In survey
mode, i.e., searching
for potential killer
asteroids, Pan-STARRS
will cover 6,000 deg2 per
night. The whole available
sky as seen from Hawaii
will be observed three
times during the dark
time in each lunation.
With exposure times varying between 30 and 60 seconds, Pan-STARRS is expected to
reach a limiting magnitude of 24. The focal plane will employ orthogonal transfer CCDs
(OTCCDs) that allow the shifting of charge along both rows and columns. This will allow
the use of on-chip image motion compensation, i.e., the equivalent of "tip-tilt" image
compensation but without any moving parts.
During the report period,
there was rapid progress
on science studies and
the design of telescopes,
detector systems, and
data systems. A project
management structure
was established. Thomas
Dombeck was hired as
project manager, David
Hafner as project program
engineer, and Robert
Jedicke as a specialist
in
near-Earth objects.
IfA astronomers and
their colleagues
at other observatories
in Hawaii inaugurated
the Center for Star
and Planet Formation
(CSPF) in
2002. Colleagues
at
the Hawaii Institute
of Geophysics and
Planetology provide
additional
expertise about meteorites.
The CSPF strives
to facilitate communication
among researchers
who
specialize in different
disciplines, each
of which provides insight
into important but
limited aspects of
how stars and planets
form. Weekly seminars
by IfA staff
and visitors help
keep
CSPF members abreast
of the latest research
and developments
in the field. The seminars
take place in Manoa,
with a
video link to IfA-Hilo.
A program to bring
long-term visitors
to IfA is on the
drawing
board, and plans
are also underway for
starting
a
summer school that
will bring together,
from all over the
world, graduate students
working
on a doctorate in
star or planet formation.
In addition, the
CSPF
is in the process
of organizing a
major international
meeting, "Protostars and Planets V," to
be held in October
2005. For more information,
see www.ifa.hawaii.edu/CSPF.
8 UH
ASTROBIOLOGY LEAD TEAM
In June, NASA announced that a group led by Meech was selected as one of six new
Astrobiology Lead Teams. The award will bring over $5 million to UH over the next 5
years. Astrobiology research programs that will be supported at UH will have a special
focus on water as the habitat of, and chemical enabler for, life.
This research will have
the following foci: the
abundance and distribution
of water in the interstellar
medium and in circumstellar
disks; the water content,
D/H ratio, and dynamics
of icy outer solar system
bodies such as comets
and Kuiper Belt objects;
laboratory experiments
related to complex molecule
trapping and formation
on interstellar grains;
cosmochemical studies
of meteorites that record
the incorporation of
water into silicate material
in the early solar system;
models of the escape
of water from the atmospheres
of Earth-size planets;
spacecraft- and meteorite-based
research and theoretical
studies of the role of
water in forming the
diversity of rocks and
sediments on Earth, Mars,
and Venus; biological
exploration of ice-covered
habitats in Iceland,
Antarctica, and North
America with application
to the search for life
on Mars and Europa; biological
and chemical exploration
of extreme aquatic habitats
in and around the Hawaiian
islands including the
deep-sea Kauhako Lake
crater on Molokai and
Lake Waiau on Mauna Kea;
and development of concepts
and prototype hardware
for instruments that
could be used to detect
and characterize life
on other planetary bodies.
See www.ifa.hawaii.edu/UHNAI for
more information.
9 OUTREACH
Heasley continued to serve as outreach coordinator until the end of August 2003.
Monthly star
charts and a quarterly
newsletter continued to be sent to members of the Friends of Hawaii
Astronomy and other
interested parties. An open house for the general public was held at the Manoa
facility on April 26, 2003. It included lectures, tours, and displays. IfA
faculty and
staff also
participated in AstroDay on April 19 in Hilo and in the Hawaii County Fair in
September.
Other outreach activities included public lectures and star parties.
In September, Gary Fujihara
became the science education
and public outreach officer
in Hilo.
9.1 TOPS Teacher Enhancement Program
The TOPS (Towards Other
Planetary Systems) teacher
enhancement program held
its final summer workshops
in 2003. The purpose
of TOPS has been to instruct
math and science teachers
about how to incorporate
astronomy into their
curricula. The primary
goal of the June workshop,
held on Oahu, was to
equip the participants
with the necessary skills
to mentor students undertaking
astronomy projects during
the 2003-4 school year.
Because this workshop
was aimed at consolidating
skills acquired in previous
years, all but one of
the 16 participants were
TOPS alumni. A major
objective of the summer
workshop in Hawaii was
to get teachers ready
to use the Faulkes Telescope
on Haleakala (see Sec.
9.2).
Besides learning to mentor student projects, the TOPS teachers honed their skills
for
planning and executing workshops for other teachers to give the TOPS program a
significant multiplier effect. The TOPS teachers presented a teacher workshop on
Maui that
covered included archeoastronomy, light and spectroscopy, celestial navigation,
cratering,
and the expanding universe.
The primary instructors
for the Hawaii workshop
included TOPS director
Meech, T. Slater and
J. Bailey (Univ. Arizona),
and J. Mattei (director,
American Association
of
Variable
Star Observers).
In addition to the workshop in Hawaii, several of the TOPS leaders directed a
workshop on
Pohnpei at the end of July. Fourteen returning TOPS teachers from Micronesia, as
well as
13 additional teachers from Pohnpei and Kosrae, attended.
Meech procured funding
to send the teachers
to the meeting of the
Division of Planetary
Sciences of the American
Astronomical Society
in September 2003 to
share their project ideas
and attend an extrasolar
planet workshop.
TOPS meetings and Maui workshops will
continue the TOPS initiative.
Additional information about TOPS is available at www.ifa.hawaii.edu/tops.
9.2 Faulkes
Telescope
The Faulkes Telescope
North is a 2-m telescope
facility at the Haleakala
High Altitude Observatory
site on Maui.
The Dill Faulkes
Educational Trust
of the United Kingdom
(UK) is financing
the
telescope, which
will be named in honor
of
Dr. Martin "Dill" Faulkes,
the British scientist
and software
developer who founded
the trust.
First light occurred
on the night of August
7-8, 2003, and the main
CCD camera was installed.
The telescope is undergoing
testing for pointing,
tracking, and optical
performance. Plans call
for the telescope to
be operational by the
end of 2003.
The Faulkes Telescope will be the largest professional grade
telescope in the world dedicated to education and public outreach. The project
will
draw on young people's interest in astronomy to teach them what science is. It
will
offer students in the UK and Hawaii hands-on research experience. Students
will conduct research projects under the mentoring of their teachers and
professional astronomers. In Hawaii, access to the telescope will be available
to public and private schools and to the science programs of the UH system and
other local colleges. It will be operated remotely from control centers in the
UK and on Maui.
Later, funds will be
sought to add an infrared
camera to allow operation
of the telescope during
daylight hours. A spectrograph
is also under consideration
as a future instrument.
For more information,
see
www.faulkes-telescope.com/.
Trained during the summer 2003 to do remote observing,
TOPS teachers are now preparing students for pilot
astrobiology projects. When the Faulkes Telescope is ready in
January 2004, these students will obtain images needed
for them. The vision is to have them produce
exemplary astronomy science fair projects. This effort is being supported
by the newly granted NASA Astrobiology Lead Team at UH.
9.3 Research
Experiences for Undergraduates
The
Research Experiences for Undergraduates program, funded mainly by a
five-year
grant from NSF, continued for a third year. Eight students from the mainland and
one from
UH spent 10-12 weeks in the summer as full-time research assistants under
the
supervision of a faculty mentor. The students, their home institutions and
faculty
mentors were Curtis Asplund (Oberlin, Coleman), Eva-Marie David (Xavier, Simon),
Trent
Dupuy (Texas, Reipurth), Sharon Velez Erickson (Hawaii, Ftaclas), Audra Hernandez
(Colorado, Williams), Ellen Lee (Harvard, Li),
Amy Livernois (Maine, Ftaclas),
Jeremy Miller (Maryland, Tholen), and
Yvonne Torres (New Mexico State, Heasley).
10 SCIENTIFIC
RESEARCH
Listed below are the major areas of research at the IfA, followed
by the names of those active in that area (some names
are listed more than once). Further information about research
activities can be found at
www.ifa.hawaii.edu/research, on the home pages
of individual faculty members (accessible through
www.ifa.hawaii.edu/faculty),
and in the list
of publications
(see Sec. 11). See Sec. 5
for more information
about instrumentation
projects.
