The ArTeMiS cryostat in position at APEX
Harsh conditions at the APEX control building
The stellar nursery NGC 6334 in the constellation of Scorpius
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Videos
First Light of Powerful New Camera on APEX
A new instrument called ArTeMiS has been successfully installed on APEX — the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment. APEX is a 12-metre diameter telescope located high in the Atacama Desert, which operates at millimetre and submillimetre wavelengths — between infrared light and radio waves in the electromagnetic spectrum — providing a valuable tool for astronomers to peer further into the Universe. The new camera has already delivered a spectacularly detailed view of the Cat’s Paw Nebula.
ArTeMiS [1]
is a new wide-field submillimetre-wavelength camera that will be a major
addition to APEX’s suite of instruments and further increase the depth
and detail that can be observed. The new generation detector array of
ArTeMIS acts more like a CCD camera than the previous generation of
detectors. This will let wide-field maps of the sky be made faster and
with many more pixels.
The commissioning team [2]
that installed ArTeMIS had to battle against extreme weather conditions
to complete the task. Very heavy snow on the Chajnantor Plateau had
almost buried the APEX control building. With help from staff at the
ALMA Operations Support Facility and APEX, the team transported the
ArTeMiS boxes to the telescope via a makeshift road, avoiding the
snowdrifts, and were able to install the instrument, manoeuvre the
cryostat into position, and attach it in its final location.
To test the instrument, the team then had to wait for very dry
weather as the submillimetre wavelengths of light that ArTeMiS observes
are very strongly absorbed by water vapour in the Earth's atmosphere.
But, when the time came, successful test observations were made.
Following the tests and commissioning observations, ArTéMiS has already
been used for several scientific projects. One of these targets was the
star formation region NGC 6334, (the Cat’s Paw Nebula), in the southern
constellation of Scorpius (The Scorpion). This new ArTeMiS image is
significantly better than earlier APEX images of the same region.
The testing of ArTeMiS has been completed and the camera will now
return to Saclay in France in order to install additional detectors in
the instrument. The whole team is already very excited by the results
from these initial observations, which are a wonderful reward for many
years of hard work and could not have been achieved without the help and
support of the APEX staff.
Notes
[1] ArTeMiS stands for: Architectures
de bolomètres pour des Télescopes à grand champ de vue dans le domaine
sub-Millimétrique au Sol (Bolometer arrays for wide-field submillimetre
ground-based telescopes).
[2] The commissioning team from CEA consists of
Philippe André, Laurent Clerc, Cyrille Delisle, Eric Doumayrou, Didier
Dubreuil, Pascal Gallais, Yannick Le Pennec, Michel Lortholary, Jérôme
Martignac, Vincent Revéret, Louis Rodriquez, Michel Talvard and François Visticot.
More information
APEX is a collaboration between the Max
Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy (MPIfR), the Onsala Space
Observatory (OSO) and ESO. Operation of APEX at Chajnantor is entrusted
to ESO.
ESO is the foremost intergovernmental astronomy organisation in
Europe and the world’s most productive ground-based astronomical
observatory by far. It is supported by 15 countries: Austria, Belgium,
Brazil, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Italy,
the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United
Kingdom. ESO carries out an ambitious programme focused on the design,
construction and operation of powerful ground-based observing facilities
enabling astronomers to make important scientific discoveries. ESO also
plays a leading role in promoting and organising cooperation in
astronomical research. ESO operates three unique world-class observing
sites in Chile: La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor. At Paranal, ESO
operates the Very Large Telescope, the world’s most advanced
visible-light astronomical observatory and two survey telescopes. VISTA
works in the infrared and is the world’s largest survey telescope and
the VLT Survey Telescope is the largest telescope designed to
exclusively survey the skies in visible light. ESO is the European
partner of a revolutionary astronomical telescope ALMA, the largest
astronomical project in existence. ESO is currently planning the
39-metre European Extremely Large optical/near-infrared Telescope, the
E-ELT, which will become “the world’s biggest eye on the sky”.
Links
Contacts
Michel TalvardProject Manager for ArTeMiS / CEA
Saclay, France
Tel: +33 1 6908 8352
Email: michel.talvard@cea.fr
Carlos De Breuck
ESO APEX Project Manager
Garching, Germany
Tel: +49 89 3200 6613
Email: cdebreuc@eso.org
Richard Hook
ESO Public Information Officer
Garching bei München, Germany
Tel: +49 89 3200 6655
Cell: +49 151 1537 3591
Email: rhook@eso.org
