THE ING NEWSLETTER No. 5, October 2001
GENERAL SCIENCE TELESCOPES AND INSTRUMENTATION OTHER NEWS FROM ING TELESCOPE TIME
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Front Cover Picture
This H-alpha image (top) of globular cluster M13 was taken with the WHT's adaptive-optics system NAOMI. The FWHM has been improved from 0.8 arcsec (natural seeing) to 0.4 arcsec, allowing many faint stars to be resolved. The image was taken during September 2001 tests of NAOMI's performance at optical wavelengths, and provides a realistic outlook of the AO potential at the William Herschel Telescope. Given that the median natural seeing on La Palma is about 0.7 arcsec, an image quality of ~0.3 arcsec in the R and I bands should be achieved regularly. [ GIF | TIFF ] AO capability at optical wavelengths is not common place at other observatories. In the infrared, where diffraction limited performance is more readily obtained, NAOMI has already proven its capability. This image shows the K-band diffraction limited (0.13 arcsec FWHM) central star of the planetary nebula BD+30 3639. The nebula has a radius of ~2.5 arcsec on this image. Interestingly, field stars as far away as 30 arcsec from the central star still enjoy very good AO correction, indicating that on La Palma good AO correction can be achieved over moderately wide fields. (See also article by Benn et al. on page 19). [ JPEG | TIFF ] More information: NAOMI First Results in the Optical
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GENERAL SCIENCE TELESCOPES AND INSTRUMENTATION OTHER NEWS FROM ING TELESCOPE TIME © Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes, La Palma, 2001.