|
UKIDSS is the next generation near-infrared sky
survey, the successor to 2MASS. UKIDSS began in May 2005 and will
survey 7500 square degrees of the Northern sky, extending over
both high and low Galactic latitudes, in JHK to K=18.3. This depth
is three magnitudes deeper than 2MASS. UKIDSS will be the true
near-infrared counterpart to the Sloan survey, and will produce as
well a panoramic clear atlas of the Galactic plane. In fact UKIDSS
is made up of five surveys and includes two deep extra-Galactic
elements, one covering 35 square degrees to K=21, and the other
reaching K=23 over 0.77 square degrees.
The survey instrument is WFCAM on the UK Infrared
Telescope (UKIRT) in Hawaii. WFCAM has four 2048x2048 Rockwell
devices, at 94% spacing, as illustrated at the top. The pixel
scale of 0.4 arcsec gives an exposed solid angle of 0.21
sq. degs.
Four of the principal quarry of UKIDSS are: the
coolest and nearest brown dwarfs, high-redshift dusty starburst
galaxies, elliptical galaxies and galaxy clusters at redshifts
1z2, and the highest-redshift quasars, at z=7. UKIDSS
aims to discover the nearest object to the Sun (outside the
solar system) as well as some of the farthest known objects in the
Universe.
The UKIDSS Consortium is a collection of some 100
astronomers who are responsible for the design and execution of
the survey. The data become available to the entire ESO community
immediately they are entered into the archive. Release to the world follows
18 months after each release to ESO.
|
Science News

1 Feb 2010: Parallax measurement of the first
T9 brown dwarf discovered, ULAS J0034-0052, by Ricky Smart,
Torino. The measured distance of 12.6+/-0.6pc allows the
measurement of the source's bolometric luminosity, and confirms the
very cool temperature of 550-600K previously inferred from
spectroscopic modelling. The source is the coolest brown dwarf
known with a directly measured parallax.The parallax program will
lead to measurements for several more UKIDSS brown dwarfs over 2010
and 2011. For further info see the
press release (in Italian).
Science
News archive
|