Ugens billede 2009

28. december 2009: A new architectural concept drawing of ESO’s planned Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) shows the telescope at work, with its dome open and its record-setting 40-metre-class primary mirror pointed to the sky. In this illustration, clouds float over the valley overlooked by the ELT’s summit. The comparatively tiny pickup truck parked at the base of the ELT helps to give a sense of the scale of this massive telescope. The ELT dome will be similar in size to a football stadium, with a diameter at its base of over 100 m and a height of over 80 m. Scheduled to begin operations early in the next decade, the ELT will help track down Earth-like planets around other stars in the “habitable zones” where life could exist — one of the Holy Grails of modern observational astronomy. The ELT will also make fundamental contributions to cosmology by measuring the properties of the ...

21. december 2009: Denne udsigt over ESOs La Silla observatorium, afslører den prægtige nattehimmel og viser flere af teleskopbygningerne placeret på stedet.Det glødende bånd i Mælkevejens plan går skråt gennem himlen fra øverst til venstre til nederst i midten, hvor den lukkede kuppel der beskytter GPO (Grand Prism Objectif) og, som også var hjemsted for Marly, 1-meter teleskopet i forgrunden, sammen med det danske 1,54 meter teleskop.De spøgelsesagtige, blålige objekter over GPO kupplen er to galaktiske naboer til Mælkevejen, kendt som Store- og Lille Magellanske Sky.Samlingen af teleskoper på La Silla, omfatter også blandt andet ESOs 3,6-meter teleskop, hjemsted for "High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher" (HARPS), verdens førende exoplanetjæger og 3,58-meter New Technology Telescope (NTT), som var banebrydende for teleskop teknik og design, og var det første i verden til at have et computerstyret hovedspejl (aktiv optik), en teknologi udviklet af ESO og som nu anvendes på de fleste af verdens aktive ...

14. december 2009: The Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), with a main mirror 39 metres in diameter, will be the world’s biggest eye on the sky when it becomes operational early in the next decade. The ELT will tackle the biggest scientific challenges of our time, and aim for a number of notable firsts, including tracking down Earth-like planets around other stars in the “habitable zones” where life could exist — one of the Holy Grails of modern observational astronomy. The telescope design itself is revolutionary and is based on a novel five-mirror scheme that results in exceptional image quality. The primary mirror consists of almost 800 segments, each 1.4 metres wide, but only 50 mm thick. The optical design calls for an immense secondary mirror 4.2 metres in diameter, bigger than the primary mirrors of any of ESO's telescopes at La Silla. Adaptive mirrors are incorporated into the optics of the telescope to ...

7. december 2009: ESO astronomer Yuri Beletsky captured images of the transport of one of the 1.8-metre Auxiliary Telescopes (AT) that compose, together with their larger 8.2-metre companions, ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) array. The AT was moved with the utmost care from the base camp, where it had been undergoing maintenance, including the recoating of its mirrors, back to the VLT platform on top of Cerro Paranal. The ATs form part of the VLT Interferometer (VLTI), allowing this unique facility to operate every night. The ATs are mounted on tracks and can be moved between precisely defined observing positions, collecting light that is then combined in the VLTI. The ATs are very unusual telescopes, as they are self-contained in individual ultra-compact protective domes, and travel with their own electronics, ventilation, hydraulics and cooling systems. Each AT has a transporter that lifts the telescope and moves it from one position to the next. ...

30. november 2009: After almost two months of life-changing experiences, bringing the excitement of astronomy to young children in Chile, Bolivia and Peru, the journey of the GalileoMobile Project has come to an end. As illustrated in this image, the astronomers and educators in the Galilomobile team visited numerous schools and villages during their expedition, engaging young students in educational activities about astronomy and science, and offering amazing stargazing opportunities to the local communities, in a region with one of the clearest skies on Earth. Last week the team visited ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), then continued to Taltal, the closest town to the VLT’s home, Cerro Paranal. Around sunset on 26 November, the GalileoMobile team showed the community of Taltal the highlights of the whole voyage, a voyage that covered around 5,000 kilometres through the Andes. The GalileoMobile was received with great enthusiasm by the people of Taltal. Hundreds of students took ...

23. november 2009: This dramatic triptych shows the Moon rise from left to right through the night sky over ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) observatory at Paranal in northern Chile. Already aloft in the heavens and glowing in the centre of the image is Venus, Earth’s closest planetary neighbour. Shining to Venus’s right, the giant, though more distant planet, Jupiter appears as a small orb that seems to rotate around Venus as time passes. Such apparent celestial near misses — although the heavenly bodies are actually tens to hundreds of millions of kilometres apart — are called conjunctions. Still other sights delight in the sky over Paranal. The radiant, reddish plane of the Milky Way smoulders on the horizon, with massive bands of dust giving this bright region a mottled complexion. On the ground, an 8.2-metre VLT Unit Telescope on the right and a 1.8-metre Auxiliary Telescope to the left silently witness the ...

16. november 2009: A probe was launched last Friday (13 November 2009) from ESO’s Paranal observatory in northern Chile — home of the Very Large Telescope (VLT) — aboard a weather balloon. Such probes, called radiosondes, measure various atmospheric parameters and transmit them to a receiver on the ground. Researchers from ESO, the University of Lethbridge (Canada) and Universidad de Valparaiso (Chile) are currently in the middle of a 12-day programme, during which they plan to launch 29 radiosondes. Each night, parallel observations with the VLT instruments UVES, CRIRES and VISIR are carefully orchestrated to coincide with two additional radiosonde launches, while an infrared radiometer provides continuous coverage. This powerful combination of instruments and methods will provide a better understanding of the distribution and amount of water vapour in the atmosphere above Paranal, which is highly relevant for astronomical observations. The knowledge gained from these data can be used to optimise science operations ...

9. november 2009: Mælkevejen buer på tværs i dette sjældne 360-graders panorama af nattehimlenover Paranal-platformen, hjem for ESOs Very Large Telescope.Billedet er sammensat af 37 individuelle billeder med en samlet eksponeringstid påcirka 30 minutter, taget i de tidlige morgentimer.Månen er netop ved at stå op, og zodiakallyset skinner oven over, mensMælkevejen strækker sig over himlen modsat observatoriet.De åbne teleskopkupler for verdens mest avancerede jordbaserede astronomiskeobservatorium er alle synlige i billedet: de fire mindre 1,8-meter HjælpeTeleskoper, der kan bruges sammen i interferometri-tilstand, og de firegigantiske 8,2 meter Unit teleskoper.Til højre i billedet og under buen af Mælkevejen, ses to af voresgalaktiske naboer, Lille og Store Magellanske Sky.En fantastisk interaktiv virtuel tur er tilgængelig her(http://www.eso.org/public/outreach/products/virtualtours/armazones_tour/paranal-armazones.html)

2. november 2009: En laserstråle skyder ud af Yepun, det fjerde Unit Teleskop på Europas flagskibsobservatorium, ESOs Very Large Telescope (VLT).Strålen bruges til at skabe en kunstig stjerne over Paranal for at at assistere de adaptive optiske instrumenter på VLT.Adaptiv optik er en teknik, der gør det muligt for astronomerne at overvinde den slørende effekt fra atmosfæren og få billeder næsten lige så skarpe som hvis hele teleskopet blev placeret i rummet, over Jordens atmosfære.Adaptiv optik, kræver imidlertid en nærliggende referencestjerne, der skal være relativt lys, hvilket begrænser det område af himlen, der kan observeres.For at overvinde denne vanskelighed, bruger astronomerne på Paranal kraftig laser, der skaber en kunstig stjerne, hvor og hvornår de har brug for det (se eso0607 og eso0727).Brug af sådan en kraftig laser fra et teleskop er state-of-the-art-teknologi og opsætning og drift er en kontinuerlig udfordring.Som det fremgår af billedet, er det imidlertid en teknologi der nu er godt ...

26. oktober 2009: Sitting in the stunning environment surrounding ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) on Cerro Paranal, Chile, are Joe Liske from ESO and Eva Noyola from the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics. The photo is a still image from the recently released 3D film, The EYE 3D — Life and Research on Cerro Paranal, directed by Nikolai Vialkowitsch. The movie, starring the two young scientists, as well as other people involved in the exciting activities at the VLT, offers a brand new, three-dimensional take on the life and research of astronomers. It has been produced by parallax raumprojektion and fact&film, in close collaboration with ESO and other partners and will be coming soon in cinemas across Germany. Don’t forget to wear red-cyan glasses to enjoy the spectacular 3D effect! Links The movie's ESO web page The movie’s external web page: http://www.theeye3d.eu The EYE 3D, press kit (German, PDF format)

19. oktober 2009: Portrayed in this beautiful image is the spiral galaxy NGC 1448, with a prominent disc of young and very bright stars surrounding its small, shining core. Located about 60 million light-years away from the Sun, this galaxy has recently been a prolific factory of supernovae, the dramatic explosions that mark the death of stars : after a first one observed in this galaxy in 1983, two more have been discovered during the past decade. Visible as a red dot inside the disc, in the upper right part of the image, is the supernova observed in 2003 (SN 2003hn), whereas another one, detected in 2001 (SN 2001el), can be noticed as a tiny blue dot in the central part of the image, just below the galaxy’s core. If captured at the peak of the explosion, a supernova might be as bright as the whole galaxy that hosts it. This image was ...

12. oktober 2009: Dette imponerende panorama viser observationsplatformen for ESOsVery Large Telescope (VLT) på Cerro Paranal i Chile.Tidligt om morgenen, med Månen højt på himlen, er stemningen af fred og ro istærk kontrast til den hektiske aktivitet på observatoriet.De fire gigantiske 8.2 meter Unit teleskoper der udgør hovedinstrumenterne påVLT, følger hver sine specifikke himmellegemer som hjælper astronomerne med løsederes daglige opgaver med at forstå universets mysterier.En laser lyser fra Unit Telescope 4, Yepun, som en del af det adaptive optiskesystem på teleskoperne for at modvirke den slørende effekt af atmosfæren.Således bliver det muligt at tage yderst skarpe billeder.Samtidig arbejder tre af de mindre 1.8 meter hjælpeteleskoper sammen som etinterferometer, for at få endnu finere optagelser af forskellige kosmiske objekter.Et QuickTime VR er også tilgængeligt via dette link(http://www.eso.org/public/videos/vlt4-qtvr-one-half/).

5. oktober 2009: Sparkling at the edge of a giant cloud of gas and dust, the Flame Nebula, also referred to as NGC 2024, is in fact the hideout of a cluster of young, blue, massive stars, whose light sets the gas ablaze. Located 1,300 light-years away towards the constellation of Orion, the nebula owes its typical colour to the glow of hydrogen atoms, heated by the stars. The latter are obscured by a dark, forked dusty structure in the centre of the image and are only revealed by infrared observations. This image is based on data acquired with the 1.5-metre Danish telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile, combining three exposures in the filters B (40 seconds), V (80 seconds) and R (40 seconds).

28. september 2009: Through three giant images, the GigaGalaxy Zoom project reveals the full sky as it appears with the unaided eye from one of the darkest deserts on Earth, then zooms in on a rich region of the Milky Way using an amateur telescope, and finally uses the power of a professional telescope to reveal the details of a famous nebula. In this way, the project links the sky we can all see with the deep, “hidden” cosmos that astronomers study on a daily basis and allows the viewers to take a breathtaking dive into our Milky Way. The wonderful quality of the images is a testament to the splendour of the night sky at ESO’s sites in Chile, which are the most productive astronomical observatories in the world.

21. september 2009: Cerro Paranal, i den chilenske Atacama-ørkenen, betragtes som et af ​​de bedste steder i verden til astronomiske observationer.Det er hjemsted for ESOs Very Large Telescope (VLT), flagskibet for europæisk jordbaseret astronomi.Fugtigheden på Paranal er generelt under fem procent, og den samlede nedbør er kun 4 mm om året - et temmelig tørt sted.Der falder, i meget sjældne tilfælde, sne på denne 2600 meter høje top som illustreret ved denne smukke billede taget i 2002.Det snedækkede terræn skinner under en lys blå himmel mens snestormen passerer.

14. september 2009: I dette billede ses to spiralgalakser, svarende i udseende omtrent til Mælkevejen, i en kosmisk ballet, som om et par milliarder år, ender med en komplet galaktisk fusion - de to galakser vil blive til en enkelt, større galakse.Galakserne er omkring 150 millioner lysår væk i stjernebilledet Canis Major (Store Hund). Her danner NGC 2207 - den største af de to - og dens følgesvend, IC 2163, et storslået par.Den engelske astronom John Herschel opdagede parret i 1835.Den fatale tyngdekraft fra NGC 2207 skaber allerede kaos i hele den mindre partner, ved at forvrænge IC 2163s form og slynge stjerner og gas ud i lange strømme, der strækker sig over 100.000 lysår væk.Afstanden mellem de enkelte stjerner i en galakse er så stor, at når galakser kolliderer, er der stort set ingen af ​​stjernerne der fysisk rammer hinanden.Dette billede blev taget med ESO Faint Object Spectrograph and Camera (EFOSC2) gennem ...

7. september 2009: In this photograph taken on 18 August 2009, a European ALMA antenna takes shape at the observatory's Operations Support Facility (OSF). ALMA, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, is a revolutionary astronomical telescope, comprising an array of 66 giant 12-metre and 7-metre diameter antennas observing at millimetre and submillimetre wavelengths. The telescope is being built on the breathtaking location of the Chajnantor plateau, at 5000 metres altitude in the Chilean Andes. The OSF, at which the antennas are being assembled and tested, is at an altitude of 2900 metres. ESO has contracted with the AEM (Alcatel Alenia Space France, Alcatel Alenia Space Italy, European Industrial Engineering S.r.L., MT Aerospace) Consortium for the supply of 25 of the 12-metre diameter ALMA antennas, with options to increase the number to 32. ALMA is a partnership of Europe, North America and East Asia in cooperation with the Republic of Chile.

31. august 2009: Stars such as our Sun do not contain enough mass to finish their lives in the glorious explosions known as supernovae. However, they are still able to salute their imminent demise into dense, Earth-sized embers called white dwarfs by first expelling colourful shells of gas known as planetary nebulae. This misnomer comes from the similarity in appearance of these spherical mass expulsions to giant planets when seen through small telescopes. NGC 6781 is a nice representative of these cosmic bubbles. The planetary nebula lies a few thousand light-years away towards the constellation of Aquila (the Eagle) and is approximately two light-years across. Within NGC 6781, shells of gas blown off from the faint, but very hot, central star’s surface expand out into space. These shells shine under the harsh ultraviolet radiation from the progenitor star in intricate and beautiful patterns. The central star will steadily cool down and darken, eventually ...

24. august 2009: Den store jæger Orion hænger over ESOs Very Large Teleskop (VLT) i dette fantastiske, ikke tidligere offentliggjorte billede. Da VLT ligger på den sydlige halvkugle, ses Orion omvendt, som om han står på hovedet på den chilenske Atacama-ørken, i modsætning til, hvad vi er vant til i Danmark. Om natten peger de fire gigantiske 8,2-meter teleskoper, der udgør VLT, mod himlen for at hjælpe astronomerne i deres søgen efter at forstå universet. Mælkevejens bånd, krydset af kontrasterende mørke støvbaner, strækker sig, på dette billede, over VLTs Unit teleskop 3 (Melipal), med den lyse stjerne Capella glimtende lige over teleskopet. Over og til venstre herfor, ligger Orions bælte og sværd, der indeholder Oriontågen (M42), mellem den blå stjerne Rigel og den orange Betelgeuse. Den røde Rosettatåge (Caldwell 49) ses i midten af ​​Mælkevejen, mens Sirius, den lyseste stjerne i nattehimmelen, svæver over hele scenariet. Den røde plet lige over VLT Unit ...

17. august 2009: This image shows the platform on the summit of Cerro Paranal, in Northern Chile that houses the ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT). Three of the enclosures protecting the 8.2-metre diameter VLT Unit Telescopes (UTs) are shown and the photographer was on the top of the fourth one, about 35 metres above the platform. At night the huge doors in the enclosures slide open and the 275-tonne top parts of these buildings rotate so that the telescope can observe any part of the sky. The pick-up truck in front of the first UT helps give the scale of this 10-story high building. On the left of the image the rails on which the 1.8-metre Auxiliary Telescopes (ATs) can be moved to different observing stations are visible. Two of the four ATs are visible in the picture. The low building in the lower left corner houses the VLT Interferometer laboratory, where the ...