Lab Chief: Louis Kaluzienski
Code 665
NASA's GSFC
Greenbelt, MD 20771
Tel: 301.286.6194
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We just completed (August 1996) first run of the instrument with large high
performance infrared array detector. The picture shows the
spectrometer set up at the Mauna Kea observatory, Hawaii. Large
domes in the background are Keck telescopes.
We had the instrument set up by the Infrared Telescope Facility.
The spectrometer operates in two different modes: 1) without telescope,
producing images of the sky on the detector, and 2) with the small
8" telescope attached, imaging entrance aperture on the detector
(shown here).
This image shows sequence of the interferograms of the laboratory
hydorgen lamp obtained with the spectrometer. The diameter of
the ring shanges as the spectrometer is tuned to different wavelength.
This is the interferogram of the Galactic center region at Brackett
alpha (4.05 microns), obtained on August 04, 1996.
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BAM: Brackett Alpha Mapper
The BAM Project is dedicated to the study of the diffuse ionized interstellar
hydrogen in the Galactic plane. This page gives basics of the
project and describes recent developments. The instrument was
developed at the
Laboratory of Astronomy and Solar Physics , NASA/Goddard Space
Flight Center by Alexander
Kutyrev . This is a joint project of LASP and University of
Wisconsin, Madison. Major participants are Charles
Bennett and Harvey
Moseley (LASP), and Ronald
Reynolds and Fred
Roesler (University of Wisconsin).
The primary goal of this proposed
project is to explore the global morphology
and energy balance of the warm ionized component of the Galaxy
and its relation to the other phases of the ISM. The Wisconsin
H-alpha Mapper ( WHAM
) project will map the whole sky in H-alpha emission with 1 degree
spatial resolution and 12 km/s velocity resolution. However, because
of extinction in the disk of the Galaxy, most of the Galactic
gas is inaccessible with \ha observations . In order to complete
our picture of the overall morphology of this gas, we propose
to carry out a ground-based survey of diffuse ionized Galactic
hydrogen in the inner parts of the Galaxy, using powerful Fabry-Perot
techniques in the infrared that are very similar to those successfully
employed in the visible to observe the Brackett-alpha and Brackett-gamma
lines.
We have carried out a successful field test of this instrument,
where the Brackett-gamma emission line from
the diffuse warm ionized medium was detected for the first time.
The preliminary results of the survey have been presented at 4th
Grand Tetons meeting.
See the Poster:
Brackett-gamma
line survey of the ionized hydrogen in the Galactic plane
We built a high performance near-IR Fabry-Perot spectrometer.
The instrument, with high sensitivity, high spectral resolution (10000
and higher), and low spatial resolution (about 1 degree) is specifically
designed for observations of the extended faint emission objects.
It has the sensitivity to map the emission of the diffuse warm
ionized hydrogen recombination lines Brackett-gamma (2.1655 micron
wavelength) and Brackett-alpha (4.052 micron wavelength).
The high throughput near-IR Fabry-Perot spectrometer
has been designed and built at the Infrared Branch of
the Laboratory for Astronomy and Space Physics by Alexander Kutyrev.
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