NSF Award
0807873
Dr. Feldmeier will search for diffuse light between the galaxies within several galaxy groups. This light is probably that of stars torn from the galaxies as their orbits within the group bring them close to one another. Very deep images will be obtained with the Burrell Schmidt, a 0.6-meter telescope that has been specially adapted for deep exposures covering 1.5 degrees across on the sky, or 3 times the diameter of the full moon. Images in a narrow bandpass that picks out the green light of the OIII line will be used to find planetary nebulae. These objects represent the final stage in the life of a sunlike star, as it blows off its outer layers; the ejected gas is ionized by the star's hot core, and shines brightly in the OIII line. The team will then take spectra with larger telescopes to confirm that objects that appear bright at the wavelength of the survey bandpass really are planetary nebulae, to find their radial velocities, and to explore the other chemical elements present in the gas. In preparation for surveys with new large imagers such as the One-Degree Imager (ODI) that is now being built for the 3.5-meter WIYN telescope, Dr Feldmeier will use smaller telescopes to calibrate dense fields of standard stars in one-degree patches in different areas of the sky. With these it will be possible to calibrate ODI 'in one shot' rather than taking many images to place a single standard star successively on the 64 independent elements of the imager. <br/><br/>Dr. Feldmeier's institution, Youngstown State University, is an undergraduate institution; he will involve undergraduate students in both astronomical and technical aspects of the research. The standard-star data for the one-degree calibration fields will be released to the community, to be used in other large-field imaging projects. Youngstown State University has a 145-seater planetarium, with software allowing users to design and render their own shows. The PI will produce all-dome videos to illustrate diffuse light between the galaxies in galaxy groups and clusters, and will release those to other planetaria.
