Subject: observing report - UT 2005 Aug 2-3; VLT


Hey SHzRG'ers,

We just finished off 1.5 nights on VLT/UT-2 with FORS1 doing optical
imaging polarimetry on some of our Spitzer HzRGs.  Skies were clear, but
high winds on the full night restricted our access to targets, and both
nights suffered from poor seeing -- typically ~1.6", but as bad as 2.5"
for some of the targets.  We basically detected all of the targets in our
quick reduction, total intensity images.  However, only a few targets were
well-enough detected to likely yield high-quality polarimetry measurements
-- but we'll see what we can get on all of them.  This may be too tough of
an experiment to do on z>2 HzRGs without very long exposures, or, more
likely, we just needed better conditions.

Here's what we did:

  SHzRG		z	band	exptime - notes
  -----------   -----   ----    ---------------
  pks1138-26	2.156	  I	3600s
  txs1707+105	2.349	  I	9000s
  mrc2048-272	2.156	  I	2000s
  mg2144+1928	3.594	  I	7200s
  mrc2104-242	2.491	  I	7200s
  mrc2224-273	1.678	  V	5040s - bright
  mrc0037-273	1.100	  V	2880s - bright
  mrc0152-209	1.890	  R	4800s - bright; nice ERO in field


Paranal is gorgeous, the "hotel" (dorm) a dreamy high-altitude resort.

Cheers,

Daniel & Carlos