Persberichten

27 februari 1999: The galaxy cluster 1ES 0657-55 is located in the southern constellation Carina (The Keel), south of the Milky Way band. Its redshift has been measured as z = 0.29. It is a source of strong and very hot X-ray emission and has an asymmetric galaxy distribution, indicating a large mass and recent formation. Images obtained with the ESO 3.6-m New Technology Telescope (NTT) at La Silla have revealed the presence of an arc , i.e. presumably a background galaxy at larger distance, whose image is strongly distorted by the gravitational field of this cluster.

27 februari 1999: NGC 1850 is a double cluster in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy to the Milky Way Galaxy, deep in the southern sky. This cluster is representative of a class of objects, young, globular-like stellar associations, that has no counterpart in our own Galaxy.

27 februari 1999: The FORS1 multi-mode instrument is able to record images as well as spectra of even very distant objects. During the past months, data have been obtained that show the properties of some of the remotest known objects in the Universe.

27 februari 1999: NGC 1232 is a prominent southern Sc spiral galaxy in the constellation Eridanus (The River). With a diameter of nearly 200,000 lightyears, it is about twice the size of the Milky Way galaxy. The distance is about 100 million light-years, but the excellent optical quality of the VLT and FORS allows us to see an incredible wealth of details.

27 februari 1999: Continuing progress in astronomical technology is opening new possibilities for the study of the distant universe. One of the most exciting, recent additions to this branch of astrophysics, known as cosmology, has been the discovery of a large population of galaxies in the primordial Universe in which intensive star-formation is going on. They are so distant (their redshifts are larger than 3 [1]) that the corresponding look-back time is over 90% of the age of the Universe, now estimated at about 14 - 15 billion years (1 billion = 1,000 million). We observe these objects as they were, when the Universe was between 1 and 2 billion years old. The investigation of the early Universe is one of the primary scientific goals that have motivated the construction of the ESO Very Large Telescope and its very diverse complement of instrumentation. The aim of these studies is to extend the observations of basic properties of galaxies to objects at the largest possible distances and hence the earliest possible epochs. We would like to learn as much as possible about these very faint galaxies, including their numbers and hence their space density, as well as their brightness, colours, sizes and shapes. What are the rates with which stars are formed in different galaxies at different epochs, what is their chemical composition and mass? How do they move in space and how do they cluster?

27 februari 1999: Various observations were made with ISAAC at the Nasmyth focus of VLT UT1 during the recent commissioning periods for this infrared multi-mode instrument. Some of the first results from the VLT Infrared Spectrometer And Array Camera (ISAAC) were published earlier. The following photos illustrate the type of front-line work that is now possible with ISAAC. The possibility to obtain high-quality infrared spectra of even quite faint (and remote) objects is particularly interesting.

27 februari 1999: The VLT UT1 and FORS1 has performed observations of many different types of objects during the past months. While much effort has been spent on extremely distant galaxies, some exposures were also made on more nearby systems, including some dwarf galaxies in the Local Group of Galaxies. The Andromeda Galaxy and the Magellanic Clouds, as well as our own Milky Way Galaxy, are the best known members of this group.

27 februari 1999: Studies of "Deep Fields" are becoming common practice in astronomy. To mention a few: the two Hubble Deep Fields ( HDF-N and HDF-S , north and south of the celestial equator), the NTT Deep Field, the AXAF Deep Field , the FORS Deep Field. The latter will be observed during FORS1 "guaranteed time" that is available to astronomers from those institutes that built this instrument. All of these sky fields have been selected for being quite 'empty', in the sense that few brighter objects are seen in them. They are thus of the same type ('generic'), with the partial exception of HDF-S that contains a QSO (quasar).

27 februari 1999: NGC 1365 is one of the most prominent "barred" galaxies in the sky. It is a supergiant galaxy with a diameter of about 200,000 lightyears, seen in the direction of the southern constellation Fornax (The Furnace). It is a major member of the Fornax Cluster of Galaxies . The distance is about 60 million light-years and the recession velocity has been measured as 1632 km/sec.

25 februari 1999: While much attention is now directed towards the VLT Opening Symposium that will take place in Antofagasta on 1-4 March 1999, assembly work on the VLT Unit Telescopes proceeds at Paranal.

18 februari 1999: A group of ESO astronomers [1] has used new observations, obtained with the first 8.2-m VLT Unit Telescope (UT1) during the "Science Verification" programme, to show that a globular cluster in the Milky Way galaxy is "evaporating" and has already lost its faintest stars.

16 februari 1999: A new, short videotape, ESO Video News Reel no. 4 - "VLT UT1 Soon Ready to Receive the Astronomers," is being issued in connection with the start, on April 1, 1999, of regular observations with the VLT UT1 and the associated events in Chile. These include the VLT Opening Symposium in Antofagasta (March 1-4, 1999) and the official VLT Inauguration Ceremony at Paranal (March 5, 1999).

11 februari 1999: Here are some recent wide-angle photos of the first 8.2-m VLT Unit Telescope (UT1) with FORS1 and ISAAC attached. Regular observations with these astronomical instruments are scheduled to start from April 1, 1999.

4 februari 1999: On December 17, 1998, the third polished 8.2-m Zerodur mirror in its special transport box was loaded onto the vessel "Scanscot Oceanic" in the harbour of Le Havre (France). The ship left the same day and arrived with its precious cargo in Antofagasta in the morning of January 25, 1999. Here it was unloaded and placed on a heavy-duty carriage and moved to Paranal where it arrived two days later.

2 februari 1999: While a major effort is now spent on the Very Large Telescope and its advanced instruments at Paranal, ESO is also continuing to operate and upgrade the extensive research facilities at La Silla, its other observatory site. Within this programme, a new and powerful spectrograph, known as the Fibre-fed Extended Range Optical Spectrograph (FEROS), has recently been built by a consortium of European institutes. It was commissioned in late 1998 at the ESO 1.52-m telescope by a small team of astronomers and engineers and has already produced the first, interesting scientific results.

26 januari 1999: The present video clip contains some scenes, just published on ESO Video News Reel no. 3 - "Into the Invisible with ISAAC" and based on recent footage from the Paranal Observatory.

15 januari 1999: The newest astronomical instrument at the La Silla observatory is a super-camera with no less than sixty-seven million image elements. It represents the outcome of a joint project between the European Southern Observatory (ESO), the Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie (MPI-A) in Heidelberg (Germany) and the Osservatorio Astronomico di Capodimonte (OAC) near Naples (Italy), and was installed at the 2.2-m MPG/ESO telescope in December 1998. Following careful adjustment and testing, it has now produced the first spectacular test images.

14 januari 1999: New photographic photos with large-format cameras were obtained in December 1998 at the ESO Paranal Observatory, the site of ESO's Very Large Telescope Array (VLT), by the ESO EPR team. High-resolution electronic versions (300 dpi, about 3000 pixels; 4-8 Mbytes) of some of these are now available on the web.

8 januari 1999: The ESO Council has appointed Dr. Catherine Cesarsky as Director General for a five year period, succeeding Professor Riccardo Giacconi, whose term ends this year. Dr. Cesarsky will take up her duties on September 1, 1999, at the ESO Headquarters in Garching (Germany).

22 december 1998: Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!