Related papers: AAO Observer Number 122 (August 2012)
Gaia is a fully-approved all-sky astrometric and photometric survey due for launch in 2011. It will measure accurate parallaxes and proper motions for everything brighter than G=20 (ca. 10^9 stars). Its primary objective is to study the…
Gaia is a satellite mission of the European Space Agency which is creating a catalogue of extremely accurate positions, distances and space motions of two billion stars in our Galaxy, along with more than one hundred thousand solar system…
Contents: Editorial News: - Topical group news, by Jim Isenberg - Summer school in gravitational physics opportunity, by Jim Hartle - Bogart, Bergman and (Al)bert, by Clifford Will and Robert Riemer - New data-analysis subgroups of the LSC,…
The Galaxy And Mass Assembly Survey (GAMA) has now been operating for almost 5 years gathering spectroscopic redshifts for five regions of sky spanning 300 sq degrees in total to a depth of r<19.8 mag. The survey has amassed over 225,000…
During the commissioning of the Gemini MCAO System (GeMS), we had the opportunity to obtain data with the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph (GMOS), the most utilised instrument at Gemini South Observatory, in March and May 2012. Several…
Contents: APS Topical Group in Gravitation News: April 1997 Joint APS/AAPT Meeting Research briefs: GEO600 by Karsten Danzmann Black hole microstates in string theory by Gary Horowitz LIGO project status by Stan Whitcomb The Hamiltonian…
The detection of a pulsar closely orbiting our Galaxy's supermassive black hole - Sagittarius A* - is one of the ultimate prizes in pulsar astrophysics. The relativistic effects expected in such a system could far exceed those currently…
We review astronomical results in the visible (lambda <1 micron) with adaptive optics and note the status the MagAO system and the recent upgrade to visible camera's Simultaneous/Spectra Differential Imager (SDI to SDI+) mode. Since…
As part of the National Science Foundation funded "Gemini in the Era of MultiMessenger Astronomy" (GEMMA) program, Gemini Observatory is developing GNAO, a widefield adaptive optics (AO) facility for Gemini-North on Maunakea, the only…
The GAIA satellite will observe the Galaxy and its closest satellites in great detail. This should allow (i) dating past events of dwarf galaxies merging or interacting with the Galaxy, and much improved orbital parameters of the nine dwarf…
The Gemini High Resolution Optical Spectrograph (GHOST) is a fiber-fed spectrograph system on the Gemini South telescope that provides simultaneous wavelength coverage from 348 - 1061nm, and designed for optimal performance between 363 -…
Since the IAU (maser-)Symposium 287 in Stellenbosch/South Africa (Jan. 2012), great progress has been achieved in studying extragalactic maser sources. Sensitivity has reached a level allowing for dedicated maser surveys of extragalactic…
GGR News: New version of LISA, by Karsten Danzmann We hear that, by David Garfinkle Research Briefs: Finally, results from Gravity Probe B, by Clifford M. Will Discovery of the highest mass neutron star, by Wynn C.G. Ho Conference reports:…
The Galactic O star catalog (GOS) is an ambitious project to provide as much information regarding these types of objects as possible. The first version of the catalog (GOS v1) included data for 378 stars with precise spectral…
Contents: -Report from the APS Topical Group in Gravitation, Beverly Berger -Some remarks on the passing of S. Chandrasekhar, Robert Wald -LIGO Project Status, Syd Meshkov and Stan Whitcomb -New Hyperbolic forms of the Einstein Equations,…
We present Gemini/GHOST high-resolution spectra of five stars observed in two low surface brightness Milky Way satellites, Sagittarius II (Sgr2) and Aquarius II (Aqu2). For Aqu2, the velocities and metallicities of the two stars are…
Future prospects in observational galaxy evolution are reviewed from a personal perspective. New insights will especially come from high-redshift integral field kinematic data and similar low-redshift observations in very large and…
Contents: APS April Meeting, by Aaron Zimmerman; Cosmic Explorer, the Next Exploration Step, by Varun Srivastava, Kathryne J. Daniel, and Stefan Ballmer
We present the second installment of GOSSS, a massive spectroscopic survey of Galactic O stars, based on new homogeneous, high signal-to-noise ratio, R ~ 2500 digital observations from both hemispheres selected from the Galactic O-Star…
We present results of a Gemini adaptive optics (AO) imaging program to investigate the host galaxies of typical QSOs at z~2. Our aim is to study the host galaxies of typical, L*_qso QSOs at the epoch of peak QSO and star formation activity.…