It may be brief, it may be pointless but one way or the other I wanted to use the NAM YouTube channel. So here it is, a video of two esteemed Cardiff Professors ‘observing’ a poster about 3D HARP Data

You’ll find the poster they are looking at here. Thanks to Dr. Jason Kirk for this footage.

Professor Richard Ellis gave a plenary talk on galaxy evolution on Tuesday morning. We caught up with him to find out more.

MP3: Prof Richard Ellis Interview

Presented by David Nutter, the poster for the ‘JCMT Gould Belt Legacy Survey’ is listed as part of the ‘Star Formation: The First Three Million Years’ session.

Abstract: With the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) Gould Belt Legacy Survey, we will map almost all of the well-known star-formation regions within 0.5 kpc, with the Submillimetre Common User Bolometer Array 2 (SCUBA2). Most of these regions are associated with a ring of star formation, known as the Gould Belt. We will produce a flux-limited snapshot of nearby star formation over almost 700 square degrees of sky. The resulting images will yield the first catalogue of prestellar and protostellar sources selected by submillimetre continuum emission. We will also obtain maps of a large sample of prestellar and protostellar sources in three CO isotopologues using the Heterodyne Array Receiver Program (HARP). Finally, we will map the brightest hundred sources with the SCUBA2 polarimeter (POL-2), producing the first statistically significant set of polarization maps in the submillimetre.

If you would like to see your NAM poster on the NAM Blog then email either a picture file or a link to namblog@orbitingfrog.com.

I’m currently sitting in the Young Astronomers’ Session at NAM, coming to terms once again with the fact that I’m not really a young astronomer any more. Although PhD students present their work throughout the week, this is an extra opportunity to hear about the best work from a wide range of people.  As an example, the current speaker is Iraklis Konstantopoulous from UCL; it was inevitable I’d write about this topic because M82 is one of my favourite objects in the entire sky.  

 
M82 from HST (colour) and WIYN H-alpha showing galactic wind (pink)

As you can see, it’s an edge on spiral with lots of star formation, which is driving in turn the dramatic wind you can see. Iraklis & co have been studying star clusters in the galaxy; while they’re interesting in themselves they also contain information about the galaxy itself. For example, a large region of the galaxy appears to have fewer clusters than it should do.To understand this, you have to think about how M82 would look from elsewhere in the Universe. In fact, we have to consider what M82 would look like when viewed edge on. We need a galaxy with two prominent spiral arms, and a dominant bar. Rather like this one

NGC 1365 as seen by the Very Large Telescope

Now imagine viewing this galaxy from the bottom of the picture. On the right, you’ll see material ‘behind’ the spiral arm blocked by dust contained within the arm; hence the lack of clusters here. On the left, we see directly to the spiral arm, and this is where many clusters are found lurking. The best bit is that we can check this hypothesis by looking at the relative velocity of the clusters; and Iraklis does indeed find that clusters on the left are moving at a different speed to those on the right.The conclusion? Maybe M82 isn’t so weird after all…

From authors Robert J. Simpson and Derek Ward-Thompson, the poster ‘3D HARP Data’ is listed as part of the ‘Star Formation: The First 3 Million Years’ session.

Abstract: HARP-B data from the JCMT in Hawaii consists of large data cubes covering a wide range of velocity data. This data has been processed here to produce 3-dimensional images (RA, declination, velocity) that can be rotated and manipulated by the user to gain insight into the mechanisms behind the motions of the material being observed. Different 3D velocity shapes are shown here and discussed. 3D glasses can be found attached to the poster.

If you would like to see your NAM poster on the NAM Blog then email either a picture file or a link to namblog@orbitingfrog.com.