* Astronomy

Blobrana · L

RE: James Clerk Maxwell Telescope

Blobrana · L

SCUBA-2 is a powerful camera capable of mapping regions of the sky by detecting the heat emitted by this extremely cold dust. It has recently been delivered to the JCMT and is under commission. When completed it will have the ability to pinpoint and image many hundreds of distant, dust enshrouded galaxies in a single night.

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Blobrana · L

James Clerk Maxwell Telescope Begins Legacy Survey of the Submillimetre Sky

A new survey of the universe is underway at the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT), on the summit of Mauna Kea, Hawaii, which will give astronomers a new perspective on the origins of the planets, stars, galaxies and the Universe itself.
A consortium of astronomers from the UK, Canada and Netherlands have started on the first stages of a large survey of the submillimetre sky using unique instrumentation on the JCMT. The JCMT Legacy Survey is made up of seven projects making use of two new major instruments, SCUBA-2 and HARP. SCUBA-2 is a new powerful camera capable of mapping the sky 1000 times more efficiently than its predecessor. This instrument has recently been delivered to the JCMT and is being commissioned, and, when it is ready, promises to revolutionise the field. In the meantime, three projects have started their surveys using HARP in combination with the imaging spectrometer, ACSIS. These are: the Nearby Galaxies Legacy Survey, the Gould Belt Survey and the Spectral Legacy Survey.

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