Credit: NAOJ.
A stunning image of the nearby Andromeda galaxy (M31) captured by the Subaru Telescope’s Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) has demonstrated the instrument’s capability of fulfilling the goal to use the ground-based telescope to produce a large-scale survey of the universe. The combination of a large mirror, wide field of view and sharp imaging represents a major step into a new era of observational astronomy and will contribute to answering questions about the nature of dark energy and matter. The image marks a successful stage in the HSC’s commissioning process, which involves checking all of its capabilities before it is ready for open use.
Credit: HSC Project / NAOJ.
The Subaru Telescope, which saw first light in 1999, is an 8.2-m optical-infrared telescope at the summit of Mauna Kea, Hawaii, and is operated by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ). The HSC – which was installed on the telescope in August last year – substantially increases the field of view beyond that which is available with the present instrument, the Subaru Prime Focus Camera, Suprime-Cam. The 3-tonnes, 3-m high HSC mounted at the prime focus contains 116 innovative, highly sensitive CCDs. Its field of view with a diameter of 1.5° is seven times that of the Suprime-Cam and with the 8.2-m primary mirror enables the high-resolution images that will underpin what will be the largest-ever galaxy survey.
First conceived of in 2002, the HSC Project was established in 2008. The major research partners are NAOJ, the Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe, the School of Science at the University of Tokyo, KEK, Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics and Princeton University, with collaborators from industry, Hamamatsu Photonics KK, Canon Inc. and Mitsubishi Electric Corporation.
