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Figure 57. Left: Use of instrument data in WHT refereed papers in 2006 and 2007. Archival papers made use of data from the ING archive. Right: Use of instrument data in INT refereed papers in 2006 and 2007. Archival papers include data from the ING, INT WFS or IPHAS number of papers from visitor instruments on the WHT also remained significant, with 24% of the papers. On the INT the papers are split between the WFC and the IDS spectrograph, in roughly the same ratio as the split in observing time between these instruments. Data from the ING archive, particularly from the WFS and IPHAS archives, have contributed significantly to the scientific productivity of the INT. The distribution of the nationalities of the first author’s institution changes little from year to year. The UK share is steady at around 40%, and the Spanish share about 20%. The NL share also showed little systematic change. Interestingly, about one third of the papers have a first author from other countries, emphasising the international character of the observatory and the high level of international collaboration between research groups. THE ING ARCHIVE All data taken with the ING telescopes are archived in the UK, at the Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge. The data archive is managed by the Cambridge Astronomy Survey Unit. The total amount of (compressed) data stored has passed the 26 Tb mark. Archival data from the ING telescopes are made available to anyone upon request, after a one-year proprietary period. The number of archive retrieval requests increased significantly in 2006 and 2007, with over 700 requests for retrieval of more than 40000 data sets. The historic trend of the archive requests can be seen in the accompanying figure. This level of archive use underlines the importance of the ING archive as a general tool for astronomy research. Figure 58. Evolution of the nationality of first author’s main institution in refereed papers that used data from the ING telescopes. Figure 59. Number of ING archive requests per year. 58 • ING BIENNIAL R EPORT 2006–2007
Chapter 4 IN-HOUSE RESEARCH During 2006 and 2007, the research productivity of the ING Astronomy Group, as measured by publication rate, was maintained at its previous high level, was approximately 100 papers in refereed journals. A complete list of these papers is included in Appendix F. Appendix G shows the research seminars given at ING by visiting astronomers or staff members. As in previous years, an important aspect of the research effort is that ING staff continue to be closely involved with on-going research programs which rely on observations carried out on our telescopes. One example is the ING's very active role in the INT/WFC H alpha survey of the north Galactic plane (the IPHAS survey), which involves five ING staff astronomers (Corradi, Greimel, Lennon, Leisy and Skillen) and several ING students. An outstanding example of the synergy of telescopes of the Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos is the search for extrasolar planets driven by the SuperWASP facility, in which Skillen is deeply involved. This project started in 2004 and it is discovering a number of new extrasolar planets, many of which have been confirmed by follow-up imaging and spectroscopy with the ING telescopes. Moreover, Benn is P.I. of the project "The nature of quasar outflows" which was awarded the International Time Programme for 2007. Further enhancement of the international visibility of the ING was provided by two major international conferences organised in 2006 and 2007. More of these and other activities are described below. INDIVIDUAL RESEARCH ACTIVITIES In a search for rare white dwarf populations using SDSS Stripe 82 repeat imaging, Bramich and collaborators have discovered 8 new candidate ultracool white dwarfs, which probe the earliest star formation in the Galactic disk. From the same data, they have also discovered 10 new candidate halo white dwarfs, useful as probes of the earliest star formation in the proto-Galaxy and for testing of the age of the oldest stars. Bramich’s interest in extra-solar planet research has led to the discovery of a pre-main sequence eclipsing binary in the Orion nebula cluster with two sub-solar-mass components. These are rare systems that can be used to help constrain theories of star formation and stellar evolution. Bramich is currently developing a new method for difference image analysis, which promises to be more powerful and robust than the standard method, and with many fewer input parameters. Benn used WHT/ISIS to investigate the physics of the absorbers in broad-absorption-line (BAL) quasars. By deriving true column densities (eliminating the effect of covering factor) for different ions, it was possible to estimate the ionisation parameter at different absorbers. This constrains the distance of the absorbers from the nucleus, which is currently uncertain by several orders of magnitude, limiting our understanding of the impact of the outflow on the quasar and its environment. Benn was awarded most of the La Palma international time (2007-8) on the WHT, TNG, INT, NOT and Mercator telescopes, to carry out a more ambitious campaign aimed at understanding the physics of BAL quasars. This work is in collaboration with Arav (Virginia), Barker (Sheffield), Carballo, González and Jiménez (Santander), Ellison (Victoria, Canada), Holt (Leiden), Mack and Montenegro (Bologna) and others. The team has also obtained Keck and VLT time for this project. Corradi studied several aspects of Galactic and extragalactic planetary nebulae (PNe). In the Galaxy, significant progress has been achieved in the search for new PNe in the Galactic Plane. Preliminary results in the area from 18 to 20 hours in right ascension show that the IPHAS survey will likely triple the number of known PNe. This will allow us to build a magnitude-limited sample of objects, and to discuss fundamental properties such as the stellar death rate in the Galaxy. In addition, the increased sample will allow us to study in more detail, critical phases such as the fast transition between red giants and PNe, which is short and therefore quite rarely observed. Together with his former PhD student Santander, now a ING BIENNIAL R EPORT 2006–2007 • 59
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I SAAC N EWTON G ROUP OF T ELESCOPE
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ISAAC NEWTON GROUP OF TELESCOPES Bi
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OF TELESCOPES The Isaac Newton Grou
Page 7 and 8: TABLE OF CONTENTS Foreword . . . .
Page 9 and 10: INTRODUCTION Welcome to the bi-annu
Page 11: Figure 2. Sequence of images of UGC
Page 15 and 16: observed the YORP effect in action
Page 17 and 18: Figure 7. Time-resolved spectroscop
Page 19 and 20: THE MEDIUM-RESOLUTION INT LIBRARY O
Page 21 and 22: Figure 11. Histograms showing the c
Page 23 and 24: BROWN DWARFS AND ISOLATED PLANETARY
Page 25 and 26: planets was named 'the 6th most imp
Page 27 and 28: Figure 22. Sample images from the M
Page 29 and 30: in its distance, And X appears to b
Page 31 and 32: small ellipticals in their central
Page 33 and 34: Figure 28. Left: I-band image with
Page 35 and 36: The number counts of kinematically
Page 37 and 38: Figure 32. Left: coverage of the la
Page 39 and 40: Figure 34. This INT Wide Field Came
Page 41 and 42: was defined as 28 HST WFPC2 pointin
Page 43 and 44: The European Galactic Plane Surveys
Page 45 and 46: of the giant (which will evolve tow
Page 47 and 48: has a large survey area and it was
Page 49 and 50: Chapter 2 OPERATION, MAINTENANCE AN
Page 51 and 52: Example results from the 2007 commi
Page 53 and 54: Figure 47. Two general-purpose L3CC
Page 55 and 56: Chapter 3 USE OF OBSERVING TIME AND
Page 57: Figure 55. Number of refereed paper
Page 61 and 62: using the stabilised spectrograph S
Page 63 and 64: Chapter 5 PUBLIC RELATIONS In 2006
Page 65 and 66: Appendix A THE ISAAC NEWTON GROUP O
Page 67 and 68: TELESCOPE TIME AND DATA OWNERSHIP T
Page 69 and 70: Appendix C STAFF ORGANISATION DIREC
Page 71 and 72: - Serra (Kapteyn), Stellar populati
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Page 79 and 80: Appendix E ING BIBLIOGRAPHY Below a
Page 81 and 82: 37. B. T. Gänsicke, T. R. Marsh, J
Page 83 and 84: 87. O. K. Sil'chenko, A. V. Moiseev
Page 85 and 86: 30. B. Gänsicke, T. R. Marsh, J. S
Page 87 and 88: 2. G. Anglada, R. López, R. Estale
Page 89 and 90: 52. E. Noordermeer, J. M. van der H
Page 91 and 92: 13. A. Collier Cameron, D. M. Wilso
Page 93 and 94: 64. D. J. B. Smith, M. J. Jarvis, 2
Page 95 and 96: 21. Dufton, P. L., Ryans, R. S. I.,
Page 97 and 98: Wheatley, P. J., Wilson, D. M., 200
Page 99 and 100: Appendix G SEMINARS Date Title Spea
Page 101 and 102: Appendix I COMMITTEE MEMBERSHIP ING
Page 103 and 104: Appendix J ADDRESSES AND CONTACTS I
Page 105: LIRIS LJMU MARTINI MES Mem Soc Astr
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