Max Planck Institute for Astronomy - Annual Report 2005

110 V. People and Events
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a seeing of 0.8 arcseconds, shown in Fig. V.1.2. The
interstellar dust aligned along the disk, a typical feature
of spiral galaxies, is clearly visible. Together with the
gas, it constitutes the material from which new stars and
planets will form.
Despite the short exposure time and without using
adaptive optics, the image shows a wealth of details in
the central region of the galaxy and also in other areas
of the camera’s field of view, which at a width of 30
arcminutes is very large (see sectional enlargements of
Fig. V.1.2).
The LBC camera is the first of a series of high-tech
instruments the LBT will be equipped with.
The German Contribution to the LBT
Under the coordinating leadership of the MPIA, five
German institutes are participating in the LBT and belong
to the »LBT-Beteiligungsgesellschaft« (LBTB).
Besides the MPIA, these are the Max Planck Institutes
for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE) in Garching and for
Radioastronomy in Bonn (MPIfR) as well as the Astrophysical
Institute in Potsdam and the Landessternwarte
Heidelberg (LSW, part of the Center for Astronomy,
Heidelberg). The German partners will obtain 25 percent
of the observing time in return for their investment as
well as the development and construction of instruments.
The remaining time is shared by Italy (also 25 percent)
and a number of institutions in the USA.
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Fig. V.1.2: The first image taken by the LBT on October 12 th ,
2005, shows the spiral galaxy NGC 891, which is 24 million
light years away. These enlarged views display the central region
(left) as well as an object lying far beyond NGC 891 in the complete
image directly at the central lower border (lower right) and
a cluster of galaxies a bit further to the right (upper right).
Fig. V.1.3: In the LBT control room, Italian astronomers are
watching closely the first images taken by the LBT.