18 Oct 2023
The next lecture of the virtual Babelsberg Starry Nights of the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) on the topic "4MOST - a new instrument for spectroscopic sky surveys" for the VISTA telescope in Chile will be broadcasted starting on Thursday, 19th October 2023, on the YouTube channel "Urknall, Weltall und das Leben".
On Thursday at 8 pm, a new video from the Babelsberg Starry Nights series will be online. Joar Brynnel, head of the project management team at AIP, gives a presentation on the new instrument 4MOST, which is being built under the leadership of the AIP. Following the talk, the head of 3D multi-object spectroscopy at the AIP, Dr Andreas Kelz, gives viewers a glimpse directly into the integration halls of the institute and explains some of the components of the instrument.
An English lecture on this spectroscopic instrument including a tour of the integration hall by the 4MOST project leader Dr Roelof de Jong has also just been released as a video and is available on the YouTube channel "videowissen": https://youtu.be/7i97ZZNsdEM.
With 4MOST, it is possible to analyse the light of about 2400 celestial objects simultaneously and cover large areas of the sky in a relatively short time. The scientific fields of application range, among others, from the Milky Way and its history of formation to extragalactic structures, dark matter and dark energy. The final tests are currently underway at the AIP, so that the finished instrument is expected to be transported to Chile to the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA) of the European Southern Observatory (ESO) early next year.
Usually on the 3rd Thursday of each month, starting at 8 p.m., the lectures of the Babelsberg Starry Nights are available at
https://www.aip.de/babelsberger-sternennaechte
or via the YouTube channels "Urknall, Weltall und das Leben" (Big Bang, Universe and Life) and "videowissen" and can be viewed afterwards at any time.
[Image]
The 4MOST instrument in the integration hall at AIP in July 2023.