SINFONI Opens with Upbeat Chords: First Observations with New VLTInstrument Hold Great Promise (Forwarded)

ESO Education and Public Relations Dept.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Text with all links and the photos are available on the ESO Website at URL:
http://www.eso.org/outreach/press-re.../pr-21-04.html
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Contacts:

Frank Eisenhauer
Max-Planck-Institut für Extraterrestrische Physik (MPE)
Garching, Germany
Phone: +49-89-30000-3563
Email:

Paul van der Werf
Leiden Observatory
Leiden, The Netherlands
Phone: +31-71-5275883
Email:
Henri Bonnet
European Southern Observatory (ESO)
Email:

Reinhard Genzel
Max-Planck-Institut für Extraterrestrische Physik (MPE)
Garching, Germany
Phone: +49-89-30000-3280
Email:

Norbert Hubin
European Southern Observatory (ESO)
Email:

For immediate release: 24 August 2004

ESO Press Release 21/04

SINFONI Opens with Upbeat Chords

First Observations with New VLT Instrument Hold Great Promise
[1]

Summary

The European Southern Observatory, the Max-Planck-Institute
for Extraterrestrial Physics (Garching, Germany) and the
Nederlandse Onderzoekschool Voor Astronomie (Leiden, The
Netherlands), and with them all European astronomers, are
celebrating the successful accomplishment of "First Light"
for the Adaptive Optics (AO) assisted SINFONI ("Spectrograph
for INtegral Field Observation in the Near-Infrared")
instrument, just installed on ESO's Very Large Telescope at
the Paranal Observatory (Chile).

This is the first facility of its type ever installed on an
8-m class telescope, now providing exceptional observing
capabilities for the imaging and spectroscopic studies of
very complex sky regions, e.g. stellar nurseries and black-
hole environments, also in distant galaxies.

Following smooth assembly at the 8.2-m VLT Yepun telescope of
SINFONI's two parts, the Adaptive Optics Module that feeds
the SPIFFI spectrograph, the "First Light" spectrum of a
bright star was recorded with SINFONI in the early evening
of July 9, 2004.

The following thirteen nights served to evaluate the
performance of the new instrument and to explore its
capabilities by test observations on a selection of exciting
astronomical targets. They included the Galactic Centre
region, already imaged with the NACO AO-instrument on the
same telescope. Unprecedented high-angular resolution spectra
and images were obtained of stars in the immediate vicinity
of the massive central black hole. During the night of July
15 - 16, SINFONI recorded a flare from this black hole in
great detail.

Other interesting objects observed during this period include
galaxies with active nuclei (e.g., the Circinus Galaxy and
NGC 7469), a merging galaxy system (NGC 6240) and a young
starforming galaxy pair at redshift 2 (BX 404/405).

These first results were greeted with enthusiasm by the team
of astronomers and engineers [2] from the consortium of
German and Dutch Institutes and ESO who have worked on the
development of SINFONI for nearly 7 years.

The work on SINFONI at Paranal included successful
commissioning in June 2004 of the Adaptive Optics Module
built by ESO, during which exceptional test images were
obtained of the main-belt asteroid (22) Kalliope and its
moon. Moreover, the ability was demonstrated to correct the
atmospheric turbulence by means of even very faint "guide"
objects (magnitude 17.5), crucial for the observation of
astronomical objects in many parts of the sky.

SPIFFI -- SPectrometer for Infrared Faint Field Imaging --
was developed at the Max Planck Institute for
Extraterrestrische Physik (MPE) in Garching (Germany), in a
collaboration with the Nederlandse Onderzoekschool Voor
Astronomie (NOVA) in Leiden and the Netherlands Foundation
for Research in Astronomy (ASTRON), and ESO.

PR Photo 24a/04: SINFONI Adaptive Optics Module at VLT Yepun
(June 2004)
PR Photo 24b/04: SINFONI at VLT Yepun, now fully assembled
(July 2004)
PR Photo 24c/04: "First Light" image from the SINFONI
Adaptive Optics Module
PR Photo 24d/04: AO-corrected Image of a 17.5-magnitude Star
PR Photo 24e/04: SINFONI undergoing Balancing and Flexure
Tests at VLT Yepun
PR Photo 24f/04: SINFONI "First Light" Spectrum of HD 130163
PR Photo 24g/04: Members of the SINFONI Adaptive Optics
Module Commissioning Team
PR Photo 24h/04: Members of the SPIFFI Commissioning Team
PR Photo 24i/04: The Principle of Integral Field Spectroscopy
(IFS)
PR Photo 24j/04: The Orbital Motion of Linus around (22)
Kalliope
PR Photo 24k/04: SINFONI Observations of the Galactic Centre
Region
PR Photo 24l/04: SINFONI Observations of the Circinus Galaxy
PR Photo 24m/04: SINFONI Observations of the AGN Galaxy
NGC 7469
PR Photo 24n/04: SINFONI Observations of NGC 6240
PR Photo 24o/04: SINFONI Observations of the Young
Starforming Galaxies BX 404/405
PR Video Clip 07/04: The Orbital Motion of Linus around (22)
Kalliope

SINFONI: A powerful and complex instrument

ESO PR Photo 24a/04 ESO PR Photo 24b/04

The SINFONI Adaptive Optics SINFONI at the VLT Yepun
Module Commissioning Setup Cassegrain Focus

Captions: ESO PR Photo 24a/04 shows the SINFONI Adaptive
Optics Module, installed at the 8.2-m VLT YEPUN telescope
during the first tests in June 2004. At this time, SPIFFI
was not yet installed. The blue ring is the Adaptive Optics
Module. The yellow parts, with a weight of 800 kg, simulate
SPIFFI. The IR Test Imager is located inside the yellow ring.
On ESO PR Photo 24b/04, the Near-Infrared Spectrograph SPIFFI
in its cryogenic aluminium cylinder has now been attached.

A new and very powerful astronomical instrument, a world-leader
in its field, has been installed on the Very Large Telescope at
the Paranal Observatory (Chile), cf. PR Photos 24a-b/04. Known
as SINFONI ("Spectrograph for INtegral Field Observation in the
Near-Infrared"), it was mounted in two steps at the Cassegrain
focus of the 8.2-m VLT YEPUN telescope. First Light of the
completed instrument was achieved on July 9, 2004 and various
test observations during the subsequent commissioning phase
were carried out with great success.

SINFONI has two parts, the Near Infrared Integral Field
Spectrograph, also known as SPIFFI (SPectrometer for Infrared
Faint Field Imaging), and the Adaptive Optics Module. SPIFFI
was developed at the Max Planck Institute for
Extraterrestrische Physik (MPE) (Garching, Germany), in a
collaboration with the Nederlandse Onderzoekschool Voor
Astronomie (NOVA) in Leiden, the Netherlands Foundation for
Research in Astronomy (ASTRON) (The Netherlands), and the
European Southern Observatory (ESO) (Garching, Germany).
The Adaptive Optics (AO) Module was developed by ESO.

Once fully commissioned, SINFONI will provide adaptive-optics
assisted Integral Field Spectroscopy in the near-infrared
1.1 - 2.45 µm waveband. This advanced technique provides
simultaneous spectra of numerous adjacent regions in a small
sky field, e.g., of an interstellar nebula, the stars in a
dense stellar cluster or a galaxy. Astronomers refer to these
data as "3D-spectra" or "data cubes" (i.e., one spectrum for
each small area in the two-dimensional sky field), cf.
Appendix A.

The SINFONI Adaptive Optics Module is based on a 60-element
curvature system, similar to the Multi Application Curvature
Adaptive Optics devices (MACAO), developed by the ESO Adaptive
Optics Department and of which three have already been
installed at the VLT (ESO PR 11/03); the last one in August
2004.

Provided a sufficiently bright reference source ("guide star")
is available within 60 arcsec of the observed field, the
SINFONI AO module will ultimately offer diffraction-limited
images (resolution 0.050 arcsec) at a wavelength of 2 µm. At
the centre of the field, partial correction can be performed
with guide stars as faint as magnitude 17.5. In about 6-months'
time, it will benefit from a sodium Laser Guide Star, achieving
a much better sky coverage than what is now possible.

SPIFFI is a fully cryogenic near-infrared integral field
spectrograph allowing observers to obtain simultaneously
spectra of 2048 pixels within a 64 x 32 pixel field-of-view.
In conjunction with the AO Module, it performs spectroscopy
with slit-width sampling at the diffraction limit of an 8-m
class telescope. For observations of very faint, extended
celestial objects, the spatial resolution can be degraded so
that both sensitivity and field-of-view are increased. SPIFFI
works in the near-infrared wavelength range (1.1 - 2.45 µm)
with a moderate spectral resolving power (R = 1500 to 4500).
More information about the way SPIFFI functions will be found
in Appendix A.

"First Light with SINFONI's Adaptive Optics Module

ESO PR Photo 24c/04 ESO PR Photo 24d/04

SINFONI AO "First Light" AO-corrected image of
Image 17.5-magnitude Star

Captions: ESO PR Photo 24c/04 shows the "First Light" image
obtained with the SINFONI AO Module and a high-angular-
resolution near-infrared Test Camera during the night of
May 31 - June 1, 2004. The magnitude of the observed star is
11 and the seeing conditions median. The diffraction limit at
wavelength 2.2 µm of the 8.2-m telescope (FWHM 0.06 arcsec)
was reached and is indicated by the bar.

ESO PR Photo 24d/04: Image of a very faint guide star (visual
magnitude 17.5), obtained with the SINFONI AO Module. To the
right, the seeing-limited K-band image (FWHM 0.38 arcsec). To
the left, the AO-corrected image (FWHM 0.145 arcsec). The
ability to perform AO corrections on very faint guide objects
is essential for SINFONI in order to observe very faint
extragalactic objects.

Because of the complexity of SINFONI, with its two modules, it
was decided to perform the installation on the 8.2-m VLT Yepun
telescope in two steps.

The Adaptive Optics module was completely dismounted at ESO-
Garching (Germany) and the corresponding 6 tons of equipment
was air-freighted from Frankfurt to Santiago de Chile. The
subsequent transport by road arrived at the Paranal Observatory
on April 21, 2004. After 6 weeks of reintegration and testing
in the Integration Hall, the AO Module was mounted on Yepun on
May 30 - 31, together with a high-angular-resolution near-
infrared Test Camera, cf. PR Photo 24a/04.

Technical "First-Light" with this system was achieved around
midnight on May 31st by observing a 11-magnitude star, cf.
PR Photo 24c/04, reaching right away the theoretical
diffraction limit of the 8.2-m telescope (0.06 arcsec) at this
wavelength (2.2 µm). Following this early success, the ESO AO
team continued the full on-sky tuning and testing of the AO
Module until June 8, setting in particular a new world record
by reaching a limiting guide-star magnitude of 17.5,
two-and-a-half magnitudes (a factor of 10) fainter than ever
achieved with any telescope! The ability to perform AO
corrections on very faint guide objects is essential for
SINFONI in order to observe very faint extragalactic objects.

During this commissioning period, test observations were
performed of the binary asteroid (22) Kalliope and its moon
Linus. They were made by the ESO AO team and served to
demonstrate the high performance of this ESO-built Adaptive
Optics (AO) system at near-infrared wavelengths. More
information about these observations, including a movie of
the orbital motion of Linus is available in Appendix B.

"First Light" with SINFONI

ESO PR Photo 24e/04 ESO PR Photo 24f/04

SINFONI Undergoing SINFONI "First Light" Spectrum
Balancing and Flexure Tests
at VLT Yepun

Captions: ESO PR Photo 24e/04 shows SINFONI attached to the
Cassegrain focus of the 8.2-m VLT Yepun telescope during
balancing and flexure tests. ESO PR Photo 24f/04: "First
Light" "data cube" spectrum obtained with SINFONI on the
bright star HD 130163 on July 9, 2004, as seen on the science
data computer screen. This 7th-magnitude A0 V star was
observed in the near-infrared H-band with a moderate seeing
of 0.8 arcsec. The width of the slitlets in this image is
0.25 arcsec. The exposure time was 1 second.

The fully integrated SPIFFI module was air-freighted from
Frankfurt to Santiago de Chile and arrived at Paranal on June
5, 2004. The subsequent cool-down to -195 °C was done and an
extensive test programme was carried through during the next
two weeks. Meanwhile, the AO Module was removed from the
telescope and the "wedding" with SPIFFI was celebrated on June
20 in the Paranal Integration Hall. All went well and the first
AO-corrected test spectra were obtained immediately thereafter.
The extensive tests of SINFONI continued at this site until
July 7, 2004, when the instrument was declared fit for work
at the telescope. The installation at the 8.2-m VLT Yepun
telescope was then accomplished on July 8 - 9, cf. PR Photos
24b/04 and 24e/04.

"First Light" was achieved in the early evening of July 9,
2004, only 30 min after the telescope enclosure was opened. At
19:30 local time, SINFONI recorded the first AO-corrected "data
cube" with spectra of HD 130163, cf. PR Photo 24f/04. This 7th-
magnitude star was observed in the near-infrared H-band with a
moderate seeing of 0.8 arcsec.

Test Observations with SINFONI

ESO PR Photo 24k/04 ESO PR Photo 24o/04

SINFONI Observations of SINFONI Observations of the
the Galactic Centre Distant Galaxy Pair BX 404/405

Captions: ESO PR Photo 24k/04: The coloured image
(background) shows a three-band composite image (H, K, and
L-bands) obtained with the AO imager NACO on the 8.2-m VLT
Yepun telescope. On July 15, 2004, the new SINFONI
instrument, mounted at the Cassegrain focus of the same
telescope, observed the innermost region (the central 1 x 1
arcsec) of the Milky Way Galaxy in the combined H+K band
(1.45 - 2.45 µm) during a total of 110 min "on-source". The
insert (upper left) shows the immediate neighbourhood of the
central black hole as seen with SINFONI. The position of the
black hole is marked with a yellow circle. Later in the night
(03:37 UT on July 16), a flare from the black hole ocurred (a
zoom-in is shown in the insert at the lower left) and the
first-ever infrared spectrum of this phenomenon was observed.
It was also possible to register for the first time in great
detail the near-infrared spectra of young massive stars
orbiting the black hole; some of these are shown in the
inserts at the upper right; stars are identified by their
"S"-designations. The lower right inserts show the spectra of
stars in "IRS 13 E", a very compact cluster of very young and
massive stars, located about 3.5 arcsec to the south-west of
the black hole. The wavefront reference ("guide") star
employed for these AO observations is comparably faint (red
magnitude approx. 15), and it is located about 20 arcsec away
from the field centre. The seeing during these observations
was about 0.6 arcsec. The width of the slitlets was 0.025
arcsec. See Appendix G for more detail.

ESO PR Photo 24o/04 shows the distant galaxy pair BX 404/405,
as recorded in the K-band (wavelength 2 µm, centered on the
redshifted H-alpha line), without AO-correction because of
the lack of a nearby, sufficiently bright "guide" star. The
width of each slitlet was 0.25 arcsec and the seeing about
0.6 arcsec. The integration time on the galaxy was 2 hours
"on-source". The image shown has been reconstructed by
combining all of the spectral elements around the H-alpha
spectral line. The spectrum of BX 405 (upper right) clearly
reveals signs of a velocity shear while that of BX 404 does
not. This may be a sign of rotation, a possible signature of
a young disc in this galaxy. More information can be found in
Appendix C.

Until July 22, test observations on a number of celestial
objects were performed in order to tune the instrument, to
evaluate the performance and to demonstrate its astronomical
capabilities. In particular, spectra were obtained of various
highly interesting celestial objects and sky regions. Details
about these observations (and some images obtained with the AO
Module alone) are available in the Appendices to this Press
Release:

* a video of the motion of the moon Linus around the main-belt
asteroid (22) Kalliope, providing the best view of this binary
system obtained so far (Appendix B),

* images and first-ever detailed spectra of many of the stars
that move near the massive black hole at the Galactic Centre,
with crucial information on the nature of the individual stars
and their motions (Appendix C),

* images and spectra of the heavily dust-obscured, active
centre of the Circinus galaxy, one of the closest active
galaxies, showing ordered rotation in this area and distinct
broad and narrow components of the spectral line of Ca7+-ions
(Appendix D),

* images and spectra of the less obscured central area of NGC
7469, a more distant active galaxy, with spectral lines of
molecular hydrogen and carbon monoxide showing a very different
distribution of these species (Appendix E),

* images and spectra of the Infrared Luminous Galaxy (ULIRG)
NGC 6240, a typical galaxy merger, displaying important
differences between the two nuclei (Appendix F), and

* images and spectra of the young starforming galaxies BX
404/405, casting more light on the formation of disks in
spiral galaxies (Appendix G)

The SINFONI Teams

ESO PR Photo 24g/04 ESO PR Photo 24h/04

Members of the SINFONI Members of the SPIFFI
Adaptive Optics Commissioning Team
Commissioning Team

Captions: ESO PR Photo 24g/04 Members of the SINFONI Adaptice
Optics Commissioning Team in the VLT Control Room in the
night between June 7 - 8, 2004. From left to right and top
to bottom: Thomas Szeifert, Sebastien Tordo, Stefan
Stroebele, Jerome Paufique, Chris Lidman, Robert Donaldson,
Enrico Fedrigo, Markus Kissler Patig, Norbert Hubin, Henri
Bonnet.

ESO PR Photo 24h/04: Members of the SPIFFI Commissioning Team
on August 17. From left to right, Roberto Abuter, Frank
Eisenhauer, Andrea Gilbert and Matthew Horrobin.

The first SINFONI results have been greeted with enthusiasm, in
particular by the team of astronomers and engineers from the
consortium of German and Dutch institutes and ESO who worked
on the development of SINFONI for nearly 7 years.

Some of the members of the Commissioning Teams are depicted in
PR Photos 24g/04 and 24h/04; in addition to the SPIFFI team
members present on the second photo, Walter Bornemann, Reinhard
Genzel, Hans Gemperlein, Stefan Huber have also been working on
the reintegration/commissioning in Paranal.

Notes

[1] This press release is issued in coordination between ESO,
the Max-Planck-Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE) in
Garching, Germany, and the Nederlandse Onderzoekschool Voor
Astronomie in Leiden, The Netherlands. A German version is
available at
http://www.mpg.de/bilderBerichteDoku...824/index.html

and a Dutch version at
http://www.astronomy.nl/inhoud/pers/.../30_08_04.html

[2] The SINFONI team consists of Roberto Abuter, Andrew Baker,
Walter Bornemann, Ric Davies, Frank Eisenhauer (SPIFFI
Principal Investigator), Hans Gemperlein, Reinhard Genzel (MPE
Director), Andrea Gilbert, Armin Goldbrunner, Matthew Horrobin,
Stefan Huber, Christof Iserlohe, Matthew Lehnert, Werner Lieb,
Dieter Lutz, Nicole Nesvadba, Claudia Röhrle, Jürgen Schreiber,
Linda Tacconi, Matthias Tecza, Niranjan Thatte, Harald Weisz
(Max-Planck-Institut für Extraterrestrische Physik, Garching,
Germany), Anthony Brown, Paul van der Werf (NOVA, Leiden, The
Netherlands), Johan Pragt, Jan Kragt, Gabby Kroes, Ton
Schoenmaker, Rik ter Horst (ASTRON, Dwingeloo, The
Netherlands), Henri Bonnet (SINFONI Project Manager), Roberto
Castillo, Ralf Conzelmann, Romuald Damster, Bernard Delabre,
Christophe Dupuy, Robert Donaldson, Christophe Dumas, Enrico
Fedrigo, Gordon Gillet, Norbert Hubin (Head of Adaptive Optics
Dept.), Andreas Kaufer, Franz Koch, Johann Kolb, Andrea
Modigliani, Guy Monnet (Head of Technical Systems Division),
Chris Lidman, Jochen Liske, Jean Louis Lizon, Markus Kissler-
Patig (SINFONI Instrument Scientist), Jerome Paufique, Juha
Reunanen, Silvio Rossi, Riccardo Schmutzer, Armin Silber,
Stefan Ströbele (SINFONI System Engineer), Thomas Szeifert,
Sebastien Tordo (European Southern Observatory).

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
ESO Press Information is available on Receive email notification
the WWW at about important news from ESO -
http://www.eso.org/outreach/press-rel/. subscribe to the
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
(c) ESO Education & Public Relations Department
Karl-Schwarzschild-Strasse 2, D-85748 Garching, Germany
----------------------------------------------------------------------------