Confirmation of Directly Imaged Planet

In 2008, Canadian astronomers announced that they had taken the first direct image of an exo-solar planet. As I noted in my post from 2008, previously imaged exo-solar planets orbited brown dwarfs, also known as failed stars.

While unlikely, there was still a chance that the image showed a juxtaposition of the host star and a faint background star. In order to rule this out, one needs a second observation to show that the star and the planet have move together. If it was indeed a background star, then they would be moving a different rates, and in different directions, and this would become apparent with the second observations.

The same team has now announced that a followup observation with the Gemini North telescope has confirmed that the object is definitely a planet orbiting the host star. They also obtained images at other wavelengths, which confirm the temperature and mass they derived in 2008.

The planet around 1RXS J160929.1–210524. is 8.4 times Jupiter’s mass, and is about 1800 kelvin (2780° Fahrenheit). The planet orbits its star at 330 times the distance from Earth to the Sun.

For more information see the Gemini press release.

Canada's Artic May Have the Best View of the Universe

Recent studies suggest that Canada may have the best site (short of being in space) for viewing the Universe. Preliminary testing of a site located on Ellesmere Island, located far north of the Arctic Circle, show that the images of the night sky are extremely sharp. This, in addition to a low percentage of cloud cover, make this site very attractive for locating a telescope. Rob Thacker has written a nice article on this research.

International Astronomical Union Thanks Canadian Mint

The Canadian Mint has received a Certificate of Appreciation from the International Astronomical Union (IAU). The certificate is in recognition of the Mint's production of an astronomy coin for the International Year of Astronomy (IYA). The attractive coin features an observatory surrounded by images such as a galaxy, a comet and the planet Saturn. IYA was a tremendous success in Canada with almost two million people experiencing a "Galileo moment". Visit the Canadian IYA site for more information on the events that occurred during 2009 and a summary report (will be available in early June).

Canadian Astronomers Share Prestigous Prize

The team of astronomers led by Dr. Christian Marois of the National Research Council's Herzberg Instituute of Astrophysics has won the 2009 Newcomb Cleveland Prize of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). This award, the AAAS's oldest, recognizes the author or authors of an outstanding paper published in the journal Science.


Dr. Marois' team directly imaged three planets around the star HR 8799 using the Gemini and Keck telescopes. Their series of images show the three planets orbiting the star.

While the Marois result is exciting there will be many more planet images released in the future. At Gemini, the NICI Planet Campaign is using 500 hours on Gemini South to search for planets. In the next few years even more advanced instruments will be used to search for planets around a multitude of nearby stars. The Gemini Planet Imager (GPI) and SPHERE on the VLT should start looking for planets in late 2011.

More information

Canadian Science Communicators Receive Awards

The American Institute of Physics (AIP) announced the three winning entries in the 2009 Science Communication Awards today. I was delighted to see Canadians win two of the three awards - yes that is 2/3 for Canadians! Dan Falk, based in Torontom won the Science Writing Category for his feature article "End of days: a universe in ruins. Cora Lee and Gillian Oreilly, writers based respectively in Vancouver and Toronto, Canada, have won the 2009 AIP Science Communication Award in the Children's Category for their book "The Great Number Rumble: A Story of Math in Surprising Places.

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Canadian astronomers take first picture of a planet around a 'normal star'

Most of the exo-solar planets that have been imaged thus far have been orbiting cool brown dwarfs, also known as failed stars. A team of Canadian astronomers, using the Gemini North telescope, have taken the first picture of a planet orbiting a normal sun-like, star. The team used Gemini's adaptive optics system, Altair, along with a near-infrared imager to capture the data.

The planet is about 8 times as massive as Jupiter and is located at a distance of 330 Astronomical Units from the star. If the star was the same age as our Sun, the planet would be much too faint to image from Earth. However, the parent star, and hence the planet, are very young. The planet is still cooling and its current temperature is about 1500C which makes the planet bright enough to image in the infrared.

One interesting question raised by this discovery is whether similar massive planets exist in our solar system. Perhaps one more Jupiter-mass planets are lurking out with the Kuiper belt objects beyond Pluto!

Help Build an Observatory

Amateur astronomers are a very dedicated group who often share their enthusiam with the night sky with people, especially children, in their communities. The Big Sky Astronomical Society, located in Vulcan, Alberta, is aiming to build an observatory at a good dark sky site. They have a telescope, a pier, a lease on the land, and now all they need is $4000 for the materials to build a roll-off-roof observatory.

Their goal with this observatory is give children and the general public a chance to view the night sky from a dark location so they appreciate the beauty that nature gives us. You can help make this happen by visiting their donation site which is part of the GiveMeaning project. Help kids learn about the wonders of the Universe today.

Observatory B&B

Do you enjoy travelling? Also enjoy viewing dark, night skies? Well the Observatory B&B may be for you. The Observatory B&B is operated by Jack and Alice Newton and is located near Osoyoos, BC. Jack Newton is well-know for his known for his astrophotography and his passion for astronomy. These world-class astronomy-theme accommodations are available from mid-April to early October each year. Their B&B has been written up in a long list of magazines and newspapers.

The Newton's winter in Arizona at the Arizona Sky Village which also offers spectacular night skies to the intrepid traveller.

Most Distant Star Clusters

Harvey Richer (UBC) and his former student, Jason Kalirai, have discovered the most distant star clusters even seen. This serendipitous discovery was made from very deep images taken with the Hubble Space telescope. The data was taken to study the very faint stars in a globular cluster NGC 6397 in the Milky Way.


A close examination showed a very distant elliptical galaxy surrounded by globular clusters. In order to determine the distance to the galaxy a spectrum was obtained with the Gemini South telescope. This spectrum showed that the globular clusters are the most distant ever studied.

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New Gemini Images

The Gemini Observatory has published a new series of spectacular images. These images were taken with a circular fisheye lens that produces unique views of the telescope and the sky above Mauna Kea. The image to the left shows the sodium lasers of Gemini and Keck that are used to generate artificial stars for their adaptive optics systems.

Enjoy the rest of the images

BLAST flies again

BLAST, the Balloon-borne Large-Aperture Sub-millimeter Telescope, launched from the McMurdo Research Station in Antarctica on December 21Launched from the McMurdo Research Station in Antarctica on December 21. BLAST will address some of the most important galactic and cosmological questions regarding the formation and evolution of stars, galaxies and clusters.

The Canadian role in BLAST is to design and build the gondola, pointing system and control electronics. This is an ambitious project, requiring the largest payload which can be launched in Antarctica and as fine-tuned a pointing system as has been flown on a balloon in order to take advantage of our diffraction limited optics. We are working with AMEC, who have designed the telescope and gondola.

AMEC has been involved in Canadian astronomy projects since they helped construct the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope in the 1970s.

BLAST had a flight in 2005 when it was launched from Sweden and landed in the Canadian artic. More information on BLAST can be found on the UBC website.

Shake, Rattle and Roll

The earthquake that rumbled across the Big Island on October 15 has impacted Gemini North, Canada's largest optical telescope. All of the telescopes on Mauna Kea were offline for a short time after the earthquake, but the larger, more sophisticated telescopes including Keck, Gemini and Subaru are still recovering.

Gemini escaped without any serious problems except for its Secondary Control System (SCS). This is a sophisticated piece of electro-optics that controls the motion of Gemini's high technology secondary mirror. The secondary mirror can perform high-speed tip-tilt motion to correct for windshake and a small amount of atmospheric turbulence. The SCS also performs chopping where the mirror moves quickly back and forth between two points close separated on the sky during mid-infrared observations.

Recent tests of the SCS have demonstrated that the problem detected a few days ago is very likely due to a bad position sensor and/or associated cabling. Unfortunately these components are deeply embedded within the tip/tilt system and Gemini must remove the secondary mirror from the telescope and perform the necessary repair work in the summit lab. Given the time needed to remove the secondary from the telescope, receive new parts, install them, then mount the secondary mirror assembly back on the telescope, Gemini North will be shutdown for at least 2 more weeks. When the secondary mirror is repaired and night-time tests are possible, we still must make a variety of telescope performance tests before going back into science operations.