Date	Speaker	Topic
12.09.2014	Martin Kürster	The project landscape of the technical departments Here's another one of those funny names for a new instrument. But actually, what is it about? Do you also sometimes feel like this? Martin Kürster will give us an overview of the instruments we are building at MPIA. From this, we should be able to get the connection between those acronyms and the instruments. But not only that, after several years of heavy overbooking of the technical departments the mid-term future of the project landscape has recently become a bit unclear due to repeated delays of the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT). Martin Kürster will also tell us about possible future initiatives, project acquisitions still under discussion, that will pose new challenges for the technical departments. Talk: German Slides: English Questions: German, English
19.09.2014	Ralf-Rainer Rohloff	Precision metal optics over a large temperature range Since long, metal optics are an important part of astronomical instruments. Often diamond turned mirrors of aluminum (Al6061) are used. But it is difficult to polish aluminum. Therefore, the mirror is coated with Nickle Phosphor layer, which can be polished more easily. This is very important at shorter wavelength. But the mirrors deform with temperature changes because of the different coeffient of thermal expansion between aluminum and NiP. Ralf-Rainer will tell us about a collaboration between MPIA Heidelberg and IOF Jean, which developed and tested a new material to minimize the temperature related deformation of such mirrors. The material consists of an aluminum silicate, which has a coefficient of thermal expansion close to NiP. Thus, the deformation could be reduced drastically. But now the work just started. Is it possible to built a mirror of this material? Does the material change with time? The best answer would be the study could show that such mirror can be built and are stable over time! Talk: German Slides: English Questions: German, English
26.09.2014	Tom Herbst	LINC-NIRVANA - the path to the telescope LINC-NIRVANA is an ambitious high resolution imager for the LBT, and it is currently the largest single instrument contribution at the MPIA. We are also the Principal Investigator institute, and hence are responsible for the complex integration and testing phase now underway. LN uses Multi-Conjugate Adaptive Optics (MCAO) for high-sky-coverage diffraction-limited imagery and (eventually) interferometric beam combination. The last two years have seen both successes and challenges. On the one hand, final integration is proceeding well in the lab. We also achieved First Light at the LBT with the Pathfinder experiment. On the other hand, funding constraints have forced a significant re-planning of the overall instrument implementation. Tom Herbst presents the progress and plans for bringing the remainder of the instrument online at the telescope in the next year. Talk: German Slides: English Part1 Part2 Part3 Questions: German, English
03.10.2014	--	Tag der deutschen Einheit
10.10.2014	Casey Deen	Alignment challenges and strategies for the GRAVITY wavefront sensor cryostat and tower Aligning a handful of small mirrors,filters, and lenses with a laser shouldn't be so difficult, right? Surely no more than an afternoon! But after another week spent huddled in a dark laboratory, the light still does not end up in the correct position on the detector! In order to avoid this frustrating situation, an alignment strategy is an important part of building any instrument. Casey Deen presents the alignment concept for the GRAVITY wavefront sensor. This near-infrared sensor works on the Shack-Hartman Principle. Due to their wavelength range, near-infrared sensors have a larger selection of bright guide stars than do optical sensors, as most stars are brightest in the infrared. Optical light is also attenuated more by interstellar dust, making optical sensors impractical in dusty regions like the Galactic Center. The wavefront sensors are located in the Coude rooms of the Unit Telescopes of the Very Large Telescope (VLT). The location and the optical design of the wavefront sensors present several challenges for alignment. Casey and his colleagues present their strategy for alignment of the optics, and are looking forward to hearing opinions, advice and concerns from the assembled experts at MPIA. Expect a lively discussion and insight on what is laboratory work about! Talk: English Slides: German Questions: German, English
17.10.2014	Klaus Meisenheimer	PANIC - on the way to the Calar Alto No, that's not a talk about the infamous taxi transportation to the Calar Alto, at which some astronomer turned the red color of his fresh sun burn into white or even green. PANIC is a panoramic imager. Klaus Meisenheimer will tell us more about its capabilities. He will also show that the tests in the laboratory demonstrated good image quality and high throughput. Currently, the instrument is on its way to the Calar Alto. After arrival it will be re-integrated and will see first light in beginning of November. In this presentation, we also hear what happened to PANIC in this most interesting phase of a project and learn what will be observed with this instrument to understand our universe better. Talk: German Slides: English Questions: German, English
24.10.2014	Jacopo Farinato (OA Padova, SHARK-PI)	A SHARK for the Laarge Binocular Telescope (LBT) A SHARK in the desert of Arizona, are you kidding? This presentation will not be about the killer fish. In April this year, SHARK was selected by the LBT board as possible second generation instrument. The instrument team was asked to move on with a Phase A study. The concept of the instrument goals on studying planets in the near-infrared with a coronograph and in the visual with a integral field spectrograph. But it will serve also other science cases. Jacopo Farinato will explain us the details of the instrument, what happened since April and how the consortium and instrument evolved. There have been different opinion between LBT Observatory and the consortium how the implementation should go on. Make up your own opinion if this is the right path. It might be still time to influence it. Talk: English Slides: English Questions: English, (German)
31.10.2014	--	GAIA Challange
07.11.2014	Roman Follert (Thüringer Landessternwarte Tautenburg, Project Manager)	CRIRES - Upgrade CRIRES was a high resolution near infrared spectrograph at the VLT doing important observations already for years. Study of extrasolar planets has been one of the field the instrument was very successful. However, the instantaneous wavelength range of one observation was quite limited due to its special design. Therefore, 2011, the CRIRES upgrade project was born. The goal of the upgrade is to rebuild CRIRES into a full Echelle spectrograph, which can cover a larger wavelength range in one shot. The scientific goals of CRIRES are studying exoplanets around young stars and the formation and evolution of stellar magnetic fields. Roman Follert will tell us about the project status and the new extended capabilities of the "New" CRIRES, which will become a real planet hunter. For sure, some people already awaiting this instrument wishful. Talk: German Slides: English Questions: German, English
14.11.2014	Stefan Meister	Apprenticeship award 2011-2014 mechanical workshop The second star of the apprenticeship - history of his origin Usually, we at MPIA observe stars. However, others like the national football teams get stars for winning the world championship. But also our administration and mechanical workshop has already earned a second star for its apprenticeship. Two times, the MPIA won the apprenticeship award, which is given each year to three Max-Planck Institute doing apprenticeship. Stefan Meister introduces to us his very impressive concept, which he developed for the apprenticeship in the mechanical workshop. He will answer questions like: - What is the content of the apprenticeship concept in the mechanical workshop and how is the history of his origin? - How can you get nominated for the award and what it is the award given for? - And what does apprenticeship mean? He will also report on his goals and what kind of projects are done during the apprenticeship and what happened to the awarded money. But what is next and how to get there? .... a journey to a third star. Talk: German Slides: German Questions: German, (English)
21.11.2014	Jörg-Uwe Pott	Vibration control in observational astronomy Just like in any other high precision instrumentation field (microscopy for example), in astronomy we need to deal with vibrations, when aiming to reach for the diffraction limit of our telescopes. Telescopes are exposed to strong, variable wind load, cooling pumps, electronics fans etc, and at the same time the mirror mounts shall be lightweight, so that vibrations cannot always be avoided by stiff design and passive damping. In fact, vibrations (rather than atmospheric turbulence) are limiting the sensitivity of the highest resolution instruments we have in the optical and near-infrared range: the interferometers. Joerg Uwe will present three projects related to LINC-NIRVANA at the LBT and MICADO a near-infrared high-resolutionimager for the EELT, which give an example of what can and need to be done to reach the diffraction limit, beyond the correction of the turbulent atmosphere. Together with the Institute for System Dynamics (ISYS) at the University of Stuttgart, we developed a new, powerful filter strategy to derive vibration information from accelerometer sensors without wasting star light. First tests demonstrate a 2.5-5x better performance and more robustness to changing conditions than classical control strategies, currently applied at the VLTI and LBTI. Talk: German Slides: English Questions: German, English
28.11.2014	Oliver Krause Special!! Hans-Walter Rix	SPICA-SAFARI Sorry, this is not a multi-vision show about sunsets, landscapes and wild animals. SPICA is the next generation infrared astronomy mission and SAFARI is an instrument on this 3.2m diameter space telescope. Currently, the European and Japanese Space Agencies study the feasibility of this mission, which plans to operate in the 20-210 um wavelength range and on an actively cooled primary mirror at a temperature of 6 Kelvin (-267 Celsius). SPICA will be about two orders of magnitude more sensitive than HERSCHEL. SAFARI is one of the three instruments discussed for the SPICA payload, an imaging Fourier-transform spectrometer employing ultra-sensitive TES bolometers. These bolometers are superconducting at low temperatures and have a large quantum efficiency. The instrument will be built by a European consortium. Oliver Krause will give us an overview of the current status of the project and discuss its science case and the potential contributions from MPIA to the SAFARI instrument. Talk: German Slides: English Questions: German, English Instrumentation at MPIA - How does it go on ? The directors view.
05.12.2014	Aleksei Pavlov, Markus Feldt	The SPHERE Pipeline - the key to the planets Recently, SPHERE the planet finder imager was commissioned at the VLT and is currently running through its verification tests.The key component of the system is the data analysis pipeline built by MPIA. Modern astronomical observations differ fundamentally from the old fashioned "taking images": The preparation starts at home. The observation sequence is compounded from given templates. I.e. the acquisition of an object, the setup of the instrument as well as the sequence of exposures. Than, the observation at the telescope is more or less fully automatic and after a sequence of exposures is finished the data analysis starts also fully automatically. Markus Feldt and Aleksei Pavlov will explain to us the data flow from the idea which the astronomer has in mind, down to the final planet detection. The focus will be on the detection, which is done with help of the delivered pipeline. They will shortly explain all the details of each processing step and intermediate analysis. Don't miss this talk if you want to be sure, that the outcome of your observation is not just an artifact. Talk: German Slides: English Questions: German, English
12.12.2014	Roland Gredel	LUCI - it goes even sharper Why became LUCIFER a girl? When does LUCI see with full sharpness? Actually, both twin near infrared spectrographs are already at the Large Binoculare Telescope for a while. Nevertheless, there is still some work to do and some parts of the instrument are still missing. Roland Gredel will update us about the last situation of the LUCI instruments. He will present exiting observation results of the last years and explain us how and when the instrument will reach its full capability. Running into trouble is not unusual building prototypes - as we do - and lessons learned from such a project are not only informative but also entertaining. Talk: German Slides: English Part1, Part2 Questions: German, English
19.12.2014	--	Christmas party
26.12.2014	--	Christmas